Home » Samsung Galaxy Note10 Hands-On

Samsung Galaxy Note10 Hands-On

Written By Vaughn Chua
Published • August 8th, 2019
Hands-onMobile
0

Samsung finally launched its newest Galaxy Note smartphones, the Galaxy Note10 series, in New York which comes with the top-of-the-line specs and features from the company. We got our hands on the more powerful sibling, the Note10+, but this time, we’re taking a look at the regular model — the Galaxy Note10. Check out our hands-on below.

Just like with the Galaxy Note10+, the Galaxy Note10 has a solid look and premium design that covers the curved glass front and back with a Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection. This device; however, has a smaller 6.3-inch display as compared to its 6.8-inch sibling. instead of QHD+, the regular Note10 gets an FHD+ resolution with the same HDR10+ and the same Dynamic AMOLED Infinity O screen.

The 10MP front camera is located in the punch-hole design on the same top-middle part of the device.

Just like the Note10+, the Note10 has the same port and button placements with the main microphone, USB Type-C port, loudspeaker, and the upgraded S-Pen located at the bottom. The top part sports another microphone beside the dual-SIM tray that doesn’t have expandable storage which is quite a bummer.

Another bummer is that the phone doesn’t have 3.5mm audio port which is a weird thing to not see in Samsung Smartphones. People who are fond of listening to music or watching videos using wired earphones might be upset with this but Samsung is providing a 3.5mm to USB Type-C adapter so that’s good.

Looking to the left is the typical volume rocker – power button pairing which is clicky and tactile when pressed. The right side is clean which is nice and simplistic. There is no Bixby button anymore — not that quite useful so it’s fine.

Flip on its back and you’ll see the triple rear camera setup that comprises of a 12MP triple aperture adjustment lens + 16MP + 12MP. Unlike the Note10+, the Note10 doesn’t have the DepthVision camera which is basically the Time-of-Flight sensor.

Moving to the new and upgraded S-Pen, Samsung’s very own stylus now comes with air gestures which allow you to switch between the front and rear camera, modes, and zooming in or out. This is a pretty neat addition given that the Note9’s pen can only manipulate the shutter button with some functionalities in the phone.

The Galaxy Note10 is lighter than the Note10+ with its 167 grams of mass as compared to the latter’s 196 grams. Holding the device feels solid and premium which is expected for a Samsung flagship device. The curved glass makes the phone feel very seamless and smooth. As usual; however, the device is a fingerprint and smudge magnet which could be annoying for some.

Powering the Galaxy Note10 is either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 and Samsung Exynos 9825. The latter has a smaller architecture as compared to last year’s Exynos 9820. This means that the company has achieved a more optimized and power efficient performance for its devices. Speaking of power efficiency, the phone has a 3,500mAh battery which is quite smaller than the previous 4,000mAh capacity of the Note9.

Samsung Philippines announced that the Note10 model that will arrive in the country is the 8GB + 256 variant for PHP 53,990USD 920INR 77,994EUR 876CNY 6,700. We’ll know more about its performance, features, and battery life when we take the Galaxy Note10 for a full spin so stay tuned for that!

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 specs:

6.3-inch FHD+ (2280 x 1080) Infinity Display (Dynamic AMOLED), 401ppi
HDR 10+
Corning Gorilla Glass 6
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 2.96GHz octa-core (US model)
Adreno 640 GPU (US Model)
Samsung Exynos 9825 7nm 2.7GHz octa-core
Mali-G76 MP12 GPU
8GB LPDDR4X RAM
256GB UFS 3.0 storage
12MP F 1.5-F1.8-F2.4 +16MP F2.2 wide-angle + 12MP F2.1 Telephoto
OIS, Hyperlapse, Special Night, 4K 60fps video recording, Ultra Slow-Mo
10MP F2.2 front camera (Dual-Pixel Autofocus, 4K 30fps video recording)
Dual-SIM card slot (nano)
No expandable microSD card slot
WiFi 6 (2.4GHz + 5GHz)
4G LTE
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, Galileo
NFC
USB Type-C
IP68 dust and water-resistant
Ultrasonic fingerprint scanner
Face Unlock
S-Pen w/ IP68 water and dust resistance, 4096 pressure levels, gesture navigation, animated messaging, smart selection, translation function
AKG Stereo Speakers w/ Dolby Atmos
Samsung One UI (Android 9 Pie)
3,500mAh battery w/ 25W fast charging and 12W wireless charging
151 x 71.8 x 7.9 mm
167g
Aura Glow & Aura Black