Staying on the cutting edge of technology is expensive. Back when Silicon Valley was making enormous evolutionary leaps with each generation of laptop, smartphone, and tablet, it was easier to justify upgrading to the latest and greatest simply because it was the newest.
All these things have gotten relatively mature over the past decade, and so when a killer deal like this comes along to smack you in the face, you should ask yourself if it’s really worth shelling out for the newest.
The Galaxy Tab S9+ tablet is selling for $470, which is $200 off its normal street price in recent months. When the Galaxy Tab S10+ is selling for $850, do you need that last bit of performance, or will you be just fine with the S9+?
still fast enough for most people
The Galaxy Tab S9+’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip is plenty fast in 2025, even two years after it launched. The AMOLED screen measures 11″ diagonally, and even though its 128GB of internal storage isn’t anything to write home about, you can buy more if you’re willing to shell out.
Honestly, the $670 asking price for the 256GB version is nothing special. It usually sells for about that price, and 256GB may be double the storage of the real deal, but it’s not much of a deal. Skip it, I say.
Invest in cloud storage with the 128GB version if you must, although I’m not all that scared of small storage drives in tablets. For laptops, sort of, but you can always easily hook up a cheap external SSD to expand your storage.
For smartphones, definitely. I run out of storage on that frequently, due to all the photos I take and space-hogging apps. But on tablets, I tend to take far fewer photos and install fewer apps, so I rarely bump up against the 128GB capacity of my old iPad Air.
The Galaxy Tab S9+ rounds out the features list with an IP68 rating that means it’s sealed against dust and can survive being submerged in water up to 1.5 meters deep for up to 30 minutes without going all R2-D2 zapped by Jawas.
Samsung brags about the Galaxy Tab S9+’s frame being “tough aluminum,” but really, you’re going to want to put a case on any tablet, unless (maybe) it lives exclusively in your home.