(slow music)
This is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus.
You know the Note, right?
It was the first big phone,
but now every phone is big.
Then, it was the most powerful big phone.
But nearly all big Android phones have really
great specs now. So what's left for the Note?
Samsung will tell you that there are a bunch
of things. But really, there's just one thing:
the S Pen,
the stylus.
See, the Note starts at $1,100,
which is hundreds of dollars more
than comparable phones,
even phones that Samsung makes.
So you have to ask yourself:
how badly do you want this stylus?
(upbeat music)
Now, before we get too far into this review,
I know that the Note is about more
than just having a stylus.
Is there something you want in a smartphone?
Because this thing has it:
a massive screen, top-flight specs,
all-day battery, good cameras, DeX,
beautiful looks, a depth sensor for AR.
Except for the fact that it's missing
a headphone jack,
this really is the everything phone.
It's even giving you a choice of two sizes.
This larger Note 10 Plus
and then a smaller, regular Note 10.
Now, we haven't had time to fully review
the smaller Note,
but if you're not a spec hypebeast,
I think it might be more interesting for you.
It's not that much bigger than a Galaxy S10,
and I bet most people wouldn't miss
the extra RAM and battery life
that you get on the big Note 10.
Really, though,
this Note 10 Plus is the true Note.
It's about the same size as last year's Note 9,
and that size is big.
It has a 6.8-inch HD+ AMOLED screen,
and it is beautiful.
The Note's display might not have a high
refresh rate that you can get on the OnePlus 7 Pro,
but that's literally the only thing
that's missing from it.
It is bright and color-accurate,
and it goes all the way to the edge of the phone.
This thing looks like the future in the way
that most phones do not.
The screen will spoil you.
It's also the true Note
because it's the one with the best specs.
But again, beefy specs don't set
the Note apart anymore —
not the way they used to.
So let's talk about the stylus.
(upbeat music)
Samsung added a gyroscope and an accelerometer
to it so you can wave it around to control
the camera and maybe other apps eventually.
What you do is you hold the button down,
and then you make these little gestures.
And then the camera does stuff
like zoom in or switch modes or take a photo.
It's neat, I guess, but, you know,
it's kind of a gimmick.
The other thing that's pretty gimmicky
but stupid fun, is AR Doodles.
So in the first mode, you can draw on people's faces,
and the mustaches and beards and horns
or whatever
stay pinned to their faces when you
or they move around,
and it works pretty well.
But the one I really enjoy is doing it
in the "Everywhere" mode.
It lets you draw shapes in, like, arbitrary space,
and they stay pinned to where
you were drawing them pretty well.
It's not quite as good as Tilt Brush,
but it's way better than I expected.
Now, I enjoyed both of these things quite a lot,
but if anybody uses this more than three times,
I would be completely shocked.
Now, the real upgrade for the stylus
is actually in the software
on the phone itself in Samsung Notes.
You can quickly take a note without turning
the phone on, just like before,
but now, those handwritten notes are searchable,
and you can extract the text
out of them via OCR.
It works way better than I expected,
even with my garbage handwriting.
There are a million other things
that this stylus does.
It can magnify stuff on the screen.
It can make an app into a weird little picture-in-picture
box that you can hover over.
It is also the best screenshot drawing thing
that you can get on a phone.
At this point, you're either giddy with excitement
over this little stick, or you're shrugging.
And that's fair. I mean, look.
Here are the only important reasons
to spend hundreds of dollars more
for the Note 10 Plus over the Galaxy S10 Plus:
slightly bigger screen,
slightly bigger battery
with slightly faster charging,
and the stylus. That's it.
Okay so, there are a bunch of other things
that the Note can do, and I'm going
to get into all of them.
But before that, I have to admit,
there's one other thing about the Note 10 Plus
that I really like besides the stylus.
It's just really nice. It's like a luxury object,
like a Rolex or an Eames chair.
You're paying more for the brand name
and just for how well-made this object is.
I mean, Samsung has poured everything
that it has learned about making hardware
into the Note 10 Plus.
The glass curves and melts
into the middle rail.
The screen goes fully edge to edge,
and the fingerprint sensor
is underneath the screen.
The stylus is unibody now, and, hell,
Samsung even made the ports line up.
Just as a physical object,
there is no more beautiful or well-made phone.
And if you care about having the nicest thing,
this is it.
Now, the cameras are essentially unchanged
from the Galaxy S10, which means
that they're really good.
Now, this is the part where you expect me to say
that the Pixel 3 is slightly better,
and, well, it is and it isn't.
In challenging or low-light situations,
or if you really start pixel-peeping, yes,
the Pixel 3 is better. But the Note 10
has a telephoto and an ultrawide lens,
and the camera app actually launches faster.
So as a whole package,
I actually enjoy using this more,
at least in good light.
This wide angle is fun, right?
The answer is yes. Yes, it is.
Now, the Note 10 Plus also is probably
the very best Android phone for taking video,
but that doesn't mean that it holds up
to an iPhone XS.
So Samsung has added a few new features
to make video better.
The first is Live Focus,
which blurs the background in video,
and it's bad. Don't use it.
They've also slightly improved
video stabilization.
I really like the other thing they put in,
which is a bare-bones video editor.
It's actually not bad.
It's almost what I wish iMovie was on the iPhone.
And using a stylus to edit video on a phone
is way easier than using your big fat fingers.
The last thing is a zoom mic option,
which tries to make the audio from the thing
that you're zoomed in on louder than the audio
that's near the phone, and it works... sort of.
I don't know. It's not magic.
Here, check it out.
Becca is speaking.
H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P...
And I'm speaking at the same time.
Q, R, S, T, U, V...
And now we're zooming in on her,
and I'm continuing to speak.
W, X, Y, and Z...
While she continues to speak.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G...
And I'm also speaking.
H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P...
And then we zoom away from her.
Q, R, S, T, U, V...
She is speaking.
W, X, Y and Z...
And now we should hear my voice more
than her voice.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G...
She's just getting really tired of saying
the alphabet.
Now we come to the part where I talk
about a bunch of Samsung features
because there are a lot of Samsung features.
Let's start with DeX, which is that thing
that you plug your phone into a monitor,
and then it turns it into a mini computer.
It works in a whole new way this year,
exclusively on the Note 10.
There is now a DeX app for both Windows and Mac
that lets you have a window for doing all
of your phone stuff right on your computer,
which is the thing that you actually carry
with you instead of a, you know, rando monitor.
DeX is okay. It's not super fast,
but it is a really convenient way to do texting
directly from your computer,
or drag and drop files between your phone
and your computer. But it's much better in theory
than it is in execution.
You see, the thing is — actually, you know what?
I have a lot of things to say about DeX
and this whole dream of making your phone
into your computer, so I'm going to do
another video on that next week.
For this review, what you should know
is that it could be useful in a pinch,
but it's definitely not a reason
to buy this phone.
All right, what else has Samsung packed
into this thing? Well, a ton actually.
There is a depth camera in the back here
that can measure the size of stuff
and eventually is going to let you scan
3D objects and put them into your own AR.
I didn't get to test that, but I wouldn't expect
the quality is going to be great.
There's also a new version of their game mode
that makes it easier to tweak settings
and also grab screenshots.
There's just also a million other
Samsung settings with a lock screen
and the edge panel and all the rest.
And then there's Bixby.
Bixby's still here, but Samsung did get rid
of the dedicated button for it.
It's built into the power button,
but actually understanding what's going
to happen when you press the power button
gets a little bit complicated, even with the new
configuration settings.
And also, you know, Bixby still isn't good,
which means you're going to still end up
using Google Assistant instead.
Samsung has also partnered with Microsoft, and so
there's a bunch of Microsoft stuff in here.
It links up to the Your Phone app on Windows,
and Microsoft smartphone apps are preinstalled.
And by the way, that means that there are now
three email apps on this thing out of the box:
Gmail, Samsung mail, and Outlook. Cool.
Samsung has gotten better at software with One UI,
and I don't hate it anymore. But
you do have to learn a bunch of Samsung ways
of doing things and have to deal with choosing
between Samsung apps or Google apps
or, now, Microsoft apps.
For experts, it's totally manageable.
But for everybody else, it's a real hassle.
And of course, Samsung takes way too long
to get the full version upgrades of Android
pushed out its devices.
It's doing security updates faster now,
and One UI does so much that you might not be sad
about not getting Android Q right away, but
it's still annoying.
(upbeat music)
There's so much stuff in the Note 10 Plus
that it's dizzying, and Samsung software
just barely manages to contain it all
and keep it comprehensible.
It really does have everything...
except a headphone jack.
And I really like some of it and I also
hate some of it, but none of it is the reason
to either buy or skip this phone.
See, the Note 10 Plus is a smartphone
that goes to 11 for $1,100.
But again, there are Android phones
and even Samsung phones
that cost hundreds of dollars less and get you
nearly all the way there.
The OnePlus 7 Pro is still amazing,
and the Pixel 4 is only a couple of months away.
Plus, the Galaxy S10 Plus is not
all that different from this thing.
Look, some people just want the nicest thing,
and this, very clearly, is the very nicest
Android phone by far.
I love how luxurious the hardware is.
I mean, look at this color.
But I can't say it's a great reason to buy
this phone, so it really comes down
to this little thing: the S Pen.
The thing is, though,
unless you really want a stylus,
I don't think it's worth spending
the extra money for the Note 10 Plus.
Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for watching.
I'm really excited I got to just review a phone
instead of talk about the future of computers,
but I'm going to talk about the future
of computers next week because I'm making
the DeX video. So let me know in the comments
what you think of DeX
and what your questions are about it,
and we'll see you next week.