For Samsung, more is generally better. The business led the way in popularizing the giant cellphones most of us now use, so it’s no surprise that it’s also created some astonishingly large tablets recently. In this year's Galaxy Tab S9 series, there are 11- and 12.4-inch devices that line up well with Apple's two iPad Pros. And then there's the $1,200 Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, a 14.6-inch behemoth that's nonetheless thin and light for its size.
Android tablets have long been a tough sell, partly to the fact that very few developers care to adapt their apps for larger screens. And tablets this enormous are not exactly simple to carry, either. Those facts have remained top of mind as I sought to figure out who, if anyone, should buy the S9 Ultra. Despite my reservations, Samsung's monster of a tablet did manage to surprise me with its utility in a few select circumstances.
Most people will be better off with one of the two smaller S9 tablets, but if you want a huge canvas, the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is a powerful and well-designed tablet.
Hardware
When I pulled the S9 Ultra out of its package, I was immediately struck by its slim footprint - it’s only 0.21 inches thick and weighs 1.6 pounds. In true Samsung flair, the tablet feels flawlessly robust and well-made. Sure, it's simply a giant slab of glass and metal, but what can Samsung reasonably be expected to do to innovate here? The tablet form factor is basically fixed at this time. What's most noteworthy is that Samsung produced the gadget so thin without it seeming flimsy.
That's backed up by the S9 Ultra's IP68 water- and dust-resistance certification; Samsung says this is its first Galaxy S tablet with that rating. It was a really big issue when businesses started creating water-resistant phones, but it feels a lot less necessary here. That stated, if you want to view movies in your bathtub, you may be sure that you won't suddenly ruin your tablet if it takes a dive in the water with you.
The S9 Ultra is dominated by its enormous 14.6-inch AMOLED touchscreen. With a 2,960 x 1,848 resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio, it’s wonderful for watching movies but far too tall to comfortably use in portrait mode. That complaint aside, it looks great, with incredibly brilliant, rich colors and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. It also supports HDR10+, which can make watching movies even more beautiful. Samsung is well recognized for its mobile displays, and the one on the S9 Ultra is another outstanding offering.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra
Photos of Samsung's Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra Tablet
Samsung managed to integrate superb speakers into the S9 Ultra as well, giving it a wonderful overall option for watching movies and shows while you're, for example, sitting in isolation with Covid. I don’t know how businesses are able to manufacture such solid speakers in super-thin gadgets, but I’m delighted it’s becoming prevalent on higher-end tablets like this and the iPad Pro.
There are a few other little things to mention regarding the S9 Ultra. You’ll find a pair of front-facing cameras on the long edge of the display: one normal and one ultrawide, both having 12-megapixel sensors. There’s a tiny notch in the screen to make place for them — it’s small, and I generally forgot about it, but it’s there. On the back are a 13-megapixel normal camera and an 8-megapixel ultrawide option. The front cameras worked nicely for a handful of Google Meet chats I had on the gadget, and the back ones are serviceable as well. But tablet photography is ludicrous, even more so with a device this huge. As I usually say, just use the phone in your pocket.
Also on the rear is a magnetic strip that retains and charges the accompanying S Pen stylus. It’s not the most logical spot to keep the S Pen, and it’s not the easiest target to find when you’re retrieving the pen or putting it back. But I got used to it very soon and the stylus reliably stayed attached to the rear of the S9 Ultra.
Tablet mode
Since the S9 Ultra doesn’t come with a keyboard case, I first set out to utilize the enormous gadget as a pure tablet. This… was not my favorite experience. But first, some positives: the S9 Ultra’s screen is amazing, as are the speakers, which made a great portable movie theater. And the S9 Ultra’s aspect ratio meant most video I viewed filled practically the whole display.
The S9 Ultra is well-equipped for more strenuous tasks than viewing movies. its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 CPU (combined with 12GB of RAM on the model I tested) is powerful enough for virtually anything I tried. Running Adobe Lightroom was a fairly amazing experience, as there’s enough of room for the various tools on one side and a massive, detailed overview of everything you’re doing on the other. Samsung doesn’t publish any battery life predictions, but I received well over 11 hours of use in tablet mode, and the gadget lasted days on standby. Unless you’re using it for hours every single day, you won’t have to charge it too often.
Another use case for the S9 Ultra is as an artist's canvas. The S Pen is a superb stylus, and Samsung has years of expertise tweaking its performance. The S Pen is remarkably responsive — the manufacturer states latency has been decreased to 2.8 milliseconds, and I certainly encountered no lag when using it. I’m a visual artist, so I haven’t been able to truly push the limits of what the S Pen and various Android software can do, but the combo of a low-lag pen and the S9 Ultra’s huge screen make it a strong tool for visual artists, provided you can find the correct software.
Unfortunately, the sheer height and width of the S9 Ultra meant it wasn’t the best for other content consumption. First off, the tablet plainly wasn’t designed to be used in portrait mode - it’s just too tall. This is a problem I’ve noticed with other Android tablets that employ comparable aspect ratios, but most of those had smaller screens that are a little more bearable. That’s not the case here, and it just feels downright strange to use - things at the top are too far away to comfortably engage with.
Things are marginally better in landscape mode, but the primary issue with the S9 Ultra is the fact that there still aren’t a lot of Android apps suited to such large screens. Some programs (like Instagram) would only open in portrait mode, while others like Slack simply have too much wasted white space. Google has done a terrific job of making its own apps look quite excellent on tablets, and a number of other major apps I use like Spotify and Todoist are also well adapted. But the S9 Ultra just isn’t meant for things most people use tablets for like browsing, texting, sending emails, playing games and so forth. If that’s what you’re interested in, the 11-inch Galaxy Tab S9 will be a more comfortable device to use that also costs less. The S9 Ultra is unashamedly a niche item and you’ll want to know exactly how to use it before buying one. You may also read this: Galaxy Z Fold 6 Samsung Review
Dex mode
My experience with the S9 Ultra changed once I paired it with Samsung’s $200 “Book Cover Keyboard Slim” and a Bluetooth mouse and started operating the tablet in Dex mode. This drastically transforms the interface from the touch-focused Android UI to something more like Windows or Chrome OS.
Dex mode reminded me a lot of using a Chromebook. There’s a navigation bar at the bottom that shows any open app, and you can pin things there to come back to them quickly. As this is an Android tablet, all the apps you have access to here come from the Google Play Store or Samsung’s own app store. Historically, the primary difficulty with Android tablets is how few Android apps are created to take advantage of bigger screens, and that’s still the case now.
But, since Dex lets you resize any app, you can make things fit appropriately in windows without wasting space. For example, the Slack app still doesn’t have a left-hand sidebar for Android, unlike on desktop or iPadOS. That’s annoying, but at least I can make Slack narrower, like a phone-sized software that doesn’t have a ton of wasted white space. And apps that do offer multi-column interfaces, like practically all of Google’s first-party software, are downright pleasurable to use.
My primary problem with the S9 Ultra in Dex mode is the fact that Chrome for Android isn't quite as capable as the desktop version. That enables you utilize extensions, offers more features and more reliably renders sites the way you’d expect. Most things render properly, but you may also wind yourself getting flung into a version of the site built for mobile phones, not big tablets. But one unexpected bright spot was discovering that I could run the full online version of Slack in Chrome, an experience that's a lot better than using the Android app.
Battery life is a bit worse in Dex mode, which wasn’t a major surprise given how many apps I was quickly hopping between. The tablet lasted for roughly six hours when I was using it as my full-time work gadget — not horrible, but worse than a lot of similarly-priced laptops.
Wrap-up
Despite the number of compelling use cases I identified for the S9 Ultra, it’s a niche product that won’t make sense for most people, mostly because of the price. That’s not a terrible thing; niche products exist for a purpose, and some individuals will be well-served by this huge tablet. But $1,200 for the S9 Ultra (plus $200 for the keyboard case, or $350 if you want an integrated trackpad) is a ton of money to spend unless you have very clear ideas about how you’ll use this tablet. It doesn’t make sense for me, as I prefer a smaller tablet that I can easily use handed and then place into a keyboard case for getting work done. Still, for some, the pairing of Dex mode, a keyboard and the S9 Ultra’s enormous, stunning screen can make sense.
