Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Leak Closes the Cheap Flagship Door

Retail data sheets in Germany list the Galaxy Tab S12+ from €1,299 and leave no cheaper S12 in the stack. The Plus is the new floor, and it ships with two speakers instead of four.

Those sheets also point to October 7, which Samsung has not confirmed. Last year’s 11.0-inch Tab S11 opened at €899 in Europe. That rung is gone.

The €899 Door Shuts on Galaxy Tab S

This is a shuffle, not Samsung’s first trim. The Tab S10 generation already skipped a base model and sold a Plus beside an Ultra. In 2025 the company reversed that cut, dropped the Plus name, and put a smaller slate back on sale.

On September 4, 2025, Samsung’s US newsroom said the Tab S11 starts at $799.99, with the Tab S11 Ultra from $1,199.99. Europe listed the same pair from €899 and €1,339. Both used four speakers, IP68 aluminum, an S Pen in the box, and MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400+.

The new sheets, dated in the September 18 wave, bring the Plus name back and delete the 11.0-inch S12. Anyone who wanted a flagship Galaxy Tab under €1,000 now has last year’s leftover, a Fan Edition, or a Tab A. Samsung keeps the average selling price up. The person who bought an 11.0-inch S11 does not get a same-size heir.

THE TAB S SKU SHUFFLE

1. 2024: Tab S10 line ships as Plus and Ultra, with no base S10.
2. September 4, 2025: Tab S11 and Tab S11 Ultra land; the Plus name is parked and the 11.0-inch model opens at €899.
3. September 18, 2026: German retail sheets list Tab S12+ and Tab S12 Ultra only, with the Plus from €1,299.
4. October 7, 2026: Date printed on those sheets; Samsung has not put it on a stage.

The Europe math is blunt. The S-series floor jumps €400, from €899 to €1,299. The Ultra steps €200, from €1,339 to €1,539, or about $1,767 at the conversion printed with the leak. A 5G option is listed at €200 more on both sizes.

What the Plus Trades for 510 Extra mAh

The Plus is the tablet that has to do two jobs. It replaces the missing 11.0-inch model, and it has to feel like a Plus. The sheet gives it a 12.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel at 2,800 x 1,752 and 120Hz, which is a larger canvas than the 11.0-inch 2,560 x 1,600 S11. Earlier CAD chatter had that panel at 12.4 inches. The retail sheet says 12.6, so that is the figure that matters now.

Battery and weight are the clean wins. The cell is listed at 10,600mAh, 510mAh above the 10,090mAh pack in the Tab S10+, the last Plus Samsung actually shipped. Charge speed stays at 45W. Mass falls 16g, from 571g on that S10+ to 555g. For a 12.6-inch slab, that is the one spec that will show up in a bag.

The losses sit in the same columns. The S10+ used four speakers, and both Tab S11 models did too. The S12+ sheet lists two. RAM is 12GB only, with 256GB or 512GB of UFS 4.0 and a microSD slot up to 2TB. There is no 16GB option and no 1TB option. The rear camera is a single 13MP sensor with a 12MP front camera, and the sheet says 4K capture at 60 fps. An S Pen is listed in the box. IP68 and an aluminum body carry over.

WHAT THE PLUS BUYER LOSES

• The €899 rung: There is no 11.0-inch S12 to replace last year’s Tab S11.
• Two speakers: The sheet cuts the four-speaker layout that the S10+ and both S11 models used.
• The top memory SKU: 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage stay Ultra-only.
• The extra rear camera: The 8MP ultrawide is not on the Plus.

That is a strange mix for a tablet that now opens the whole S line. You pay Plus money, you get a bigger battery and a lighter body, and you give up the speaker count that even the cheap S11 had.

Four Speakers Stay on the Ultra Alone

The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra is the model that barely moves. The sheet keeps the 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel at 2,960 x 1,848 and 120Hz, the same 11,600mAh battery as the Tab S11 Ultra, and 45W charging. Weight is 693g. Thickness is still 5.1mm, matching last year’s Ultra. Silver and gray are the two finishes for both sizes.

Where the Ultra pulls away is the perk list the Plus no longer shares. Four speakers stay on this chassis. The rear camera adds that 8MP ultrawide beside the 13MP main, with the same 12MP front camera. Memory is 12GB or 16GB, and storage is 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB, still UFS 4.0, still expandable to 2TB on microSD. IP68 is on both, so dust and water resistance is not the Ultra’s private club.

The S Pen cell on the Ultra row was left blank in the same sheet that lists a pen in the Plus box. Do not treat that blank as a confirmed cut. Last year’s Ultra shipped a pen, and nothing in the new hardware list requires Samsung to pull it. Until the company talks, the Plus pen is the only in-box stylus the sheet actually writes down.

Owners sitting on a Tab S10 Ultra or Tab S11 Ultra will recognize the shell. The screen size, the battery number, the thickness, and the speaker count are holdovers. The argument for trading up is the chip, Android 17 with One UI 9.0, and whatever software Samsung hangs on that 16GB SKU. It is not a new object in the hand.

MediaTek Gets a Third Straight Flagship Tablet

Both slates use the same MediaTek Dimensity 9500, listed as MT6993. That is year three of this pairing. The Tab S10 Ultra used the Dimensity 9300+, the Tab S11 pair used the Dimensity 9400+, and the S12 pair stays on MediaTek instead of a Snapdragon return.

MediaTek builds the 9500 on TSMC’s N3P 3nm node with an eight-core layout: one C1-Ultra core at 4.21GHz, three C1-Premium cores at 3.5GHz, and four C1-Pro cores at 2.7GHz, plus an Arm Mali-G1 Ultra MC12 GPU. The company claims up to 32% faster single-core speed than its previous Dimensity flagship, a lab figure against last year’s chip family, not against a tablet in a bag.

A Geekbench 7 listing for a Tab S12 Ultra tagged SM-X940, with 12GB of RAM and Android 17, posted 2,760 and 9,291 Geekbench scores in single-core and multi-core. A Tab S11 Ultra tagged SM-X930, also with 12GB, posted 2,281 and 8,005 on Geekbench 7. That is a 21% single-core lift and a 16% multi-core lift on that test. The newer listing runs Android 17 against Android 16 on the older one, so some of the gap may be software. The prime core still jumps from 3.73GHz on the 9400+ to 4.21GHz on the 9500, which is a real clock change.

The Snapdragon holdout line is already in circulation, and it will follow this launch the way it followed the last two. MediaTek’s pitch on a 14.6-inch slab is sustained load and thermals, not a peak-CPU brag against Qualcomm. A single pre-release listing is not a review. It is enough to say the chip swap is the Ultra’s actual upgrade, because the rest of the hardware is last year’s drawing.

How the Two Spec Sheets Split

Put last year’s cheap S11 next to the two S12 rows and the redistribution is obvious. The small tablet vanishes. The Plus inherits the open slot at a Plus price. The Ultra keeps the toys.

S11 VERSUS THE S12 SHEETS

Shared gear still matters on Android, where Apple does not play. Both S12 models keep a microSD slot up to 2TB, IP68, 45W wired charging, and 4K video at 60 fps. Apple’s 13-inch iPad Pro with the M5 chip still opens at $1,299, a different product with no card slot and no IP68 rating, and a Pencil that is not in the box. The Ultra’s €1,539 start sits above that US figure. The S Pen listed with the Plus is one of the few line items that still undercuts Apple’s add-on math.

The Tab S11 Ultra’s 14.6-inch panel was rated at 1,600 nits peak in Samsung’s 2025 brief. The new sheets do not reprint a brightness number, so do not invent one. Colors are silver and gray, the same pair as last year with slightly different names on the newsroom page (Gray and Silver).

Slim and Pro Keyboards Show Up First

The accessory channel is already ahead of the tablets. Retail renders circulating on September 19 show two official-style covers for the Tab S12+: a Book Cover Keyboard Slim in one piece with no trackpad, and a Pro Keyboard in two pieces with a trackpad and backlit keys. The Pro is described as costing almost twice the Slim. Wallpaper and chassis shots in those listings match the silver and gray bodies on the spec sheets.

That split tells you who Samsung thinks will pay €1,299 for a Plus. The Slim is a folio that types. The Pro is the DeX pitch, the same productivity story Jay Kim, head of customer experience in Samsung’s mobile business, sold when the Tab S11 series launched with a Galaxy AI key on the Book Cover Keyboard Slim. The cheap 11.0-inch door closed. The keyboard ladder did not.

If you already own last year’s Ultra, a new cover is a weak reason to move. If you were waiting for a smaller S12 at S11 money, the covers are a reminder that the new floor is a 12.6-inch Plus with a keyboard tax on top.

October 7 Is Written on the Sheets

Samsung has committed publicly only to a second-half 2026 arrival for this generation. The German sheets print October 7, 2026, as the date, and that same day had already been circulating among tipsters. Until a newsroom post exists, it is a printed date on a leak, not a booked event.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The stack: Sheets list a Tab S12+ and a Tab S12 Ultra only, with no base S12.
• The chip: Both use the Dimensity 9500, continuing MediaTek for a third flagship-tablet year.
• The Plus cut: Two speakers, 12GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB, one rear camera.
• The Ultra keepers: Four speakers, 16GB/1TB option, 8MP ultrawide, 11,600mAh, 5.1mm.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The date: October 7 is on the sheets; Samsung has not confirmed it.
• The prices: €1,299, €1,539, and +€200 for 5G are leak figures, not a store list.
• The Ultra pen: The Plus row lists an S Pen; the Ultra cell in that sheet is blank.
• US tags: No official US price is on these sheets.

The hardware list is already a two-tablet, premium-only stack. October 7, if it holds, is when Samsung has to print those numbers on a box or blink.