Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE – is not the one you think

With a price tag of about half of what the more expensive tablets in the same series cost, you should not have too high expectations. We will be without the important OLED screen that does so much for the image quality especially on tablets, but we at least get the accompanying pen, AI with Google's Circle to Search, new Android 15 with One UI 7 and thus a lot of useful apps and features from the start.

Samsung Notes is a given app among the most useful. Here I can use the pen and write the right careless handwriting as the plate nevertheless manages to interpret directly into editable text. Then maybe you should not overestimate that feature, because it is precisely editable text you want, it is often easier to use the screen keyboard and get everything right without sign interpretation from handwriting.

From entertainment to some productivity

The tablet as such is versatile as a machine. I use it so clearly for everything from web surfing to e-mail, chat, netflix, creation and more heavy productivity.

For productivity, Samsung's ace in the rock sleeve has long been the Dex mode. It is the function that gives you a more computer -like look on the interface and can work freely with multiple windows that you can change more or less freely. At least as long as the Android app in question can. However, with the Tab S10 FE, it is clear that the performance is not enough. Already with a couple of windows open, it is slow to work and the waiting times become tangible as soon as I change a window or switch between apps.

Otherwise, in the usual situation in Android, performance is reasonable. Web surfing, easier games, chat and Netflix obviously cause no problems. The screen is, as I said, no OLED screen, but a simpler LCD screen with 90 Hertz update, marginally elevated from normal 60 frames per second. It makes the plate never feel fast, but as long as I don't press it does not press slow either. The sound is managed by a speaker on each short side and the fact is that even when I pull up the volume a bit, the sound is surprisingly good. The plate's chassis works a bit like a resonant box and gives it depth.

With his experience, Samsung has a wide range of functions that we recognize before. One such is the one with the somewhat unclear name today's painting. That feature is stuck on the problem that the tablet when it is at home often discharges and is dead the time you want to use it. With today's painting, the screen is used as a painting frame, the family's notes or as a control unit for the smart home. This can be activated automatically when you connect the charger and if you do it at home in a specific location you get both a digital gathering place and a constantly charged tablet.

AI with low ambition

In addition to these functions we have seen for many years, Samsung also has a clear AI focus, as with everything they do now. In the Tab S10 FE, things seem too far. Partly because in some cases it is about more words than action and because the level of ambition once it is an actual AI function is so low that it hardly adds anything.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE does not have Galaxy AI as in the more expensive products but instead what Samsung calls “intelligent functions”, even those in a broad sense AI-based. There are some features we recognize from Galaxy AI but in significantly worse versions. Object radiation in pictures is available, for example, but when I test it fills in what I have removed with blurred nonsense. In the S25 series of phones, we have noticed how Galaxy AI can automatically remove even shadows of objects we have chosen, but the object line in this plate is significantly worse than the Galaxy AI was when it came over a year ago. Otherwise, the AI ​​features in the Tab S10 FE are clearly savory and it is perhaps as good. Google's Circle to Search can be useful, for example to quickly call in a math figure and get the solution, but that feature is also found in the competitors' Android plates and they often provide more function at significantly lower price. Given the price I see nothing to speak for the Galaxy S10 FE.

Questions and answers

What does the Dex mode do?

It presents icon with apps at the bottom, but on the other hand it does Samsung even in normal tablet mode. More important is that in Dex you can run several apps in windows you can put side by side or on top of each other and size. However, if you do it with too many apps at once, the lack of performance stops.

How is the performance?

The Tab S10 FE delivers a basic function but no more. The screen's 90 Hertz and limited performance make the plate never feel fast.

Does the pen get on the purchase?

Yes. The pen has air functions, so you can hold it just over the screen and get preview of images for example or see where the tip will land so you get better precision in detailed drawings. It thus accompanies the purchase, however, no charger.

An alternative

Xiaomi Pad 7 is comparable and has what Samsung offers but at a significantly lower price. If you prefer OLED screen, which adds a lot to the experience, the more than a year old Galaxy Tab S9 for about SEK 6000 is an alternative.