By Samrat Amatya
It has been quite a year for Samsung. The brand has launched various successful smartphone series. But among all the line ups that the Korean tech giant launched, there is one series that stands out. It is the critically acclaimed Galaxy Note series of smartphones. And this year, we got two Note devices including the Note 10+. Compared to its predecessor, this new phablet from Samsung has a lot of things to offer. But with a price tag of a whopping Rs 1,35,000 is the phone the best smartphone that money can buy? Well, let’s find out!
Multi-media Experience
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is a multi-media wizard! It packs a large 6.8 inches Quad HD Dynamic AMOLED display with a 19:9 aspect ratio. The panel is almost bezel-less with a 91% screen-to-body ratio. This provides an excellent viewing experience for those Netflix binging sessions or those casual YouTube streaming. On the image quality front, the display produced some vivid images with exceptional details. No wonder, it is the best display on any smartphone right now.
Photography Experience
The camera is one of the most important factors while choosing a smartphone. It probably is the only camera that we carry around with us daily. That being the case, a flagship phone should have the most capable set of cameras available in the market. Luckily, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ has not just one, not two, but four amazing rear cameras.
The quad set-up is made by an f/1.5-2.4 12MP wide, f/2.1 12MP telephoto, f/2.2 16MP ultra-wide, and a VGA Time of Flight (TOF) sensor. This combo makes for quite a photography experience. The four sensors work in harmony to produce some amazing pictures. Photos taken from the camera are breathtaking with great details, depth, and vibrancy. The low-light photography is also top-notch with details and exposure maintained even under challenging situations. The noise is comparatively low with an acceptable dynamic range.
Talking about the in-built features, the cameras on the Note 10+ has a slew of them including a dedicated Night Mode. The phone also gets the Live Focus and a new Live Focus Video mode. This is all thanks to the TOF sensor and the better-optimised camera software. Besides the better bokeh effects and depth perception, the phone also gets the ability to 3D scan. In theory, this will allow you to scan anything and print the object using a 3D printer.
Day-to-day Experience
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is a beast of a phone! The onboard Exynos 9825 SoC backed by a whopping 12GB of RAM keeps the phone smooth and lag-free.
Now let’s talk about the most defining feature of the Note 10+, the S-Pen. This iteration of the stylus is better than ever. As usual, you can scribble on the phone with it and use it as a remote for your camera. But this time around, the S-Pen comes packed with a few neat tricks. You can now use it as a gesture-based input device. What that means is that you can use the S-Pen to perform various actions using just gestures. One prime example of this is to slide the stylus left or right, pressing the button, to flip through photos in the gallery app. This trick seems cool but it is not that practical!
One of the strongest suits of the Note 10+ is its astronomical battery life.
The onboard 4300mAh battery got me around 6-7 hours of battery life on a single charge. To be honest, this is the most I have got from a smartphone to date. Truly impressed! Casual users will get around two days of battery life out of the device. And the cherry on top is its 45W charging capability. The Note 10+ can completely juice up in about an hour. Sadly, to get this charging speed you have to buy an equivalent charger. That said, the 25W adapter that comes inside the box is no slouch either scaling a similar charge time.
Software Experience
The Note 10+ runs One UI 1.5 based on Android 9.0 Pie. This iteration of Samsung’s custom UI is smooth and lag-free. I also love the iconography and design of the UI. Samsung really has come a long way.
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is one of the best phones money can buy right now. Although a bit pricey, the phone is worth it for the extra feature set it provides. It has one of the best displays, design, performance, cameras, and battery life. It is a productivity workhorse that packs an S-Pen and a lot of useful software tweaks. For anyone looking for a device for both work and play, the Galaxy Note 10+ is a great choice.
