Samsung has the best implementation of a stylus for smartphones – not that there is much competition – but it comes at a price. Previously, it was only available on Galaxy Note phones, which at the time were Samsung’s most expensive handsets. These days it is available with the Galaxy S Ultra and Z Fold models, along with the premium Galaxy Tab S models, none of which are cheap (some Galaxy Book laptops support it too).
There was one exception in early 2020 – the Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite. It was unveiled on the same day as the S10 Lite which we covered last time and it shared some similarities (beyond the price), though it had some crucial differences too.
We’ll start with the display. It was a 6.7” panel with 1,080 x 2,400px resolution, the same basic dimensions as the S10 Lite display. However, this panel featured the extra digitizer layer that allowed the S Pen stylus to do its thing.
Samsung even used the fancy new Bluetooth-enabled S Pen, unlike the purely passive styluses of older Notes. This made it possible to use the S Pen as a remote, e.g. to snap a photo at a distance or control the music player. It wasn’t quite as advanced as the one used in the Note10+ and Note10 as it was missing certain gestures. Still, it was miles ahead of the typical capacitive stylus that you might get with certain other phones.
Compared to the premium Note10 duo from six months earlier, the Galaxy Note10 Lite was larger than the vanilla model (6.7” display vs. 6.3”) and slightly smaller than the Plus model (which had a 6.8” display). Unlike both of them, the display was flat so could you draw from edge to edge.
A Galaxy Note10 Lite vs. Note9 might be a more apt comparison. The older flagship had fallen in price by the time the Lite hit the scene and the two cost around the same. And both featured the same Exynos 9810 chipset, though in some regions the old Note9 was available with the Snapdragon 845 instead. The Note10 Lite was an Exynos-only model.
As you may remember from last time, the Galaxy S10 Lite was the opposite, it was a Snapdragon-only phone, which was an interesting change for regions used to getting Exynos.
The S10 Lite also offers an interesting point of comparison. Both it and the Note10 Lite had the same screen dimensions – 6.7”, 1,080 x 2,400px – and the same battery capacity of 4,500mAh. However, in our tests the S-phone scored an endurance rating of 110h compared to 92h for the Note. Okay, the display panels aren’t exactly the same, which may have contributed, but the 10nm Exynos chip was certainly showing its age against the 7nm Snapdragon 855.
Source: gsmarena
