Samsung's Tab S12 lineup starts $400 higher by skipping the 11-inch model

An office that bought 11-inch Galaxy Tab S11s last year at $799.99 each ^[2][20] and goes to reorder when the new range goes on sale on October 7 ^[17] will find no Tab S12 at that size ^[4]. The cheapest tablet in the line is now the 12.6-inch Tab S12 Plus at $1,199.99 ^[1]. The difference is $400 a unit ^[1], a 50% increase ^[2].

The two launch reports disagree about what the Plus replaces. Gizmodo calls the pair "straightforward successors to the Tab S11 and Tab S11 Ultra, respectively" ^[6]. The Verge says Samsung has refreshed its Ultra every year since the Tab S10 line while alternating the regular and Plus models ^[5]. By that account the Plus follows the two-year-old Tab S10 Plus, and its price rose $200 ^[7]. The Verge's figure puts the Tab S10 Plus at about $999 ^[4].

The Ultra has no such ambiguity. It went from $1,199.99 to $1,399.99 ^[3], a rise of about 17% ^[3]. The Verge counts the chipset and four-channel spatial audio as its only real changes ^[9], and wrote: "That would be easier to swallow if it didn't also come at a $200 premium, now $1,399." ^[10]

The spec sheet pitches the chip. According to Gizmodo, the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 in both tablets has a 61% faster neural processing unit than the Tab S11 Ultra, with gains of 19% on the CPU and 17% on the GPU ^[11]. Gizmodo's reviewer wrote, "You'll get the most out of these tablets if you're using apps that rely on AI, like the generative functionalities in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom." ^[12] After brief hands-on time, the same reviewer wrote: "I found both tablets snappy and very thin. Not that last year's two Tab S11 devices weren't snappy." ^[13]

For the entry buyer, the $400 also buys a larger tablet. Moving from a Tab S11 to the Plus means a 12.6-inch screen in place of an 11-inch one ^[20], and a 10,600mAh battery in place of an 8,400mAh cell ^[21]. For Tab S10 Plus owners, The Verge wrote, "It's all enough to make the $200 cost increase, to a new starting price of $1,199, feel worthwhile." ^[7]

Samsung values its bundled app trials at $445 ^[15]. The shortest is one month of LumaFusion and the longest is 12 months of GoodNotes. Photoshop runs four months ^[15]. Its tablet version is a Galaxy Store exclusive on Android for six ^[16].

The grid I would use has two axes: what the tablet replaces, and whether its user runs generative tools in Photoshop or Lightroom ^[12]. Retiring a Tab S10 Plus or older makes the Plus an easy call, and The Verge found enough in it to justify $200 ^[7]. Retiring an 11-inch Tab S11 means paying $400 more for a bigger device with a bigger battery ^[1][21], or waiting for a smaller model The Verge suggests is not due until 2027 ^[4]. A Tab S11 Ultra user without generative work gets a chip and new audio for $200 ^[9][3], and in my view should keep the old one. A Tab S11 Ultra user who does run those tools is the buyer the 61% NPU figure was published for ^[11]. The tradeoff for that buyer is $1,399.99 ^[3] for a gain Gizmodo's reviewer described, after a short hands-on, as snappy, the same word used for last year's tablets ^[13].