Galaxy Note 10+ comes with a stylus and an AI screenwriter. The note taker has all the features you need, like an edge-to-edge Infinity Display, power-packed internals, and more. And it all comes in the same razor-thin form factor as expected from the company.
New S-Pen Air gestures, larger screens, triple camera, batteries that last longer. These are some of the new upgrades for Samsung fans and are made to make them more likely to upgrade.
For a long time, the Galaxy Note line was used to push the boundaries of what could be done with a smartphone, siring the big-screen “phablet” category in the process. I’m sad to report that’s no longer the case. The £999 Note 10+ might technically be the biggest screen on a Samsung flagship phone, but it’s only by a smidgen.
With some subtle changes and under-the-hood upgrades, the Note 10+ can be considered a direct replacement for the Galaxy S10+ from March. That’s not a bad thing because you’re getting similar performance with a lower price point without any compromise in specs. If you always bought the Note because it was “the best Samsung” your decision is no longer that clear cut.
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Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is an Android phone with a 6.8-inch screen, a 4,300mAh battery, and 128GB of storage.
The phone has the same features as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 but with a bigger screen and more storage. The Note 10+ also has a larger battery than the Note 10.
The new camera system on the back of the phone is improve with two zoom lenses for better low light performance and faster autofocus speeds. It also has enhanced image processing to make sure that you get sharp photos even if you’re shooting in low-light conditions or using zoom lenses.
This new camera system will be available on both the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Samsung Galaxy Note 10+.
At 6.8″ it’s huge, but it’s only .1″ bigger than the one in the Galaxy S10 5G. Still, it’s gorgeous to look at, videos look particularly great, and the hole cut in the top for the selfie camera is smaller than any other. But it’s not as smooth or impressive as that of the OnePlus 7 Pro’s curved AMOLED screen which does not have a notch.
Note 10+ comes with stereo speakers, which surprisingly produce great audio. And you can see their astonishing placement on one of the edges of the screen through a nearly imperceptible opening at the top.
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The build quality is exceptional. The phone is thin, feels lighter than it is at 196g, and the glass front and back curve at the edges to a thin metal band with squared-off ends at the top and bottom. There’s absolute no give anywhere, making the Note 10+ feel the closest yet to that all-glass slab of a phone we’ve been promise in sci-fi for a decade.
However, the squarish edges, sharp corners, and large screen make the Note 10+ harder to use with just one hand than any other phone. This is decidedly a two-hand phone. Use it one-handed without aid at your peril. If ever there was a phone that should have shipped with one of those lanyards of old, this is it.
I also got a lot of accidental touches from my palm on the bottom right of the screen. Accidentally zooming into web pages, exciting apps when trying to reach something, and even pausing the music when trying to scroll in Spotify was a regular occurrence. Taking photos without hitting the back or home button was particularly difficult, resulting in quite a few missed photos.
Specifications
- Screen: 6.8in QHD+ AMOLED (498ppi)
- Processor: Samsung Exynos 9825 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 855
- RAM: 12GB of RAM
- Storage: 256GB + microSD card
- Operating system: One UI based on Android 9 Pie
- Camera: rear triple camera, 10MP selfie camera
- Connectivity: Dual sim, LTE, Wifi, NFC, Bluetooth 5, wireless charging, and GPS
- Dimensions: 162.3 x 77.2 x 7.9mm
- Weight: 196g
Faster charging
The Note 10+ features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, 4GB RAM, and an Exynos 9825 processor. It also has the same performance but is slightly more energy efficient.
The Galaxy S10+ has a lot of storage, but it’s not near 256GB. Some other impressive devices are even better than the phone you gave an A-. The OnePlus 7 Pro and a few other devices use faster UFS3.0 storage.
As such the Note 10+ is a very powerful phone on paper, but it doesn’t feel any faster in use than an S10+, and certainly not as snappy or fluid as the OnePlus 7 Pro.
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Battery life on the Galaxy Note 10+ is good, lasting more than 32 hours between charges on average with reasonably heavy usage. With the screen on more than five hours and set to FHD+ with the always-on display (AOD) setting off, the phone lasts from 7 am on day one until after 3 pm on day two. That is while browsing and using apps for four hours with a hundred or so push messages, watching 40 minutes of Netflix, shooting about 10 photos a day, and listening to around five hours of music via Bluetooth headphones.
When the battery doesn’t last long enough on your phone, the Note 10+ has a couple of modes that can help you conserve power and increase the remaining life. One way of adding more battery life to your device is by enabling power-sharing on its fast-charging capabilities so you can charge other devices from its built-in cable.
That said, wireless charging is available too so From completely flat the battery reaches 80% charge in 40 minutes with the included 25W charger. The Note 10+ can charge up to 45W but requires a special charger that supports Power Delivery 3.0 with PPS and isn’t include in the box.
S-Pen
For the Note 10+ is the addition of S-Pen features for drawing on the screen and accessing various apps from pop-out menus. Air actions are the name of the newly-added handwriting recognition feature of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. It allows you to annotate your notes with drawings, photos, and more!
For the second year in a row, Samsung is adding new features to their S-Pen. This time, they’re adding magic wand functionality so you can control your device while it’s mid-air. With the S-Pen you can open up a menu, change tracks, shift between photos and camera modes, or navigate the app using swipes.
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It’s fairly impressive, but after a brief play around I found it simply easier to press a button on the screen, apart from taking photos with the phone mounted in a tripod, which I have done precisely once to see whether it would work.
The S-Pen remains one of the best styluses available, and slots neatly into the body of the Note 10+ when not in use. If you never use it, the S-Pen doesn’t get in the way at all, but it is essentially the reason to buy the Note 10+.
Samsung One UI
Samsung announced its Galaxy S10 line on February 20th, just ahead of the release of other Android devices. It was the first to launch with Samsung’s revamped version of Android called One UI, which is based on 2018’s Android 9, not the recently launched Android 10.
Most Samsung modifications to Android have been very welcome for the most part. As a company, they have made it clear that their focus is placing the things you need & use most on the bottom half of a screen and leaving much of it available on the top. With large-scale screens becoming more common in smartphones, this can be an extremely helpful feature.
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However, it’s held back by the use of the old Android navigation keys or swipe pads in their place. Instead of the more modern gesture control used by other manufacturers such as Huawei and OnePlus or the ones now baked into Android 10. It’s very difficult to reach the bottom left corner with your right thumb or the bottom right with your left for the navigation keys on this size of the screen.
Camera
The new Note 10+ has a triple camera system with a new depth sensor that will improve portrait mode images, video, and more as well.
The camera has a powerful 12-megapixel sensor with a Sony IMX378 image processor, which is one of the best in the business. Plus, it’s join by a 12-megapixel telephoto and 16-megapixel ultrawide angle camera. That each have their dedicated powerhouses to provide lossless zoom up to 2x. Traditionally, the main 12-megapixel camera is join by a 12-megapixel telephoto (2x optical zoom) camera and a 16-megapixel ultrawide angle camera. These three cameras allow lossless shooting from 0.5 to 2x, and up to 10x hybrid zoom.
The Note 10+ camera has been revamp for this year and offers excellent shots with high detail and good exposure, but it falls behind in low light and zoom capabilities with the Huawei P30 Pro. The Note 10+’s night mode is a lot less noticeable than that of the Huawei P30 Pro.
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Video capture quality is top notch at up to 4K at 60fps, and can now do live focus effects similar to Samsung’s still images, but in real-time. Samsung’s new AR Doodle lets you draw on your or someone else’s face in real-time too with the S-Pen, which your kids will love.
The selfie camera was a bit of a letdown, taking fairly good photos outdoors in good lighting, but struggling indoors and at events, where a crappy photo can’t be take again.
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is such a piece of hardware. Not only is it huge, but also more like a high-end laptop than a phone. But this portable powerhouse has many drawbacks – you can’t use the phone one-handed due to its size.
The problem of accidental touches is also an issue for many modern smartphones. It can be solve with case options. But in the process, the phone will not be as sleek-looking.
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The Galaxy A80 is a phone that continues to impress. It has a screen size of 162.5 cm (~8.6”) that supports super-pixels with its new aura glow color option, the front-facing camera boasts a 25% bigger aperture and up to 41x enhanced zoom for better pictures, goes up to 18W for fast charging and features. But the S-Pen-free Note 10+ offers everything that its predecessor did, but minus the things it was known for. It costs nearly £200 less, which makes it an even better option than the S10+