Well, the leak season for Samsung's next big tablets is officially underway. According to a report from Geeky-Gadgets, the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and Tab S12 Plus are expected to run on MediaTek's new Dimensity 950 chip, and that would be a genuinely interesting change of pace for a lineup that has leaned on Snapdragon silicon for years.

Let me tell you why that matters. Samsung switching to MediaTek for its flagship tablets is the kind of move that would have raised eyebrows a decade ago, back when, as I remember it, MediaTek was mostly the chip you found in budget phones. My niece had one of those phones and it got warm just loading a webpage. But the company has been quietly building serious credibility, and if the Dimensity 950 delivers flagship performance with better power efficiency, that's a win for battery life, which, as I said in my Tab S10 FE write-up, is one of the things a tablet simply cannot skimp on.

The less exciting part of the leak is the price. The Tab S12 Ultra is rumored to start at $1,399, right in line with what its predecessor asked. I went through the pricing landscape back in July when Samsung was handing out gift cards with foldable preorders, and I'll say now what I said then: a thousand-dollar-plus tablet had better earn it. A tablet must provide real productivity tools, not just act as a very pretty video screen.

And that's the tension here. The Ultra line has always been Samsung's answer to the iPad Pro, aimed at people who sketch, split-screen, and treat a tablet like a laptop. For those folks, $1,399 with a big display and a stylus-friendly surface may feel reasonable. For everyone else this price sits in awkward territory, because a perfectly good laptop costs the same and doesn't make you adapt to it.

I don't have hands-on time yet, obviously, and forty years of covering this stuff has taught me that leaked specs and shipping products are two different animals. I remember when leaked benchmarks had everyone convinced a chip would be a generational leap, and then the real-world battery tests told a quieter story. So consider this a weather report, not a forecast you'd plan a picnic around.

What I'll be watching for: real battery numbers on that Dimensity 950, whether Samsung improves the DeX desktop experience (that's the feature that turns the tablet into something laptop-adjacent), and whether the S Pen situation changes this generation. The leak doesn't say either way, and little things like that decide whether a premium tablet feels like a tool or a flex.

As for timing, nothing official has been announced so I won't guess at a date. What I can say from experience is that Samsung tends to follow its unveilings with preorder sweeteners fairly quickly. If you're even slightly tempted, patience has paid off with Samsung before and I see no reason this cycle will be different. I'll keep an eye on it and report back when there's something solid to say.