Samsung Galaxy Note 10 plus

 

The 6.3-inch Note 10 is one of the most compact big-screen phones yet, thanks to its nearly bezel-free Infinity-O screen — and some features Samsung left on the cutting room floor. The Note 10 also boasts several S-Pen enhancements (including gestures), introduces helpful video recording features and a new way to mirror the phone on a PC.

Although the $949/£869 Note 10 doesn't represent the pinnacle of Samsung's phablets, it should hit the sweet spot for most people in terms of size and specs. The idea of a compact phablet might sound crazy, but it actually makes a whole lot of sense when you use it.

However, there are some trade-offs. You won’t find a headphone jack on the Note 10, and the microSD card slot is gone, too. The Note 10’s screen also isn’t as sharp as its predecessor's, though you'd be hard pressed to notice a difference between them.

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Today the Note 10 is still a great device, even with the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 now out. The new Note raises the screen size to 6.7 inches, making it potentially unsuitable to those interested in the Note 10 for its smaller footprint. It also features half the storage and no microSD slot for expandability. In other respects, the Note 20 seems like a worthy update; you can read our Samsung Galaxy Note 20 vs. Galaxy Note 10 face-off for a deeper explanation into how the two phones differ.

Read on for our in-depth Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 review: Everything you need to know about the latest Note
Galaxy Note 10 vs. Galaxy Note 9: Should you upgrade?
Plus: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 review: The ultimate foldable phone has arrived
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review: Cheat sheet
The Galaxy Note 10 isn't just thinner and lighter than the Galaxy Note 9; it's the most compact phone ever with a 6.3-inch screen. In fact, it's so tiny for its display size that we consider it among the best small phones you can buy.
Samsung kept the cameras mostly the same compared to the Galaxy S10, with wide, ultrawide and telephoto lenses. But it did bring Live Focus effects to video. A software update has brought some of the Galaxy S20's camera features to the Galaxy Note 10.
The Snapdragon 855 inside the Galaxy Note 10 delivers impressive performance, though other flagship Android phones — especially those with Qualcomm's newer Snapdragon 865 chipset — outperform it, and Apple's A13 Bionic chip in the iPhone 11 range absolutely smokes it.
The S Pen performs Air Actions, such as changing camera modes with a wave of your hand. You can also convert handwriting to text, but it's not seamless.
Samsung killed both the headphone jack and microSD card slot, but at least the bundled USB-C headphones offer noise cancelling.
The Galaxy Note 10 Plus has a bigger 6.8-inch screen, more RAM, larger battery and fourth camera on the back for depth sensing, but it costs $150/£130 more.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review: Price and availability
The Galaxy Note 10 is available for $949/£869, though we recommend you check out all the best Galaxy Note 10 deals out there before you decide where to buy. All of the major U.S. carriers are selling the Note 10, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.

Get access to purchase

Samsung is currently offering an instant credit of $220 or more when you trade-in a device in good condition. Find out more details at Samsung.com(opens in new tab).

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 specs
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Header Cell - Column 0 Galaxy Note 10
Price $949/£869
Display 6.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED (2280x1080)
CPU Snapdragon 855 (US); Exynos 9825 (WW)
RAM 8GB
Storage 256GB
microSD Slot? No
Rear cameras 12MP wide (ƒ/1.5-f/2.4); 16MP ultrawide (ƒ/2.2); telephoto (ƒ/2.1)
Front cameras 10MP (ƒ/2.2)
Battery 3,500 mAh
Charging 25W; 45W optional
OS Android 10 with Samsung OneUI
Colors Aura Glow, Aura White, Aura Black, Aura Blue
Size 5.9 x 2.8 x 0.31 inches
Weight 5.9 ounces
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review: Design
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review

Galaxy Note 10 Plus (left) and Note 10 (right) (Image credit: Tom's Guide)
The Galaxy Note 10 is easily one of the most striking phones out there, especially if you go for the Aura Glow color. That model gives off a silvery iridescence that changes hues as light strikes it at different angles. You can also get it in Aura White, Aura Black and Aura Blue, with that last color exclusive to Best Buy(opens in new tab) and Samsung.com. Some regions receive additional colors, like Aura Red, that aren't available in North America.

The most impressive thing about the Galaxy Note 10 is how it feels in your hand. At 6.3 inches, the Galaxy Note 10 has a slightly smaller screen than the 6.4-inch Galaxy Note 9, but it’s remarkably thinner and lighter. The Note 10 weighs just 5.9 ounces and is 5.9 x 2.8 x 0.31 inches thick, compared to a whopping 7.1 ounces and 6.3 x 3 x 0.34 inches for 2018's Galaxy Note 9.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review

(Image credit: Future)
In fact, Samsung’s new phablet doesn't feel like a phablet at all when you hold it; it just feels normal. For a sense of perspective, the Note 10 is roughly two-tenths of an inch longer and a tenth wider than the Google Pixel 3 I regularly use, but packs a screen that's a whopping 0.8 inches larger from corner to corner.

The result is a Note that is surprisingly comfortable to use one-handed. If you're especially mindful about owning a phone that slips easily into your pocket, or generally isn't cumbersome to live with, the Note 10 offers the biggest possible display in the smallest possible footprint right now. The steeply-sloped sides and miniscule bezels can occasionally yield unintentional touches at the edges of the display, though I generally found Samsung's palm rejection algorithm to be good at determining when I actually meant to interact with the device.

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Overall, there's little to be annoyed with here from a design perspective. For what it's worth, I don't like that the power button and volume controls are both on the left side of the phone; as I'm right-handed, I'd prefer them to be on the opposite side. Southpaws may be pleased, though perhaps Samsung could have split the difference and put some keys on the left and others on the right.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review

(Image credit: Future)
Another minor gripe: depending on the color you get, the Note 10 can be a fingerprint super-magnet. Lots of handsets attract prints these days, but because the Aura Glow finish is literally that of a mirror with neat rainbow effects, if you look at the back of the phone from any perspective, smudges and smears are guaranteed to catch your eye. This is less true of the other colorways — the presence of a consistent hue can somewhat cloak that ugliness. But if you're the type of person that finds yourself frequently wiping your phone with a microfiber cloth, you're going to get a repetitive stress injury polishing the Aura Glow Note 10.

Yes, the headphone jack is gone. Samsung ditched the 3.5-millimeter jack on both Note 10 models, as well as the microSD card slot on the smaller one in particular to achieve a sleeker design. On the plus side, Samsung is bundling AKG headphones in the box that use USB Type-C, and the Note 10 is at least still rated IP68 water-resistant, earning it a spot on our list of the best waterproof phones.

Like Samsung's other recent premium handsets, the Note 10 has an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor baked into the display. The sensor is usually responsive and secure, though users have discovered that it can be easily fooled if certain third-party screen protectors have been applied to the device. A subsequent software update from Samsung reportedly fixes this issue, though it's something buyers may want to test themselves.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review: Display
The Galaxy Note 10 features a 6.3-inch Infinity-O display, which has a cutout located in the top center of the panel. Personally, I find the Note 10’s hole punch less distracting than the one on the Samsung Galaxy S10, which is on the right side.

The cutout is most obvious when you’re using an app with a white background, as you'd expect, though the diameter of the Note's front-facing camera is smaller than that of the S10 or S10e. In other words, it's not nearly as obtrusive as it could be. In fact, after a while, you start to forget it's there.

(Image credit: Future)
One downgrade from the Note 9 to the Note 10 concerns the quality of the screen. The Note 10’s Dynamic AMOLED display packs 2280x1080 pixels, compared to 3040x1440 panel in the Note 10 Plus. That said, the resolution decrease sounds worse than it is. I don’t think most people will notice a difference, and you still get the same great colors and HDR10+ certification as you do on the larger model.

In terms of numbers, the Galaxy Note 10 offers one of the brightest and most accurate displays we've tested to date. At 674 nits of full-screen brightness, the Note 10's panel is just overshadowed by the Plus variant's 686 nits. The smaller device's screen still produces accurate colors, as evidenced by its 0.26 Delta-E score (numbers closer to zero are better). In Natural mode, the Note 10's screen covers a good swath of the sRGB spectrum at 125.1%. The Note 10 Plus delivered results of 0.25 and 124.6% in these categories, respectively. (As with all other Samsung phones, there's an optional Vivid color profile, too, if you prefer more saturated hues).

But it's the brightness that makes all the difference. Cranked up to the highest setting, the Note 10's panel can illuminate details that would go unseen on other handsets' screens, while still maintaining the perfect blacks you'd expect from AMOLED technology. Watching the teaser trailer for El Camino, the Breaking Bad movie, some of the shadowy figures in the interrogation room were more clearly discernible on Samsung's display compared to when viewing the same clip on a Pixel 3.

Ultimately, if you're after the sharpest display you can get, the 6.8-inch Note 10 Plus sports a higher pixel density of 498 pixels-per-inch, compared to 401 on this smaller model. Unfortunately, neither model has a 120Hz refresh rate like the OnePlus 8 Pro, so you miss out on silky-smooth animations and scrolling. That would have been nice to see; while the Note 10's screen is among the finest the industry has to offer right now, without that superfast refresh rate, it doesn't feel like much of a generational leap.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review: S Pen

(Image credit: Future)
The S Pen has gained some new tricks on the Galaxy Note 10 — though some of them come across as more gimmicky than useful.

One of the S Pen's hallmark features has been the ability to convert handwriting to text. New for the Note 10, Samsung's OneUI software now offers a transcription-and-export option, that will allow you to save the note as text and send it to a Word doc, PDF or another file type, in one action. It's a clever feature, though much like the S Pen's other powerful transcription capabilities, it's somewhat convoluted to access.

For example, if you scrawl out a Screen Off Memo or Quick Memo outside of the Samsung Notes app, you'll have to tap an on-screen button to move that document to the Notes app before you can start converting phrases and entire documents. Additionally, if you'd rather have handwriting-to-text conversion carried out as you write on the fly, you'll have to open the keyboard, swipe over to the keyboard page that offers additional features and tap another icon before you can begin writing with live transcription.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 S Pen

(Image credit: Future)
While I appreciate that Samsung offers so many ways to use the S Pen to write, and while transcription works well in practice, the company desperately needs to make it easier to locate these features. Having to move a note I'm already taking to a separate app so I can edit and transcribe it creates a strange and unnecessary extra step. And I suspect when taking notes, most people would probably prefer live transcription, so burying that feature behind several layers of keyboard menus doesn't seem like the brightest idea either.

Thankfully, you don’t have to apply nearly as much effort to use the new Air Actions gestures for the S Pen. For instance, you can change camera modes in the camera app just by swiping the stylus in the air while you press the button, and you can zoom in by making a circular motion with the S Pen. This worked, but it took some practice to get the hang of. As I discovered, you don't want to hold the button indefinitely — only when you're actively making the motion.

The Note 10 could use properly-executed software to match its phenomenal hardware.

At this point, it's difficult to imagine a scenario in which Air Actions would be especially beneficial, save for the classic tripod scenario. Samsung started opening up the S Pen SDK to developers last year, so there is an opportunity for Air Actions to flourish, if developers choose to take advantage of them. At the moment, though, the feature isn't even present in most of the Note 10's first-party software, so there's still lots of work to be done on Samsung's end.

Last but not least, there’s a new AR Doodle feature that has the potential to create viral moments with your friends. Using the S Pen, you can draw on a live view of a subject or multiple subjects, and whatever you draw on them (a hat, mustache, etc.) will travel with them as they move about the frame.

While roughly 9-and-a-half hours of battery life is not necessarily a deal-breaker, it does make the Note 10 a less compelling proposition, and gives those especially concerned about longevity on a charge a reason to spring for the Note 10 Plus instead.

At least when it’s time to juice back up, you’ll be happy to know that the Note 10 ships with a 25-watt charger, which is the same that came in the box with the Galaxy S10 5G. In our testing, the Note 10 went from dead to 26% in 15 minutes, and hit 47% after a half hour. That's not too shabby, though the Note 10 Plus can achieve even faster speeds. Sometime in September, Samsung will begin selling an optional 45W charger that works exclusively with the Plus model, that promises to get you through the whole day after being plugged in for only 30 minutes.

The Note 10 also features speedy 15W wireless charging, as well as the convenient Wireless Power Share feature pioneered by the Galaxy S10, so you’ll be able to charge other Qi-compatible phones and gadgets, like a pair of Galaxy Buds, using the back of the Note 10.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review: Verdict
Power users and spec heads will have a bone to pick with Samsung over the Galaxy Note 10. On paper, you're sacrificing the Note 9's larger screen, getting a smaller battery and losing both the headphone jack and microSD storage.

So what’s left? An extremely svelte big-screen phone that offers faster performance, better cameras and new S Pen tricks. And while some will surely lament the omission of a memory card slot, 256GB of space built in is generous and arguably makes up for that slight.

Those chasing the finest performance and largest display possible may flock to the 6.8-inch Galaxy Note 10 Plus or newer Note 20 Ultra, as they should. But for everyone else, the regular Note 10 should be a very special phablet — precisely because there's never been one this compact and easy to live with before.

Oh, and one final note: At this point, prospective Note 10 buyers may want to take a look at the $999 Galaxy Note 20 and even more premium $1,299 Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. And now that the S Pen works with the Galaxy S21 Ultra, you could go that route, too, if you wanted.