Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite smartphone

Samsung wants to win even more buyers for its Galaxy Note series with pen operation and is therefore launching the Galaxy Note10 Lite, a cheaper version for the first time. You can find out in the test why we think this is a great idea.

The spearhead of Samsung’s smartphone lineup has always been the Galaxy Note series: Here the best is just good enough, the latest technology is used and as a unique feature there is the S-Pen, a stylus that can be used to make notes, draw, mark and do many other things that are not as elegantly possible on other smartphones. The Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy Note10 Plus were well received by us again, but Samsung wants to expand its buyers a bit and is bringing a cheaper Note smartphone to the market for the first time this year: For the launch, the Galaxy Note10 Lite costs 599 euros, which is the starting price of the Note 10 clearly undercut, the price of the Note10 + is almost halved. However, the high-end versions have been on the market for half a year and the prices have fallen.

Nevertheless, the current generation of Note10 Lite still offers the cheapest price if you want to dive into the world of Samsung phablets with pen operation. As a difference, the Lite model has a slightly older SoC, a less high-quality housing, a little less memory and you have to do without some high-quality standards, such as WiFi 6. But the Note10 Lite comes with a rather large battery and is hardly inferior to the Note10 when it comes to cameras.

That all sounds like a very interesting alternative, let’s start with our test and let’s see how the device performs in detail.

NETWORK	Technology	GSM / HSPA / LTE

LAUNCH	Announced	2020, January 3
	Status	Available. Released 2020, January 21

BODY	Dimensions	163.7 x 76.1 x 8.7 mm (6.44 x 3.00 x 0.34 in)
	Weight	199 g (7.02 oz)
	SIM	Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
		Stylus (Bluetooth integration, accelerometer, gyro)

DISPLAY	Type	Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	6.7 inches, 107.8 cm2 (~86.6% screen-to-body ratio)
	Resolution	1080 x 2400 pixels, 20:9 ratio (~394 ppi density)
		Always-on display HDR

PLATFORM	OS	Android 10.0; One UI 2
	Chipset	Exynos 9810 (10 nm)
	CPU	Octa-core (4×2.7 GHz Mongoose M3 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A55)
	GPU	Mali-G72 MP18

MEMORY	Card slot	microSDXC (uses shared SIM slot)
	Internal	128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM
		UFS 2.1

MAIN CAMERA	Triple	12 MP, f/1.7, 27mm (wide), 1/2.55″, 1.4µm, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS 12 MP, f/2.4, 52mm (telephoto), 1/3.6″, 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS, 2x optical zoom 12 MP, f/2.2, 12mm (ultrawide)
	Features	LED flash, panorama, HDR
	Video	[email protected]/60fps, [email protected]/60/240fps; gyro-EIS

SELFIE CAMERA	Single	32 MP, f/2.2, 25mm (wide), 1/2.8″, 0.8µm
	Features	HDR
	Video	[email protected], [email protected]

SOUND	Loudspeaker	Yes
	3.5mm jack	Yes

COMMS	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
	Bluetooth	5.0, A2DP, LE
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
	NFC	Yes
	USB	2.0, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector

FEATURES	Sensors	Fingerprint (under display, optical), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
		ANT+

BATTERY		Non-removable Li-Po 4500 mAh battery
	Charging	Fast battery charging 25W

MISC	Colors	Aura Glow, Aura Black, Aura Red
	Models	SM-N770F, SM-N770F/DS, SM-N770F/DSM
	SAR	0.88 W/kg (head)     0.65 W/kg (body)
	SAR EU	0.29 W/kg (head)     1.08 W/kg (body)
	Price	€ 618.56 / £ 529.00

TESTS	Performance	AnTuTu: 258484 (v7), 341212 (v8) GeekBench: 6103 (v4.4), 2027 (v5.1) GFXBench: 25fps (ES 3.1 onscreen)
	Display	Contrast ratio: Infinite (nominal)
	Camera	Photo / Video
	Audio quality	Noise -93.3dB / Crosstalk -91.4dB
	Battery life	Endurance rating 92h

 

The housing design differs significantly from the more expensive Note variants: there is no elongated but a square camera module on the back, the corners are more rounded and the front glass is not arched over the sides. The Note 10 Lite differs in terms of haptics from its more expensive siblings: you can feel the plastic back immediately, it doesn’t look cheap, but it’s not really high quality for his smartphone, for which the manufacturer calls just under 600 euros. As with the more exclusive touch smartphones, the frame is made of metal.

The black version is also quite unadorned, and the somewhat unusual red color version is simply plain, without light effects or color gradients. After all, with the silver color variant “Aura Glow” there is still a contemporary color variation with gradient. The back is quite susceptible to fingerprints. The smartphone sits comfortably in the hand and the edges are well rounded.

There are very narrow edges on the front and the camera is simply embedded as a round hole in the screen without notch. The Galaxy Note 10 Lite is significantly larger than the normal Note10 and also puts more weight on the scales, which is probably due to the higher capacity battery. The manufacturer has not had the smartphone certified for water or dust resistance, so you should take care of your cell phone here.