iPad Pro M4 vs Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra (2026 Comparison)

Premium tablets are a strange product category. They're expensive (both of these cost more than a decent laptop), they overlap with both phones and laptops, and most people who buy them never use a tenth of what they can do. But for the people who do use them — illustrators, video editors, students, frequent fliers, anyone who reads on the couch for hours — the right tablet is one of the most enjoyable pieces of hardware you can own.

The two flagship contenders in 2026 are the iPad Pro M4 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra. Our side-by-side comparison page has the spec table. Below is the long version.

Display: a real difference, finally

For the first time in years, Apple's tablet display is dramatically better than Samsung's. The iPad Pro M4 ships with a tandem-OLED display: two OLED panels stacked on top of each other to deliver 1,000 nits sustained brightness, 1,600 nits peak HDR, and the deepest blacks ever shipped on a tablet. It also runs at 120Hz with ProMotion and has the best colour calibration on any consumer display we've tested.

The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra has a 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X at 120Hz. It's an excellent display in absolute terms — brighter than the iPad Pro's previous-generation Liquid Retina XDR — but it's a single-stack OLED, so it can't match the iPad Pro on sustained brightness or HDR headroom. It's also bigger, which matters if you watch a lot of media.

If you're a creative professional who cares about colour accuracy and HDR, the iPad Pro wins. If you mostly watch movies and read comics, the Galaxy Tab Ultra's bigger screen is the more enjoyable everyday display.

Performance: M4 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

This isn't close. The Apple M4 in the iPad Pro is a desktop-class chip — the same one in MacBook Pros — and it dominates every benchmark and every real-world creative workflow. Final Cut for iPad on an M4 iPad Pro can render 4K timelines at speeds that embarrass most laptops. Procreate has effectively unlimited layers. Long compute jobs don't slow the rest of the system down.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the Galaxy Tab is a phone chip. It's fast — fast enough that you'll never see the limit in normal use — but in heavy creative work, the gap is real. Stable Diffusion generations, video transcoding, large Photoshop files: the iPad Pro is faster.

For most people, both tablets feel instant. For creative professionals, the iPad Pro is in another league.

Software: this is where you decide

The hardware comparison points to the iPad. The software comparison is much messier.

iPadOS 18 is more polished than ever, and the gap with macOS keeps closing — Stage Manager, external display support, real Final Cut/Logic, Files improvements, the works. But the fundamental constraint is unchanged: the iPad is still a tablet trying to be a laptop, and a lot of professional software simply doesn't run on it. No DaVinci Resolve. No real Blender. No Visual Studio Code (just web version). For some workflows, this is a wall. For others (drawing, note-taking, photo editing, light video) it's fine.

One UI on Tab is the opposite tradeoff. The software is less polished — the multitasking is fiddly, and the keyboard cover experience is slightly worse than Apple's Magic Keyboard. But because the underlying OS is Android, you can run desktop versions of more apps (DeX desktop mode opens this up significantly), sideload anything, and use the tablet as an actual file browser without fighting it. The S Pen integration is also genuinely better than Apple Pencil for handwriting and notes — it's included in the box, doesn't need charging, and has lower latency for writing.

For drawing and notes, we'd rate them roughly tied, with the slight edge depending on your software preference (Procreate is iPadOS-only; Clip Studio runs on both).

The accessory trap

Both tablets are sold at prices that look reasonable until you add accessories. Plan to spend at least:

iPad Pro M4 (13-inch): $1,299 + $349 Magic Keyboard + $129 Apple Pencil Pro = $1,777
Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra: $1,199 + $349 Book Cover Keyboard = $1,548 (S Pen is included)

Neither is cheap. The Galaxy Tab Ultra is the better value if you're buying the whole kit.

Battery life

Both deliver 8-10 hours of real-world creative use. The Galaxy Tab Ultra has the larger battery (11,200 mAh vs ~10,000) and tends to last slightly longer in mixed use. Neither is class-leading.

So which tablet?

Buy the iPad Pro M4 if:

You're a creative professional and you'll use Final Cut, Logic, Procreate, or Affinity.
You already own a Mac and an iPhone — the ecosystem benefits matter.
Display quality is your top priority.
You'd rather have the absolute fastest hardware.

Buy the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra if:

You want a bigger screen for movies and reading.
You take handwritten notes daily and want a stylus that doesn't need charging.
You're already in the Samsung/Android ecosystem.
You want a tablet that doubles as a near-real-laptop via DeX.
You're price-sensitive and want the included S Pen.

A third option you should consider

Honestly? Most people who buy a $1,200 tablet end up using it for media consumption and notes 90% of the time. If that's you, the iPad Air M2 or Galaxy Tab S10+ will give you 90% of the experience for half the price. The Pro-tier tablets are for the people whose work specifically benefits from them. If that's not obviously you, save the money. Our tablets category has the full lineup sorted by price.