[DigitalToday reporter Jinju Hong] Samsung has unveiled its new premium Android tablet, the "Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra." Compared with the previous model, it kept most major specifications such as design, display and battery while improving the chipset and audio performance. The price, however, rose $200 from the previous model, drawing attention to how the higher price will affect demand.

According to IT media outlet Engadget on Wednesday, the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra features a 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display. Its resolution is 2960x1848. Peak brightness is 1,600 nits for HDR and 1,000 nits in high-brightness mode, unchanged from the previous model.

Its size and weight are also the same as the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra. It is 5.1 mm thick and weighs 692 grams. It supports IP68-rated water and dust resistance. A 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera is mounted on the front, and the teardrop-shaped cutout design remains.

The most noticeable change is audio. Samsung expanded support from 2-channel audio to 4-channel spatial sound. Using four speakers, it focused on strengthening directionality and a sense of space when watching video. Engadget said Samsung's Ultra tablets have shown strengths not only in large displays but also in speaker performance, and it assessed that content with spatial sound delivered a wide soundstage and a strong sense of positioning.

Performance also improved. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra uses the Dimensity 9500 instead of the previous model's MediaTek Dimensity 9300+. Both chips are based on a 3-nanometer process. Samsung said the new chip improves CPU performance by 19 percent, GPU by 17 percent and NPU by 61 percent. It also applied a new 3D vapor chamber to manage heat.

Engadget, however, cited the recent emergence of 2-nanometer mobile chips such as Apple's A20 Pro and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite 6th generation. It pointed out that the performance gains are not large enough to fully justify the price increase.

The price rose sharply. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra starts at $1,400 for the model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That is $200 higher than the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra's launch price. As a result, the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra falls into the most expensive tier among Android tablets offered by major manufacturers.

Battery and charging performance are unchanged from the previous model. Battery capacity is 11,600 mAh and it supports up to 45W charging. Samsung chose to keep the existing design while improving some elements such as internal performance and audio.

The software comes with the latest One UI 9.0 by default. The Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is also set to receive the same update, so the differentiation in software is not large for existing users.

Upgrade demand is also likely to be limited. Engadget assessed that after the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra saw no major changes compared with the previous Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, the new product also lacks many elements that would strongly prompt existing users to switch.

For Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra users, the performance improvement from the new chipset may not be large enough to accept the replacement cost. For users of older models such as the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra or Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, performance and audio improvements may be felt relatively more strongly.

Ultimately, the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra is assessed as a product that continues Samsung's extra-large premium tablet strategy while making partial improvements to performance and audio. It kept core components such as design, display and battery unchanged, but raised the price by $200. The balance between limited hardware changes and the higher price is cited as a key variable that will shape market reaction going forward.