Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Review : The luxurious smartphone that you need

The Galaxy Note 10+ brings the best of all with many changes.

Each year Samsung launches two of its models out of the one being the S series which targets the consumer who wants a flagship smartphone with great specifications and another being the Note series for those who want the S-Pen functionality.

In 2018, Samsung launched the Galaxy Note 9 which wasn't a huge upgrade from the Galaxy Note 8 but had good internals with new S-Pen features and packed a Snapdragon 845/Exynos 9810 chipset depending on which region you are in.

This year things have been changed slightly as Samsung is offering two models in the Note lineup.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ have entered the market with some really good features and a new design. The Galaxy Note 10 is priced slightly lower than the Galaxy Note 10+ but still packs a good punch.

Here we will have a look at the Galaxy Note 10+ and see how good the new smartphone is and see whether it is the ultimate luxurious smartphone?

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Design:

In terms of design, the Galaxy Note 10+ boasts a new display on the front with a punch hole for the front camera. The screen is curved to the sides making it look premium. The screen almost edges to edge as the bezels are very much thinner on the sides.

The device is slightly bigger at 6.8 inches and weighs at 196 gms. However, the weight distribution has been done well but still, large hands are required to handle the device. On top of the screen, there is an earpiece.

Coming to the back, the triple cameras lie to the top left of the device. The glass panel on the back looks premium and adopts the same glass design as the front with Corning Gorilla Glass 6. The glass panel is prone to fingerprints but Samsung provides a plastic case to protect it from scratches.

The sides of the device are made of aluminum and look premium. On the right-hand side, there aren't any buttons as you get the power button and volume rockers on the left side of the device. Here Samsung has replaced the Bixby button to the power button from the Galaxy Note 9 to Galaxy Note 10+.

The Aura Glow color option with the shifting of color(prism effect) looked very premium.
On the top, there is a secondary noise-canceling microphone and in the bottom, there is the speaker grill with a lair where S-Pen is kept.

It is the same one on the Galaxy Note 9 and with Aura Glow color, the blue one is striking to use.

Sadly, the Galaxy Note 10+ misses out on the 3.5mm headphone jack. Though Samsung has equipped the Galaxy Note 10+ with AKG USB-Type C earphones and it can be also used with other Bluetooth ones.

The device is IP68 rated and supports Wireless charging which makes it a great one. The only downside to the design is that the sides of the display feel sharp while holding it in hand for a longer time as the bezels to the bottom is also very thin and the sides are sharper.

On an overall basis, the punch hole camera with great build and design marks a striking aspect of the Galaxy Note 10+ making it stand away from the rest of the crowd.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Display:

This is one place where the Galaxy Note 10+ is unique as it has a punch-hole display. The Galaxy Note 10+ houses a 6.8 inches Quad HD+ Dynamic AMOLED display (3040 x 1440 pixels) with 498ppi.

The screen to body ratio of the device is 19:9. The AMOLED panels made by Samsung are a piece of a masterpiece and it is no different from the Galaxy Note 10+.

The screen is very bright as the colors look punchier and pop out well. The screen has various screen modes that you can choose on your basis thus providing warmer or cooler tones when needed. The Galaxy Note 10+ also has support for HDR 10+ standard.

Under direct sunlight, the screen is easily visible and during the night the screen can go very low in brightness thus not straining the eyes.

The Galaxy Note 10+ comes with an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner which is fast and accurate. With the slight touch of the finger, you can unlock the device easily. Still, there is the Face Unlock which works well all time.

The only lack we found that the screen on the Galaxy Note 10+ is a 60Hz panel, not a 90Hz or 120Hz panel that we have seen on the OnePlus 7 Pro, Asus ROG 2, etc.

Since 2019 paved the way for 90Hz or 120Hz displays which are found in cheaper flagships, the Galaxy Note 10+ falls a bit short in this area.

With a punch-hole display, the Galaxy Note 10+ has one of the best displays in the mobile industry today. The Dynamic AMOLED looks good too.

Also check: Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ vs OnePlus 7 Pro: the battle for the best flagship spot

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Performance: 

Like all Samsung Note series, the Galaxy Note 10+ is either by an Exynos 9825/ Snapdragon 855 chipset depending on the region. Here in India, we get the Exynos 9825 which is a newer chipset also found on the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+.

In some international markets, we get the Snapdragon 855 found on the OnePlus 7 Pro, Asus 6z, etc.

The Exynos 9825 is a new chipset with a slight upgrade over the Exynos 9820. The Exynos 9825 packs 2 x Mongoose M4 cores clocked at 2.73 GHz while 2x2.40 GHz ARM Cortex A75 which is 90Mhz more than the one on the Exynos 9820. The other 4x1.9 GHz ARM Cortex A55 cores are made for power efficiency.

The chipset is built on a 7nm EUV process and has a Mali-G76 MP12 GPU. The chipset is very powerful and can handle almost all applications smoothly. The Galaxy Note 10+ comes with two variants: 256GB and 512GB storage paired with 12GB RAM.

Here the only benefit the Galaxy Note 10+ gets over the Galaxy S10+ or S10 is the faster UFS 3.0 storage.

Coming to gaming aspects, the device handles all small to heavy intensive games with ease. Heavy games like PUBG Mobile, Asphalt 9 Extreme ran smoothly at the highest graphics settings.

Coming to synthetic benchmarks like Geekbench, the Galaxy Note 10+ scores 4541 in Single core and 10403 in Multicore tests.

The single-core performance of this chipset is better than the Snapdragon 855 but when multi-core performance is taken into consideration, the Snapdragon 855 has the edge.

With a powerful chipset and good software (which will be discussed in a later section), the Galaxy Note 10+ is a fast and fluid device to use.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Software:

Coming to the software, the Galaxy Note 10+ runs OneUI 1.5 built on top of Android 9 Pie. The device will be very soon updated to Android 10. Samsung has been a little bit slow when coming to software updates.

With the new update of OneUI 1.5, you get new navigation gestures which include swipe up actions. Since the Galaxy Note 10+ is a large device, the one-handed mode has been worked well on the device.

Then there is the edged screen which provides quick access to apps, actions, tools, etc. with a single swipe from the edge of the screen.

Then there is a dark mode which works very well for almost all applications, there is a dedicated Game Booster which uses AI to improve gaming capabilities as the performance of the NPU increases by regulating the temperature while playing and blocks call thus ensuring smooth gameplay. Samsung is working on OneUI 2.0 for the Galaxy Note 10+ and will be soon available.

With the Galaxy Note series, the most highlighted thing is the S-Pen which provides more functionality and easy to use. With each version of Note, we get some new features. There are new camera gestures called Air Actions and since the S-Pen has a gyroscope so just swiping the S-Pen will take photos by changing various modes. You can even control music in apps like Spotify, Youtube etc.

By long pressing of the S-Pen, the note-taking app opens and the handwritten recognition has been improved over the previous Note series. In the Gallery app of the Galaxy Note 10+ just hovering over the images with the S-Pen tiny thumbnails of the images will pop up. There is even the AR Doodle feature which will be discussed in the camera section.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Camera:

By double-pressing the power button, the camera will be launched in the Galaxy Note 10+. The Galaxy Note 10+ also has the same setup as the Galaxy S10+ but here it gets a 3D ToF sensor for Depth Vision.

The cameras include 12MP main camera with variable aperture f/1.5 - f/2.4 with OIS + 12MP f/2.1 telephoto lens with OIS + 16MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera with no OIS and 3D ToF lens for depth photos.

You can easily switch between modes for photos and videos. Here one difference is to note that the telephoto lens on the Galaxy Note 10+ has an aperture of f/2.1. This aide in taking bright and low light photos with ease. In each mode, what Samsung calls is 'Scene Optimizer' is kept on to enhance the quality of the image.

There is also a feature called AR Doodle which uses the camera to help draw pictures and videos and provides funny stickers, emojis and there is also the AR Emoji which turns human subjects into cartoonish elements.

Main Camera:

The main camera takes very good photos with punchier colors and the dynamic range is wide enough. The biggest plus point is that the variable aperture comes in handy while shooting macros and scenes at a farther distance.

This setup is the same found on the Galaxy S9 series, Note 9, etc. With this setup, the camera can go to f/2.4 when there is enough light or f/1.5 when there is less light.

At night or low lighting conditions, the Galaxy Note 10+ shines as the dedicated Night Mode helps take some really good photos with proper details in the shadows and the objects look clearer. There isn't any artificial sharpening as the exposure works very well.

The OIS helps the camera capture photos with a good level of contrast as the photos look punchier with colors.

Telephoto Camera:

Coming to the 12MP telephoto camera, it is the same setup from the Galaxy S9+, Note 9, S10+, etc. During daylight, the photos come out great but the saturation level of colors isn't as great as the main camera.

However, the contrast and exposure in the background work well. Since it has a wider aperture that is f/2.1 compared to Galaxy S10+, it helps in taking more stable and clearer shots with better details.

The shadows look clearer and the background has good contrast in the photos. Coming to low lighting conditions, the Night Mode for the telephoto lens is present on the Galaxy Note 10+ which was missing on the Galaxy S10+.

The photos were taken during the night come well detailed with good contrast in the background. The level of detail in the shadows is excellent and switching this telephoto camera to portrait, the photos come out good with perfect background blur and less noise in the photos.

Ultrawide Camera:

Coming to the ultrawide camera, the Galaxy Note 10+ has a better ultrawide camera compared to the one on the OnePlus 7 Pro as it gets a wider field of view, and the color looks more natural in the photos.

The photos come out well with the ultrawide camera with the dynamic range working really well. With HDR turned on, the photos come out to be excellent and the colors come true to live. The only thing that the ultrawide camera lacks is autofocus but not a big problem as the manual focus works well.

In low lighting conditions, the ultrawide camera works pretty well as the level of detail in the shadow looks good but the contrast isn't that good. There is some artificial sharpening in the background but not to worry as it doesn't affect the image quality.

Samsung with its software updates has resolved this issue. With the Night Mode, the photos come extremely well lit and the level of details in the photos is almost equal to that of the main camera.

Portraits: 3D ToF camera

Now coming to portraits, the 3D ToF camera captures good portraits with good background blur and more natural-looking tones. The edge detection works very well for the device and with a telephoto camera, the portraits come out to be really good with wider aperture not much cropping in the photos.

Similarly, at night, the portraits come out good with proper background blur. However slight noise is noticed which isn't to bother much.

The OIS helps to take detailed photos with good color accuracy. Depth Vision helps in producing natural skin tones and with HDR on, the photos outshine.

Front Camera:

On the front, you get a 10MP camera which is a punch hole cut out in the display. The front camera takes very good selfies with natural-looking skin tones but sometimes too much skin smoothening occurs.

The white balance works well and with HDR on, the photos come out equally good. You do miss out on the depth camera of the Galaxy S10+ but not an issue. So in terms of edge detection in photos, the Galaxy S10+ holds an edge.

Coming to portraits from the front camera, the photos come out great but the edge detection isn't as great as on the photos taken from the Galaxy S10+. However, the background blur is well maintained.

Video Quality:

The Galaxy Note 10+ has many modes for videos and supports HDR 10+ recording which is found rarely on many flagship smartphones. The standard video recording is capped up to 4k @ 60fps. Then there are 2160p videos at 30 and 60fps.

The 1080p videos also have the same recording capability as the 2160p and 4k videos.

 The 4k video at 60fps is very good and with OIS you get good stable videos. However there is a slight loss of color in the video but switching to 4k at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps, the videos come out great.

There is even support for Super Steady video that has been enhanced from the one on the Galaxy S10+ with a wider field of view and you are getting really good stability in videos without losing any detail.

There is also Live Focus which helps the ultrawide and telephoto camera to capture the subject and background separately thus resulting in the photos with a clear focus and putting the background out of focus.

This somewhat similar to Bokeh Mode in many other smartphones.
There is also support for Super Slow-Mo videos at 720p@960fps for 0.4 or 0.8 seconds. There is also the normal Slow-motion video support that has good quality video and the level of detail is great.

Coming to the front, the front camera can shoot 1080p video with good sound quality and natural-looking skin tones. It is well stabilized also. The portrait videos also come out to be great with proper edge detection and background blur.

The videos can be trimmed, multiple clips can be joined, or adding of transitions, the S-Pen takes care of all these. So for videos, the Galaxy Note 10+ has a lot to offer.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Sound Quality:

The Galaxy Note 10+ like all other flagships comes with a stereo speaker as the bottom one and the earpiece doubles up thus providing excellent sound.

The sound output is very good and since it has Dolby Atmos, the sound further gets amplified and the loudness with bass level increases thus making the sound pleasant to hear.

The device misses out on a 3.5mm headphone jack which is a big disappointment considering that its own sibling the Galaxy S10+ has it. Though Samsung provides Type-C AKG headsets inside the box which are of good quality.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ Battery Life:

The Galaxy Note series has always provided good battery life and it is similar to the Galaxy Note 10+. The device comes with a 4300mAh and supports fast charging. The battery backup is good considering this huge 6.8 inches device.

With normal to moderate usage the device can easily last for a day with 15-20% left in the tank. With heavy usage that includes 2-3 hours of heavy gaming and watching videos, the device lasts around 10%. There is even support for Wireless Charging which has been improved and is faster.

The Galaxy Note 10+ supports 45W fast charging that means the phone can be charged from zero to full within an hour. Inside the box, there is a 25W fast charger. 45W charger is insane for a smartphone like this.

Then there is a feature called Wireless PowerShare which lets you charge other devices supporting this feature for eg. iPhone 11, Galaxy Earbuds.

Verdict:

The Galaxy Note 10+ offers a complete package with all the essential features as it packs a gorgeous and unique display, great cameras, and good software. The performance and gaming are top-notch as the device ships with a Snapdragon 855/ Exynos 9825 chipset inside.

Then there is the S-Pen as it gets some noticeable new features that ease many things thus providing more functionality. Another big thing that Samsung has done with this year's Note is that now it is bundling a 25W fast charger as the earlier Note devices came with 15W fast charger.

The Galaxy Note 10+ also supports 45W fast charging and provides good battery life.

The only disappointment was the lack of a 90Hz display which most of the competitors provide but still, the 60Hz Dynamic AMOLED is good with that punch-hole display.

Now coming to the price, the Galaxy Note 10+ is priced a bit premium as the base variant which comes with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage is priced at Rs.79999 and 12GB RAM and 512GB storage is priced at Rs.89999.

This is very much expensive but if you don't want that S-Pen then you can either go for the Galaxy S10+ which has almost the same specifications as the Galaxy Note 10+ at a slightly less price.

But what you are getting with the Galaxy Note 10+ is the ease of S-Pen, good overall performance, and a stunning display.

So the question asked, in the beginning, was whether it is the ultimate luxurious smartphone? And the answer is a definite Yes.

Check the prices of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 by clicking this link.


See also: 
Galaxy Note 10 launch & specs
OnePlus 7 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy Note 10+: the battle for the best flagship spot