Samsung Galaxy Note10 & Note10+ Complete Walkthrough: The Beast Gets Better
Another year, another Note. We were all just shown the new Samsung Galaxy Note10+ (and Note10) in all their glory here in my home town of NYC and what we saw I don’t think will disappoint fans of the Note lineup.
These are the Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy Note10+. And for those of you with a keen sense of observation: there are two Notes this year.
Really quick in this video I’m going to try and do a complete walkthrough on both devices (and will do a real-world test video on them when they arrive so subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications to be notified when that goes live ASAP).
For those not familiar, a complete walkthrough on this channel is where I try and go through every feature and spec on a new device as I can so you guys have all the (way too much?) information needed should you be looking to actually go buy one.
Hardware
With that said, there is a lot to go through so let’s get started with the hardware.
The first thing you’ll notice about either is that darn sexy screen. Each has been pulled even further to the edges of the device and both have a centered punch-hole that I actually think looks pretty unique and cool but maybe that’s just me.
The Galaxy Note10 has a 6.3″ 2280×1080 screen while the Galaxy Note10+ has a massive 6.8
3040×1440 screen. Both are HDR10+ certified for better contrast, larger color gamut, etc. and both are AMOLED.
In the punch-hole, we have a 10MP Dual Pixel Auto Focus camera with an F2.2 aperture and an 80-degree field-of-view.
Moving around the devices, we have nothing on the right side of the phones.
We have a power button and volume rocker on the left which means, thankfully, we no longer have a Bixby button (I do assume however that you can hold down or double-tap the power button to bring Bixby back if you’re sad the button is gone though).
At the top, we have our SIM card tray that on the Note10+ also accepts a MicroSD but on the Note10 there is no MicroSD card slot.
And at the bottom, we notice something else Samsung has removed that might make a lot of Note users upset–there’s no headphone jack on either phone.
We do, of course, though, have our new and improved S-Pen that clicks into the bottom of the phone.
Removing it does still bring up your normal S-Pen tricks with the ability to take notes on the lock screen if you pull it out when it’s off that then save to the Samsung Notes app, using it to take screenshots or open apps, etc.
We do now though have a new feature that I think is cool (but will depend on how well it works) and that’s the ability to take any hand-written note and tap share to a Word Doc to have it automatically turn it into text in a doc file to make it easier to organize later, search, etc.
Something else that has changed about the S-Pen is that it now supports gestures Samsung calls Air Gestures.
The use case we were shown was the ability to have the camera open with the pen out to not only click the button to take a photo like we’re used to now, but also rotate the pen clockwise to zoom in, counter-clockwise to zoom out, swipe up to switch to the selfie camera, and swipe left and right to move through the modes.
Not sure how useful this will be, but I’m intrigued to test it out actually in that real-world test video coming ASAP.
Samsung also said that this will be opened up as an API to allow other app developers to incorporate the gestures into their own apps, as well, which is cool (but remains to be seen if developers think it’s worth their time to do, of course).
Moving around to the back, the devices will come in a few color options. We have Aura White, Black, and Glow (which is my favorite as it’s sort of a color-changing effect that looks a lot more impressive in person than it does in photos) for both the Note10 and Note10+ but we have a fourth Aura Blue color that will be available exclusively at BestBuy and Samsung.com and only for the Note10+ (it also looks more impressive in person, by the way).
Also on the back, we have our rear cameras.
On both devices, we have a 16MP F2.2 123-degree field of view ultra-wide camera, a wide-angle 12MP Dual-Pixel Auto Focus Dual Aperture F1.5/F2.4 optically stabilized 77-degree main camera, and a 12MP F2.1 optically stabilized 45-degree angle telephoto camera.
The Note10+ also adds a VGA DepthVision camera that gives that device the ability to scan objects to a movable 3D rendering.
Hardware-wise we were told that these cameras are very similar to the S10+’s with some minor tweaks like faster apertures, etc. Software-wise, they’ve added some video features.
First, we have the ability to do live-focus video. Something we saw on other phones a bit ago already, it lets you create a fake blur behind a person like live-focus photos, but in a video. It does, however, require a person so won’t work on objects, and it’s still not amazing (at least on the non-final software I was using so more testing when a proper unit arrives).
They also added a more directional microphone that can supposedly focus picking up the audio on anything you zoom into while filming (again, will test when I can).
And lastly, for video software, they said they’ve improved SuperSteady (their software stabilization for video–think GoPro Hero 7 Black type stuff). It can do much faster computations per second and also works in Hyperlapse mode.
Powering those faster computations, we have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor (here in the US and some other markets with an Exynos 9825 in others).
That is paired with 8GBs of RAM on the Note10 and 12GBs of RAM on the Note10+.
For storage, the Note10 will only have a 256GB UFS3.0 storage option while the Note10+ will have a 256 or 512GB UFS3.0 options.
For connectivity, we have Bluetooth 5.0 and wifi up to 802.11ax (aka WiFi6) and LTE on all models. There will be, exclusive to Verizon initially, a 5G model of the Note10+ coming soon as well.
For battery, the Note10 has a 3500mah battery while the Note10+ has a 4300mah one. Both will support and include 25W faster chargers (apparently capable of getting the Note10+ from 0-100 in about an hour) but the Note10+ will also support up to 45W charging (which can get it to 70% in 30 mins, which is nuts), but you’ll have to buy that charger separately.
In addition to the faster-wired speeds, they both also have faster wireless charging as well. Instead of the 7.5W speeds, we have 12W available in both and the Note10+ can even do 15W (to put that into perspective that’s the speed at which the Note9 charges while plugged in).
Software
For software, besides some of the camera and S-Pen things I already mentioned, we are running on Android 9.0 with Samsung’s OneUI on top. Normally, not a big fan of the UI’s on top of devices but have to admit OneUI (along with say, OnePlus’ OxygenOS) give me hope and stop me from immediately reaching for a third-party launcher.
It is the variety of OneUI you’re used to though already so won’t dive into it here. Instead, there are a few other things they added that I thought were interesting:
- DeX: Ok, so we’ve had DeX before. It’s the ability to plug the phone into a monitor and it’ll convert the UI to a more desktop-like experience, etc. Now though apparently, you can also plug the Note into your computer via USB (A or C both work we were told and on Mac or PC) and it can then use DeX on your computer screen. Personally not sure I would ever use that as I’d rather just, you know, use the computer, but maybe?
- Link to Windows: Another computer-oriented addition is a new Link to Windows feature. This apparently doesn’t require any extra software and is something baked into Windows and the phone. When connected you’ll see notifications, send and receive messages, etc. on your computer screen.
- Game Booster: Taking a page from all the gaming phones out there, Samsung has added a handy gaming feature that will optimize performance or battery life for games, customize notifications, etc.
- Screen Recording: And lastly, a small addition that I as a person who does videos on phones appreciates: a native screen recorder. The phone can now record your screen without the need for a third-party app and can even also put your front camera in a small circle on the display to capture that as well if you want to comment while recording.
The devices will be available for preorder August 8th and go on sale August 23rd. The Note10 starts at $949 and the Note10+ will start at $1099. Personally, I’m not sure why a proper Note user–traditionally hell-bent on having the highest specs, largest screen, etc.–would want a Note10 and not the Note10+. But, I could see how someone thinking about an S10+ might jump to the Note10 if they were more interested in just adding an S-Pen to the mix, maybe? What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments below and head to the channel if you liked this video and subscribe for more coming ASAP.
Don’t forget to sign up for my weekly email newsletter for more videos, but also tips and tricks and other things that don’t necessarily make it to the YouTube channel.
Finally, a quick shoutout to all the other creators that were in the room filming frantically with me and sharing some of their footage with one another because of the super short amount of time we were given to film. They all have awesome videos coming out on the Note10 and 10+ that you can check out at the links below as well.
As always though, thanks for watching!
