Like many other experts, it’s our opinion that the best Android tablet that you can buy is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra. The powerhouse of a slate is king of its own ecosystem and is well-matched against the iconic Apple iPad Pro. The main issue is affording it, with the base model of the device starting at $1,199.99 in the US, before tax. But if we were to tell you that America isn’t the cheapest place in the world to buy the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, you might be interested to find out where it’s better value. We’ve done the digging and found out.

Not only might you be able to find a country with a better retail price for the Tab S9 Ultra, but you might also be able to save on the tax. You only pay the substantial sales tax on the tablet in the US because you live there. Tourists can often avoid this extra charge or claim it back before leaving. If that feels unfair, know that it works both ways — you can do the same in many other countries. We’ll look at the global price of the tablet from this perspective.

What are the cheapest countries to buy a Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra?

We looked up the price of the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra in 38 countries and then converted that local pricing into the equivalent USD value. The results are in the table below. We’ve ordered them from the cheapest to the most expensive.

To keep the comparison fair, we attempted to use the price of the base model of the tablet — that is the 256GB model with Wi-Fi connectivity. We soon found out that this configuration wasn’t available in all of the nations we surveyed. A few countries only offer the 512GB capacity of the slate, while others will only sell it to you with 5G connectivity. Where the cheapest option isn’t that particular build, we’ve indicated which model you’re paying for in the third column.

All but one of the countries listed shows the retail price of the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, with one exception: we added an approximate 10% sales tax amount onto the US entry. This is why it shows as $1,320 instead of $1,199.99. As we outlined above, we’re considering what a US resident would be paying in each place. On the flip side of that, the amounts shown for the other countries are the most an American traveling should pay for the base model of the tablet. In some cases, the sales tax is included in the retail price, and you might find you can claim that back to make the device 10% or even 15% cheaper.

Of the countries we surveyed, Turkey is the cheapest place in the world to buy the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. What’s remarkable about this result is that Turkey is one of the countries in which the 256GB model of the device isn’t available, but the 512GB version is still cheaper than any configuration in all of the other nations. The price in Turkish Lira is the equivalent of $1,020 USD.

South Korea, which is the home of Samsung, comes in second place at $1,079. The United Arab Emirates is close behind in third at $1,089, although you’re getting better value for money than in South Korea because you’re getting the 5G variant of the tablet for only $10 more.

Even with sales tax applied, the US is in the middle of the list and around $300 more than Turkey. When you consider that the majority of the countries have the Tab S9 Ultra priced between $1,200 and $1,500, Americans aren’t getting a bad deal.

South America seems to be where it appears that the Samsung tablet is the most expensive. Colombians are paying an eye-watering $1,876 for the device, while residents of Brazil are charged a little under $1,800. We’ll go into possible reasons for this a bit later.

So these are the best Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra prices in the world?

We’re not saying you won’t be able to find the tablet for a better price than those shown in the table. We’ve only taken the official retail price of it in each instance, and we didn’t even check every country in which it is sold. Even Samsung was offering discounts in some countries, so you might find you can go to the online shop of the retailer in your own nation and find it cheaper.

And that’s before we consider third-party retailer deals. Taking the US as an example, it’s not uncommon to see a modest price drop on the tablet when buying from Amazon, which isn’t matched on Samsung’s online store. Other countries may well have similar setups. But if you’re not buying from Samsung, you should be very wary of any deals that you see. Many will be legit, but passing off stolen, faulty, or second-hand goods as genuine is always a risk of which you should be mindful. A deal that looks too good to be true should automatically be a red flag in your mind.

Should I buy the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra from another country?

You should make your own mind up on this one, but our take would be that there aren’t many cases in which it’s worth getting your Tab S9 Ultra from another country. As we’ve established, the USA is cheaper than most places, but you might be able to save yourself $200 to $300 abroad, depending on tax rules. As tempting as that might sound, there are a few practical considerations to consider. For example, your new device might come with a software configuration that is less familiar and intuitive to you, or the warranty for the tablet may be somewhere between impractical and impossible to use when you’re back home. You’d have to weight up whether the purchase is still good value in those circumstances.

What should be abundantly clear is that it’s not worth traveling from the US to Turkey just to buy a cheaper Samsung tablet. You could probably buy one back home for less than the cost of the airfare alone.

Besides, we come back to the point that you might be able to find deals at home that would spare you from leaving the country at all. Even at the time of writing, the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is $100 off at Samsung before considering extra savings you can make with a trade-in.

Given the fact that we’re doing this comparison in dollars, it would be stranger if the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra was the exact same price in every country. Converting to USD means that exchange rates come into play, and given the nature of the FX markets, the table above would look different week-to-week and month-to-month.

We might guess that this is how Turkey has found itself at the top of the list — inflation in Turkey has meant that the value of the dollar against the Lira has been rising rapidly in recent years. That makes everything in Turkey cheaper from an American perspective.

In most cases, the cost to Samsung of bringing the tablet to each market will be one of the biggest drivers of deciding the local retail price. There are a huge number of costs involved in getting a product onto the shelves in each country, such as import taxes, logistics, labor, and many more. These costs are very region-specific and will be passed onto the consumer in the retail price.

Brazil being one of the priciest countries is a good illustration of this point. There is a huge import tax on foreign-made tech in the Latin American nation, which can be as much as 100% of the value of the goods. Despite the relatively low consumer spending power in Brazil, the need for Samsung to recoup these costs drives up the retail price of the tablet.

Last but not least, Samsung is a for-profit venture. Costs aside, the tech giant will charge whatever it thinks the local population will pay, and there will be marketing boffins employed specifically to work this out.