Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ On Wednesday, Samsung announced the latest generation of its Galaxy Note series and for the first time, the Note is offered in two sizes: the 6.
8" Note 10+ and the 6. 3" Note 10. If you want everything the Note offers but don't love a massive phone, you now have the option of a slightly less massive phone!
We had the opportunity to get our hands on the new phones at Samsung's launch event in New York. Take a look at what's new in the Note series.
Triple cameras for all!
Both the Note 10 and Note 10+ share a nearly-identical rear triple camera array with the S10 series. That's a 12MP main camera with F1. 5/F2. 4 dual apertures and a 27mm equivalent field-of-view, a 12mm equivalent ultra-wide 16MP F2. 2 camera and a 52mm equivalent 12MP tele camera with F2. 1 aperture – slightly faster than the F2. 4 tele lens in the S10 series. Both the main and tele rear cameras are optically stabilized. While the main camera has a dual pixel sensor design for fast AF, the tele lens utilizes masked phase-detect pixels, which we've found on prior Samsung models to offer a sub-par autofocus experience.
The Note 10 (above) lacks one key camera feature Note 10+ offers: a Time-of-Flight camera for better depth-mapping and live bokeh effects in video mode (more on that later), and presumably better augmented reality experiences.
Front-facing camera
Both the Note 10 and 10+ use a hole punch-style front-facing camera. There's no dual selfie camera on either model (the S10+ and S10 5G models had accompanying RGB depth and ToF flight cameras, respectively), just a 10MP 26mm equiv. lens with F2. 2 aperture. This camera does not feature optical stabilization, but the sensor is a dual pixel design for fast autofocus.
Video recording
The Note 10 and 10+ are capable video shooters as well. The rear camera can record 4K UHD video at up to 60 fps with optical stabilization only, and up to 4K/30p with optical lens stabilization and electronic image stabilization (for very steady footage). The rear camera can shoot HDR10+ video for playback on HDR TVs; however, there's no mention of HDR capture in video. The AMOLED displays on both Note 10 devices are HDR10+ certified, which isn't surprising given the high contrast ratio, brightness and wide (P3) color gamut of Samsung OLED displays.
Both devices are capable of super slow motion video, with 960 fps capability in 720p mode, and 240 fps capability in 1080p.
Live focus video
The Note 10 and 10+ offer something first introduced by the S10 5G: live shallow depth-of-field effects for video recording. Users can change focus between background and foreground on the fly, and adjust the level of blur to taste.
We'll be curious to test if the Note 10+ has a better implementation of live focus video thanks to its ToF camera.
Video depth-of-field effects
Not only can you blur the background behind your subject, you can add a few different effects like black-and-white backgrounds, out-of-focus highlight overlays, and this red/blue stereoscopic treatment. Maybe 3D cameras aren't dead after all?
Still photo depth-of-field effects
Background blur effects are also available for still photos – a feature introduced in the S10 and recently added to the S9 series via software update. As in the S10, the Note 10 and 10+ provide the ability to add effects as you're shooting or after-the-fact.
S Pen, headphone jack and other curiosities
Other highlights on the new phones include the ability to control certain functions by gesture via the updated S Pen. Samsung will open up its 'Air actions SDK' to invite third party developers to make use of this way of interacting with the phone. And sadly, the 3. 5mm headphone jack has left the building – the USB-C connector will allow for wired audio connections.
The Galaxy Note 10 starts at $950; the Note 10+ starts at $1100.
. dpreview.com2019-8-10 16:00
