Samsung has taken the wraps off the Galaxy Tab S12 series, a two-model tablet lineup made up of the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and the Galaxy Tab S12+. Both ship with an S Pen in the box, and both run Android 17 with One UI 9 and the latest Galaxy AI. The company is pitching the pair at people juggling study, work and side projects, with the Ultra positioned as its thinnest and most powerful Galaxy Tab so far.
The Ultra carries a 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, while the Tab S12+ steps up to a 12.6-inch panel with slimmer bezels than the model it replaces. Both screens refresh adaptively at up to 120Hz and reach a peak brightness of 1,600 nits, with an updated Vision Booster adjusting brightness as lighting changes. Audio gets a lift too: Samsung says the tablets deliver 4-channel spatial audio, twice the channel count of the previous generation.
Battery life is rated at up to 23 hours on the Ultra and up to 21 hours on the Tab S12+, and Samsung says a 45W adapter takes either one from empty to full in roughly 95 minutes. Inside sits a 3nm processor that Samsung claims is up to 61% faster on NPU tasks, 19% faster on CPU work and 17% better on graphics than the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra. A redesigned 3D Vapor Chamber handles heat during long editing or design sessions, and the tablets carry an IP68 water and dust resistance rating.
Samsung is leaning on the software as much as the hardware. Multi Window can split the screen into as many as three sections, so a user could keep Samsung Notes open beside a lecture video and an AI assistant, with Note Assist summarizing notes as they are written. The bundled S Pen is described as pencil-shaped for note taking and sketching, and Samsung also offers a Pro Keyboard with an aluminum finish and a dedicated Galaxy AI Key, plus a Book Cover Keyboard Slim.
Samsung's Jay Kim, Executive Vice President and Head of Customer Experience Office in the Mobile eXperience Business, framed the launch around users chasing new skills and ideas, saying the series pairs an expansive screen with Galaxy AI to remove friction from complex tasks.
The launch lands where earlier signs pointed. Model numbers for the Tab S12+ and Tab S12 Ultra appeared in GSMA IMEI database listings in February, with no standard Tab S12 variant recorded at the time, which suggested Samsung might skip a base model this year. Those listings also pointed to a second-half 2026 debut, and the Plus and Ultra combination matches the tiering the company has alternated in recent generations.
