Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus Review: Big, Beautiful, Powerful. But, Perfect?

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus is supposedly the best smartphone in the world right now. In a single sentence “It’s a big phone that has everything”. Note 10 Plus is not the only Note that Samsung released this year. Samsung has also launched a smaller Note without some feature available on Note 10 Plus.

But it’s all about the Note 10 Plus, the bigger, the better one. So, how good is the all-new Note 10+? and should you upgrade? Let’s find out!

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus Review

Design

First thing first, Note 10+ is a huge device. It’s almost impossible to use it with a single hand and your small pockets might not be able to fit in this device. Note the phone for you, if you wear tight jeans.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is the best-designed Samsung phone so far. This version of metal and glass sandwich is boxier than the previous note’s and it looks even cleaner. The edge to edge display, punch-hole, minimal bezels, curved edges, and the trippy aura glow color; all of it makes up for a great looking phone.

It has full IP68 water resistance, so you can take it with you when you go to the pool and don’t have to worry. There’s a slight camera bump but doesn’t deter the experience.

It rocks a USB Type C, speaker, mic, and S-Pen on the bottom whereas there are a sim slot, second speaker and another mic on the top.

But, what am I missing? Yeah, you know it. The headphone jack! Samsung has finally ditched the headphone jack and it’s sad but I think its time people switch over to the wireless earphones. As much as I love my wired earphones, I’ve been loving the wireless earphones and they have certainly gotten better.

Well, this is one of the changes that you can notice on the new Note but it’s not the only one. Note 10 Plus has the volume rocker and the unlock button on the left instead of the right side. The unlock button is customizable and can act as a power button on a long hold. But, the best news is that there’s no dedicated Bixby button.

Major manufacturers started providing multi-colored glass back and Samsung has finally decided to give its flagship phone the same treatment. What we get is an aura glow option which gives off multiple colors at multiple angles depending on the lighting.

I’m not the fan of the aura glow, but it’s fine. It’s best if you wanna show off your all-new fancy Note 10+.

Display

As usual, Samsung uses one of the best displays available in the market. And, it’s no surprise that the Note 10+ has an amazing display. It’s a 1440p, Dynamic AMOLED display that curves on the edges. However, the curve is not as dramatic as it used to be. There’s a punch hole right in the middle of the screen and I like it better than the punch hole on the S10 Plus. But, I am disappointed that it’s only a 60Hz display.

The color reproduction is the best you will get in any smartphone. It’s vivid, bright, and gives you an amazing multimedia experience. The punch hole is not as intrusive for me as it could be for some people. The fact that it only houses a single camera makes it small and gives you much more symmetrical design that I like.

Well, I just wonder how good the display would have been if it were to have a higher refresh rate.

Rear Camera

Onto the camera, the Note 10 Plus has a familiar triple camera setup on the rear. It still uses the dual aperture main sensor, a 2X telephoto lens, and an ultra-wide-angle sensor. Note 10 Plus is not a much of an upgrade over the S10 Plus in terms of camera, the only thing it adds is a TOF 3D sensor.

The dynamic range, color and contrast ratio is amazing on the Note 10 Plus. And, the good thing is it maintains consistency over all the sensors.

Among all the sensors, I adore the ultra-wide-angle camera on the Note 10 Plus. It’s amazing for capturing landscapes and it’s probably the best wide-angle sensor on a smartphone.

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So, the new TOF 3D sensor helps is taking better portrait photos. The edge detection and background blur are really good and the blur also looks more gradual. It doesn’t look like a photoshop effect. Plus, you can also manage the blur intensity after taking the picture and you can also add various blur effects.

Talking about another improvement, Samsung Note 10 Plus has a dedicated night mode. S10 Plus received the night mode after the update and it was not as good at first but it has improved after some updates.

However, Note 10’s dedicated night mode is on the level of Google’s NightSight. It helps you to take much better night photographs. NIght mode is available on the all the three sensors, plus night mode is also available on the front camera but doesn’t work as well as the rear camera’s.

Front Camera

The front camera on the Note is impressive as well. The colors are good, the detail level is nice as well, and the HDR also works great. You can use portrait mode as well, which will give you some good bokeh selfies. Plus, you can use some AR effects to have some fun with the front camera.

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Video

Now, onto the videos, Note 10 Plus can capture up to 4k60fps. The stabilization on 4k is good as well but the super steady option on the 1080p gives you fantastic stabilization.

The video quality is no doubt the best, the color, dynamic range, and HDR. Everything looks perfect.

Performance

Galaxy Note 10 Plus uses Exynos 9825 chipset, 12GB RAM, and 256GB of internal storage. Note 10 Plus sails smoothly. App opening, switching app, and multiwindow is smooth as butter and its equally good while gaming.

Games like Asphalt 9 and PUBG ran on max graphics without any hitch. Also, the gaming performance was not affected by the heat.

S-Pen

The Note is not a “note” without the S-pen. Note users are a fan of the S-pen but I’m not one of them. I used it for a while at the start but as I kept on using the device, I had fewer reasons to use the S-Pen.

The S-Pen this year is slightly different with some new features. There are air gestures which help in changing camera mode and taking pictures but it is still a work in progress.

Well, it’s still good for the usual stuff like annotation, taking notes, and drawing over screenshots. Also, the new handwriting recognition is impressive too. It transcribes the words you’ve written on the Note and then you can search the particular notes on the basis of the words.

Battery

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus includes a huge 4300 mAh battery and the battery life is very impressive. Not as impressive as it would have liked it to be, but it’s good.

On average you’ll get around 4 and a half-hour of the screen on time on moderate usage. Well, I managed to get almost 6 hours (5 hour and 45mins) of the screen on time with the Note 10 Plus and the least I got was 3 and a half hours.

Software

Samsung’s UI was one of its key weakness before its new ONE UI. However, the ONE UI has brought a vast amount of improvement and smoothness to the Samsung devices.

The big icons and throughout UI elements are extremely good for one-handed usage on a big phone like these. But, still one-handed is not the way to go on the Note 10 Plus.

There are not many features exclusive to the Note 10 Plus. We get the usual night mode, digital wellbeing, always-on display, and others.

Conclusion

So, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus has an impressive build, design, display, camera, performance, and battery. It’s a well-made phone that does not compromise. However, it’s not a compelling upgrade over the Note 9 or the S10.

It’s an expensive device that costs 1 lakh 35 thousand in Nepal but there are no significant upgrades.

Thus, if you want a Note then this is the Note that you would want to get. But, if you already have a Note 9 then, it’s not necessary to upgrade.