Samsung's new Galaxy Tab S12 series features a thin design, a few new features, and a price hike

Published Sep 30, 2026, 10:07 AM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Summary Samsung's refreshed Tab S12 Ultra and S12 Plus feature a similar design, the Dimensity 9500 chip, and still include the S Pen in the box. Both tablets are largely unchanged from their predecessors (the Tab S12 Plus features more upgrades), but carry price hikes: Tab S12 Ultra $1,400, Tab S12 Plus $1,200. Both tablets ship October 7th in Silver/Gray; Samsung has also launched SmartTag 3 ($30 single, $100 four-pack). After a few weeks of rumors, Samsung has official refreshed its long-running Android tablet lineup with two new models: the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and the Galaxy Tab S12 Plus. Like Samsung's Galaxy S26 series and the Galaxy Z Flip 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra (the wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 received the most changes this year), the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and Tab S12 Plus are very similar to their predecessors, and at the same time, are also more expensive. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra features a faster chip Beyond that, this is nearly the same as the Tab S11 Ultra Right away, the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra is difficult to tell apart from the Tab S11 Ultra. The key upgrade this year is the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra's faster MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chip, which Samsung says offers 61% faster NPU processing, 19% faster CPU performance, and 17% improved GPU power compared to the MediaTek 9400+ in the Tab S11 Ultra. The overall design of the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra is similar to the Tab S11 Ultra, including its rectangular shape and rounded corners. This year, the tablet weighs 1.5lb (692g) and is 5.1mm thick. It also still includes an S Pen for drawing and note-taking. Beyond that, the Tab S12 Ultra features the same 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a 2,960 x 1848 pixel resolution screen and a 120Hz refresh rate. It also features the same 11,600mAh battery and read cameras, including a 13-megapixel wide, 8-megapixel ultra-wide, and 12-megapixel selfie shooter. Storage options remain the same, too: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. The 1TB version of the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra features 16GB of RAM, while the 256GB and 512GB configurations offer 12GB. Regarding price, the Tab S12 Ultra has been hit with a $100 price increase, moving its cost up to $1,400. While this is disappointing, with the ongoing memory crisis in mind, a $100 increase actually isn't that bad compared to some devices out there. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra releases on October 7th in Silver and Gray. The Galaxy Tab S12 Plus gets most of the upgrades The mid-level tablet is back Credit: Samsung Last year, Samsung didn't launch a Galaxy Tab S11 Plus and stuck with the base Galaxy Tab S11 and Tab S11 Ultra. This year, the tech giant is shaking things up with the Galaxy S12 Plus (the last time Samsung released a Plus Tab model was the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus in 2024). With this in mind, it's not surprising that the Galaxy Tab S12 Plus has been hit with the majority of the upgrades. First off, the Tab S12 Plus features the same MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chip as the S12 Plus, alongside a 12.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen with a 2800x1752 pixel resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The battery comes in at 10,600mAh, which Samsung says will last for 12 hours. This is a notable upgrade over the 16 hours the 10,090mAh Galaxy Tab S10 was rated to last. On the camera front, the Galaxy Tab S12 Plus features a 13-megapixel camera, while the S10 Plus featured a 13-megpixel wide and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera. The overall look of the Tab S12 Plus seems nearly identical to the Tab S10 Plus and in fact, it looks very similar to the Tab S12 Ultra, including its rectangular design and rounded corners. The Tab S12 Plus comes in at 5.3mm thick, and comes with an S Pen in the box. There's also, unfortunately, a pretty notable price increase. The Galaxy Tab S12 Plus starts at $1,200 for the 256GB version, which is a $200 price increase over the Galaxy Tab S10's $1,000 starting price. The Galaxy Tab S12 launches on October 7th in Silver and Gray. Along with the Galaxy Tab S12 series, Samsung has also revealed its Galaxy SmartTag 3 Bluetooth tragging device ($30 for one and $100 for a four-pack). The SmartTag 3 features a lighter and smaller design, and also works across both Android and iOS.