The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 just went official, and the standard model — in other words, the "non-Plus" version — came as a bit of a surprise.
That is to say, it doesn't quite live up to the premium quality that the Note line has been associated with, though the Galaxy Note 10 Plus does. In short, it's more comparable to the likes of the Galaxy S10e, which is touted as the budget variant of the Galaxy S10 line.
Galaxy Note 10 vs. Galaxy S10e
The screen of the Galaxy Note 10 measures at 6.3 inches and the Galaxy S10e's at 5.8 inches, but both have the same Dynamic AMOLED display with a 2,280 x 1,080 resolution, meaning the latter has sharper, denser pixels on it.
Speaking of similarities, the two are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, running on Android 9 Pie with a One UI skin on top. The Galaxy S10e has a cheaper variant with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of built-in storage, but it can go up to 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of capacity, which is the default and only option for the Galaxy Note 10. The difference here is that the Galaxy S10e has a microSD card slot that supports up to 1 TB, while the Galaxy Note 10 doesn't.
As for the cameras, the Galaxy S10e sports a dual camera setup on the back that consists of 12-megapixel wide and 16-megapixel ultrawide lenses. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Note 10 has three snappers that's composed of 12-megapixel wide, 12-megapixel telephoto, and 16-megapixel ultrawide lenses. They both have a 10-megapixel wide camera on the front.
Now the Galaxy S10e has a 3,100 mAh battery and the Galaxy Note 10 has a 3,500 mAh battery. The 400 mAh difference might seem like a small win for the latter, but it does support 25W fast charging. The Galaxy S10e can only go up to 15W.
Samsung also got rid of the headphone jack starting with the Galaxy Note 10 lineup, and to sum things up on that note, the Galaxy S10e has the advantage of supporting legacy audio devices. In addition to that, it has an expandable storage, a sharper display, and a cheaper price point.
However, for those who can live with Bluetooth headphones or dongles, the Galaxy Note 10 has the obvious advantage of the S Pen, which now has gesture controls support. It also has an under-display fingerprint reader to boot and more cameras to work with. The faster charging rate is also a big plus.
The Galaxy Note 10 is priced at $949.99, and it's expected to ship out on Aug. 23. The Galaxy S10e has been available for some time already, and it starts at $749.99.
Galaxy Note 10e?
From the look of things, Samsung is making the standard Galaxy Note 10 as the budget version of the Note line, but rather than naming it something like Galaxy Note 10e, it's differentiating the Galaxy Note that fans know and love from the affordable version with the Plus label instead.
