Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra vs. Tab S9 Ultra: MediaTek tramples Qualcomm — efficiency questions loom

Samsung caused quite the stir when it launched the new Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra and Tab S10 Plus, completely deleting the smaller Tab from the series while simultaneously switching from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy to a variant of the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 SoC. While the Tab S10 series looked to be continuing the impressive build quality and design precedent set by the Galaxy Tab S9 family, fans were justifiably concerned by the implications of the new MediaTek SoCs. At least some of those concerns were just dispelled. 

In a video testing putting the two flagship tablets head-to-head, SamMobile revealed that in both synthetic benchmarks and real-world performance, the MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ outperforms the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy handily. 

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 vs. Tab S10 Geekbench CPU test results: 

• Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Geekbench single-core: 2188 pts.
• Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Geekbench multicore: 7272 pts.
• Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra Geekbench single-core: 2066 pts.
• Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra Geekbench multicore: 5414 pts.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 vs. Tab S10 Geekbench GPU test results:

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Geekbench Vulkan: 14681 (35.3% faster)
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Geekbench OpenCL: 12681 (24.7% faster)
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra Geekbench Vulkan: 9504
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra Geekbench OpenCL: 9553

From those results, it's clear that the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is on the order of 25% faster than the last-gen tablet in CPU tests and 24–35% faster in GPU tests, but that's just one benchmark and hardly representative of real-world performance.

To back up these performance claims, SamMobile also ran the Galaxy Tabs through some video editing, testing the same video clips and export settings in LumaFusion. Again, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra outperforms the Tab S9 Ultra by a large margin, finishing when the Tab S9 Ultra still had around 17% of the video clip left to render. 

Addressing efficiency, SamMobile monitored battery life during the testing, observing the same 5% drop in charge in both tablets, but that doesn't paint the full efficiency picture. There was no measurement of thermals or performance degradation during the tests, and this is generally where a lot of mobile SoCs fall apart — even the Qualcomm variety.

Addressing efficiency, SamMobile monitored battery life during the testing, observing the same 5% drop in charge in both tablets, but that doesn't paint the full efficiency picture. There was no measurement of thermals or performance degradation during the tests, and this is typically where a lot of mobile SoCs fall apart — even the Qualcomm variety. 

Regardless, it's clear that the comparisons between Qualcomm and its MediaTek competitors aren't nearly as one-sided as they once were — a change that can only be good for the mobile computing market as a whole.

You can buy the more affordable, but equally large Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus on Amazon for $999.99 or spring for a renewed version of the last-generation Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra for $724.99.