Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE Plus Review

Introduction

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S10 collection is impressive, but they’re also incredibly expensive – what if you want that Samsung slab DNA in a more affordable package? That’s where the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE Plus comes in.

The tablet, despite costing £350/$350 less than the equivalent Galaxy Tab S10 Plus, looks a lot like Samsung’s premium tablet. It also offers a huge 13.1-inch screen that’s great for doodling and binge-watching shows, while it has a big enough battery to keep on going.

However, the Android tablet competition is fierce, so has Samsung done enough to tempt consumers here? I’ve spent the past few weeks with the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE Plus, and here’s what I’ve learnt. 

Design

• Similar look to most other Galaxy Tabs
• Rare IP68 dust and water resistance
• S Pen is great for writing and drawing

If you were expecting a vastly different look and feel from previous generations of Samsung’s Fan Edition tablet, you’ll be disappointed. 

It looks pretty much like the last few generations of the Tab FE Plus model, as well as the flagship Tab S10 Plus, which is to say that it’s your standard combination of aluminium and glass. 

Still, it allows the S10 FE Plus to be mistaken for the full-fat model at a glance – the only obvious giveaway that it isn’t is the single camera on the rear. 

There are other differences, of course; it’s thicker at 6mm, and the vibrant Samsung Store-exclusive blue colour option is exclusive to the budget-friendly model. But, overall, you’re still getting a sleek tablet that’s cool to the touch with that aluminium body.

Importantly, it offers IP68 dust and water resistance – a perk of Samsung’s recent tablet offerings, and one of few tablet manufacturers to do so. The likes of OnePlus, Huawei, Honor and even Apple are yet to add any tangible dust and water resistance to their big-screen slabs. 

It essentially means that you’re free to take the tablet to the beach or pool without risk of it getting wet or dusty – though I’d probably still leave it at home. As a Brit in the ever-gloomy UK, the advice is to disconnect and enjoy the good weather when it appears! 

One of the big selling points of the Tab S10 FE Plus, as with the rest of Samsung’s Tab collection, is the inclusion of the S Pen. Most others require a separate purchase, and in the case of Apple’s iPad Air, that’s an additional £129/$129. 

It remains identical to the previous S Pen stylus, but that’s only a good thing; it’s ergonomically shaped to closely resemble the dimensions of a regular pen, and with impressively low latency, the writing and doodling experience feels natural. 

I do find the storage of the pen to be slightly problematic though. It’s stored in the same place on the rear as other Tabs, but unlike those, the S10 FE Plus doesn’t have an indentation – or any kind of marking at all – to show where it ‘sits’. 

If you’re unfamiliar with Samsung’s recent tablet collection, this might be confusing – especially as most other tablet manufacturers use an edge-dock system.  

Screen

• New 13.1-inch LCD display
• Pixel-packed resolution and vibrant colours
• 90Hz refresh rate

With much of the Galaxy Tab S10 FE Plus experience similar to that of its predecessor, a change in the display department is a welcome one. That said, the new model sports a larger 13.1-inch screen than its 12.4-inch predecessor, likely in a bid to better compete with Apple’s 13-inch iPad Air. 

In terms of sheer size, the Tab S10 FE Plus is a great tablet for multitasking. With the ability to run two apps side by side with a third in a floating window, it makes it easy to quickly switch between apps, dragging and dropping content and more. I imagine that’d be further improved with the Keyboard Cover accessory and DeX, but that’s not something I was able to test. 

It’s also a fantastic canvas for note-taking and doodling with the bundled S Pen, with a similar low latency to the full-fat Tab S10 Plus. It, unlike the S Pen of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, retains the ability to double up as a camera shutter, and it offers full Air Gesture support – though I can’t say I used either all that often during my time with the tablet. 

That said, it is an LCD display, and it comes with all the usual caveats; okayish contrast and grey-ish blacks instead of the inky blacks of OLED panels. We’re yet to see any OLED tablet drop to the £649/$649 price point of the Tab S10 FE Plus, so it’s not a surprise, but it’s worth tempering those expectations nonetheless.

That said, Samsung has done an admirable job of tuning the LCD panel to achieve the best possible colours, and the viewing angles remain pretty decent too. Coupled with the pixel-packed 2880×1800 resolution that delivers pixel-perfect detail and the 800nit peak brightness of the panel, it’s still a great screen for binge-watching Netflix.

My only real criticism of the screen is that it’s limited 90Hz instead of the 120Hz we’ve seen from tablets at half the price of the Tab S10 FE Plus. It makes sense from a Samsung perspective as it keeps it from being too similar to the more premium Tab S10 Plus, but it’s not great for consumers.

Granted, some people might not be able to tell the difference between 60- and 90Hz, let alone the jump from 90- to 120Hz, but there is a slight difference in overall smoothness. 

Performance

• Mid-range Exynos 1580 chipset
• Performance behind the similarly priced competition
• Fine for everyday tasks, but not gaming

If there’s one area of the Tab S10 FE Plus experience that doesn’t marry up to its £649/$649 price tag, it has to be performance. Rather than opting for a flagship chipset like the OnePlus Pad 2’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, the tablet instead includes the same Exynos 1580 chipset as the £499 Samsung Galaxy A56 5G. 

While it’s certainly a step up from the previous FE Plus tablet and its Exynos 1380 chipset, it can’t quite compete with the similarly priced competition. 

The iPad Air, equipped with the latest Apple M3 chipset, absolutely leaves the Tab S10 FE Plus in the dust. Even the entry-level iPad 11 scores better, and on the Android front, it’s not too dissimilar to what you’d get from the first-gen OnePlus Pad from 2023.

I didn’t really notice much of a difference in power in actual use – the tablet felt responsive, apps opened quickly and scrolling was smooth thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate – but it can’t quite keep up with more power-hungry tasks, be it content creation or high-end gaming with 3D textures.

The latter in particular was notable in games like Genshin Impact, where I couldn’t run the title with high-res textures and still hit a solid 60fps frame rate. That likely also has to do with the number of pixels that the mid-range chipset has to power. 

That said, I was provided with the lower spec 128GB/8GB variant for review, and it’s likely that the top-end 256GB/12GB would perform slightly better in real-world use and benchmark tests. 

It’s not the most powerful tablet then, but it could still be fine for your needs – it just depends on what you intend to do. 

If you need something for casual browsing and watching Netflix, it’ll suit your needs fantastically. However, if you want the most power possible for the price for video editing, gaming and the like, your needs will be best served elsewhere. 

Elsewhere, the tablet offers fairly up-to-date connectivity, including support for dual-band Wi-Fi 6e, Bluetooth 5.3, and there’s a cellular model if you want to use the tablet on the go. 

I’m also pleased that the tablet retains its microSD card slot, a rarity in the tablet market, which lets you boost the storage if you’re approaching the limit. 

Software

• OneUI 7 based on Android 15
• No true Galaxy AI features
• Seven years of unspecified updates

The Tab S10 FE Plus comes with the same OneUI 7 based on Android 15 as other recent releases in Samsung’s collection. However, unlike with the flagship S25 collection, the headline feature – Galaxy AI – isn’t present here. 

Given that the tablet runs on the same Exynos chipset as the Galaxy A56 5G, which also doesn’t support Galaxy AI, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise – though it is a bit disappointing to see considering the price of the tablet.

Don’t get me wrong; AI features are available here, they just fall under the “intelligent features” umbrella. 

There are features like AI Select, a more basic Circle to Search focused on on-device functions like adding calendar events and grabbing text from an image – though the full-fat Circle to Search is also available.

There’s also the fairly standard object eraser tech, and the Notes app has the ability to solve maths calculations, but these aren’t exactly game-changing features.  

Lack of true AI smarts aside, the software experience on offer is pretty polished. OneUI 7 has a redesigned interface with new icons, animations and more to help the whole thing feel new and fresh.

It also includes the new Now Bar that puts contextual information on your lock screen – like now playing controls and map directions – but it’s not quite as helpful as it is on a smartphone in actual use. 

There’s also a plethora of Samsung-branded apps, some of which are designed to take the place of Google alternatives that you’re most likely accustomed to. It’s easy enough to de-Samsung the experience, switching from Samsung Pass back to Google Password Manager and the like, but it’s worth noting. 

The commitment to seven years of updates is also admirable from Samsung. However, it’s coy about whether those are big OS upgrades or simply security patches. Time will tell. 

Cameras

• New 13MP rear camera
• Ditches the 8MP ultrawide
• Solid 12MP selfie camera

As with practically every tablet on the market, photography isn’t a focus for the Tab S10 FE Plus, evidenced primarily by the fact that the tablet actually ditches the secondary 8MP ultrawide present on the Tab S9 FE Plus. 

There is a slightly higher 13MP primary snapper as a result, but again, this isn’t anywhere near what you’ll have on the phone in your pocket – even if it’s more than a few years old. 

That said, it’s more than good enough for an impromptu shot of your cat while you’re binging Netflix, and if you’ve got phyiscal documents you need to share online, it’ll serve that need well too – just don’t expect fantastically detailed shots, especially in anything apart from ideal lighting conditions. 

The 12MP selfie camera, though unchanged from its predecessor, remains useful for video calls and the like. It doesn’t have an ultrawide sensor like the full-fat Tab S10 Plus, but that’s likely not a dealbreaker for most people. 

Battery life

• Large 1090mAh battery
• Can last a day or week, depending on usage
• 45W fast charging support

Despite a larger chassis to accommodate that bigger screen, Samsung decided against increasing the size of the battery within. That said, at 10,090mAh, it’s still a decent increase on the OnePlus Pad 2 and its 9,510mAh cell, as well as the 9,705mAh of the similarly-sized 13-inch iPad Air. 

Combined with the fairly power-efficient 4nm Exynos chipset, it didn’t leave me wanting for more. I’m not what I’d describe as a tablet power user, using it for around an hour or two per day to scroll through apps and catch up on news. In this scenario, I found that it’d last around a week before needing a top-up.

Of course, more intense use will see those numbers drop, but even with consistent use, I’m confident that the Tab S10 FE Plus can see you through the day without scrambling for a charger – ideal for work and school.  

The return of 45W fast charging is nice to see here, offering a boost in charge speeds compared to Apple’s 30W, especially with a large battery on offer – though it’s worth noting that you’ll need to source a compatible 45W charger yourself. I used the Anker Prime 250W, and had absolutely no issue hitting those top speeds.

Should you buy it?