In the range of Samsung phones is a rather different and separate series, modelled in form of a phablet, usually with big screens and an S Pen, a capacitive pen-like dongle that adds creative functionality to the otherwise average phone, mostly for drawing and remote functionality. That’s the Note series, and in this particular case, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, the newest and freshest Note release. So what’s new? Let’s take a dip.
Design and display Samsung Galaxy Note 10
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 comes with a rather compact 6.3 inch dynamic AMOLED screen with an Infinity O centre punch-out design for the selfie camera, with a screen to body ratio an impressive 90.9%. The screen blends into the aluminium unibody and on to a glass black, both Corning Gorilla 6 protected. Outback, it has a quad-camera set up, vertically aligned to the left. It has very narrow bezels and chin, with the bottom housing a downward-firing speaker, a USB-C connector and the port that houses the S-pen. It, unfortunately, dropped the 3.5mm headphone jack, a feature that was sad to see go. It features the under-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, on top of face unlock biometrics.
Performance and storage
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 comes with the flagship Snapdragon 855 for US/China variants and the in house 9825 for the rest of the world. It comes paired with CPU variants of octa-core up to 2.73 GHz Mongoose M4 + Cortexa75/A55 for global edition and Octacore up to 2.84 GHz Kyro 485s for US/China. The GPU is either a Mali G76 MP12 or an Adreno 640 respectively. The memory configurations available is 8GB RAM and 265 GB internal UFS 3.0 memory. It, however, does not have microSDXC expandable memory, unfortunately. Anything in the SD<800 chip range has always been considered flagship, and this is no exception. The phone is brazenly fast, even for RAM and graphics-intensive tasks like gaming.
Camera
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 sports the quad-camera set up, starting off with a 12mp 27mm wide lens, shouldered by a 12mp 2x optical zoom 52mm telephoto and 16mp 12mm ultrawide with Super Steady Video lenses. This combination is truly elite, delivering crisp, clear and sharp, with realistic colour and believable edge detection and distance variance in portrait/bokeh. Video on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 records 2160p at 30/60fps all the way to 720p at 960fps. Video supports stereo recording, both in recording and at play, with gyro OIS & EIS. The front-facing is a capable 10mp 26mm wide lens with dual video call, switching between selfie and rear cameras, and recording at 2160p at 30fps.
Battery
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 comes with a rather compact 3500 mAh non-removable Li-Po battery, rather small but understandable due to its form factor, much rather like that of the S10. It easily lasts the whole day, but that’s about it. But not to disappoint, it comes with the fast 25W charging, capable of charging the phone within the hour and the charging brick thankfully comes with the box. Besides, you still get Fast Qi-certified 12W wireless charging and 9W reverse wireless charging. All scenarios considered, this should take you within the day with options for a quick top-up of a few minutes in between to augment the difference.
Software
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 comes with Android 9 Pie-based One UI 1.5 straight out of the box with updates lined up for the new Android 10 with One UI 2.0 and 2.1. The new UI comes with a bag of tricks, including the new Quick Share that tries to replica Airdrop on IOS, improved Samsung Dex, Music Share which combines different Bluetooth inputs into one output and system-wide dark mode, among other exciting bells and whistles. That’s not to forget the S-Pen functionality that allows drawing on the screen, air doodles and as a remote shutter for the camera, among a drove of Note specific applications.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 is a largely unique device, being modelled of productivity phablets. The S-Pen truly transform the phone into a productivity hub, from graphs, portraits to the editing of pictures and videos, something not as possible in many mainstream flagships. Add that to Samsung S series specifications and you have a true powerhouse. Since some of these functionalities are only exclusive to the Note series, this is truly an interesting device to try out.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Specifications
LAUNCH | August, 2019 |
SUPPORTED NETWORKS | |
2G | Yes, GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2 |
3G | Yes, HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 2100 |
4G | Yes, LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 12(700), 13(700), 14(700), 18(800), 19(800), 20(800), 25(1900), 26(850), 28(700), 29(700), 30(2300), 46, 48, 66(1700/2100), 71(600) - SM-N975U1 |
BODY | |
Weight | 168g |
Dimensions | 151mm x 71.8mm x 7.9mm |
Body Material | Front/back glass (Gorilla Glass 6), aluminum frame |
SIM | Dual SIM (Nano-SIM) |
DISPLAY | |
Size | 6.3 inches (90.9% screen-to-body ratio) |
Type | Dynamic AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, with 16M colors |
Resolution | 1080 x 2280 pixels, 19:9 ratio, (401PPI) |
Protection | Corning Gorilla Glass 6 |
PLATFORM | |
Operating System | Android v9.0 (Pie); One UI |
Chipset | Exynos 9825 (7nm) |
Processor | Octa-core (2x2.73 GHz Mongoose M4 & 2x2.4 GHz Cortex-A75 & 4x1.9 GHz Cortex-A55) |
GPU | Mali-G76 MP12 |
MEMORY | |
RAM | 8GB |
Internal Storage | 256GB |
Micro SD Slot | No |
CAMERA | |
Back | Triple: 12MP, f/1.5-2.4, 27mm (wide), 1/2.55", 1.4µm, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS + 12MP, f/2.1, 52mm (telephoto), 1/3.6", 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS, 2x optical zoom + 16MP, f/2.2, 12mm (ultrawide), 1.0µm, Super Steady video |
Features | LED flash, auto-HDR, panorama, 2160p@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps, 720p@960fps, HDR10+, dual-video rec., stereo sound rec., gyro-EIS & OIS |
Front | Single: 10 MP, f/2.2, 26mm (wide), 1.22µm, Dual Pixel PDAF |
Features | Dual video call, Auto-HDR, 2160p@30fps, 1080p@30fps |
SOUND | |
Loudspeaker | Yes |
3.5mm jack | No |
Alert types | Vibration, ringtones |
CONNECTIVITY | |
WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
Bluetooth | 5.0, A2DP, LE, aptX |
GPS | Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO |
USB | 3.1, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector |
NFC | Yes |
Radio | Yes |
SENSORS | |
Fingerprint | Yes (under-display, optical) |
Face ID | No |
Accelerometer | Yes |
Gyroscope | Yes |
Proximity | Yes |
Compass | Yes |
Barometer | Yes |
BATTERY | |
Capacity | 3500mAh 25W Fast battery charging 12W Fast Qi/PMA wireless charging 9W Power bank/Reverse wireless charging |
Type | Li-Ion, non-removable |
COLORS | Aura Glow, Aura White, Aura Black, Aura Pink, Aura Red |
There are no reviews yet.