Newsroom reviews Note 10 Plus

Samsung released the highly-anticipated Note10 Plus on August 7. This is the first release of a plus-sized phone within its Note line since it's launch in 2011. Newsday's digital team was given the opportunity to use the phone for seven days and review the experience. Though this, arguably, may not have been enough time to fully experience this device for data creation, we got a sufficient feel of its capabilities and found the enhancements relevant.

At first glance, aesthetic changes and enhancements jump out. Apart from the size of the device, the shape of the screen, vibrant housing and three cameras make an immediate statement that Samsung is attempting to take this line to another level. Unfortunately, the performance of the camera in low-light was disappointing when compared to even the Nokia Lumia line, particularly the Nokia Lumia 950 which was released in 2015.

In sunlight, however, users may experience the powerful effects of having three lenses. The range of photo settings and vivid images captured lived up to what would have been expected of 12-megapixel (wide angle), 16-megapixel (ultra-wide angle), 12-megapixel (telephoto), 3D depth (HQVGA).

The front-facing camera, though ten megapixels, was disappointing. A criticism which haunts front-facing cameras of Samsung phones is how they manage to remove too much detail from images – faces in particular. This gives the users cartoon-like selfies, as if a Snap Chat filter was being used.

Videos captured by the device were crisp, with vibrant colours and textures. The viewing experience on the Note 10 plus was second to none. Images did not suffer by virtue of being on the large display. The 6.8-inch dynamic AMOLED; 3,040x1,440 pixels did not disappoint.

The device was not utilised to even 50 per cent of its memory capacity, therefore, the power of the 12GB of RAM and its Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, or Samsung Exynos 9825 processor could not be evaluated under pressure. Moving from one application to another was without glitch and the device seamlessly ran up to seven applications at time without the speed of the device being compromised. The 4,300mAh battery required charge once daily with heavy use. The wireless Power Sharpe worked as it should; the phone proved its water resistance (IP68); and the S Pen stylus with Bluetooth connectivity and Air actions did not disappoint. This S pen, hands down, had the most precise output of handwriting on screen.

Overall, in spite of the drawbacks, the user experience on the Samsung Note 10 Plus surpassed expectations.