Why the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra means you’ll never want a small tablet again

Samsung is the undisputed king of high-end Android tablets, but that doesn’t mean the firm has gotten complacent. It has brought two new models to this year’s IFA show, and made them more productivity-focused than ever. The Galaxy Tab S11 and Tab S11 Ultra also debut a tweaked S Pen stylus to keep creators happy, and arrive running the latest version of Android.

Unlike last year, where the 14.6in Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra was paired with the 12.4in Galaxy Tab S10+, 2025 sees screen size shrink a bit. The vanilla Tab S11 arrives with an 11in display, which makes it more of a rival for Apple’s 11in iPad Pro – while undercutting it on price. It looks properly diddy next to the massive Tab S11 Ultra, and its thicker bezels mean it doesn’t seem quite as high-end.

Styling-wise things look essentially unchanged between generations. Each tablet can be hand in grey or silver colours, and each has the same metal flat frame as before. The Ultra weighs in at 692g, while the S11 tips the scales at 469g. Both have a magnetic strip for docking the bundled S-Pen. Samsung has given it a grippier hexagonal shape now, and made the tip more cone-shaped so it feels more like an actual pencil when sketching or note-taking. It felt very natural to use for a quick sketch and a few short lines of note-taking during my demo at Samsung’s IFA booth.

Samsung has stuck with the same screen tech (OLED), resolution (2960×1848) and refresh rate (120Hz) for the Ultra, while the Tab S11 packs in slightly fewer pixels. Both are gorgeous, with the Ultra in particular looking impressively bright and with seriously dynamic colours. The speakers are seemingly unchanged too, but I’m not complaining given the last Ultra had a fantastic singing voice.

The Ultra gets a dual rear camera setup, with a 13MP lead lens and an 8MP ultrawide. The regular Tab S11 sticks with a single 13MP snapper. Both tablets have a 12MP front-facing selfie cam – but only the Ultra’s lives in a notch that intrudes into the screen. The Tab S11’s front camera hides within the screen bezel. I didn’t find it distracting, though, seeing how the rest of the screen is so big it’s a very minor intrusion.

Performance comes courtesy of a MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ chipset, a step up from the 9300+ used on last year’s Tab S10 Ultra. It’s made on a thinner 3nm architecture, so should be more power efficient as well as delivering some extra grunt. All models come with 12GB of RAM, apart from the version of the Ultra with 1TB of storage – that gets 16GB. That basically means this tablet will run any app you’d care to throw at it – or three, as you can split screen for a 50:25:25 layout when multitasking.

The Ultra finds room for an 11,600mAh battery, while the Tab S11 has an 8400mAh cell. Both should be good for all-day use, though exactly how long will have to wait for a full review.

Both tablets ship with OneUI 8 out of the box, running on top of Android 16 – making them the most up-to-date slates running Google’s mobile OS. They each have Samsung’s upgraded DeX second screen abilities, which include being able to use the tablet as a second screen while outputting to an external one, and support for four virtual workspaces.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is on sale now in the UK and Europe, with prices starting at £1199/€1339 for the 256GB Wi-Fi-only model. Expect to pay more if you want extra storage or 5G connectivity. The regular Galaxy Tab S11 will set you back £799/€899 for the 128GB Wi-Fi model.

At the time of writing there was no word on US pricing, but both models are expected to launch there soon.