Samsung Galaxy Note 10 

Design

• Stylish, beautiful, refined design - the “Aura Glow” version where the back reflects surrounding light transforming into all sorts of gradients, shapes and colors, looks especially mesmerizing
• The front is really sharp looking as well with a nearly bezel free display and a center punch hole front camera
• High quality build with glass on the front and the back, and an aluminum frame in the middle
• This is also a phenomenally compact 'phablet' - thanks to its nearly bezel-free Infinity-O screen - in fact the most impressive thing about the Galaxy Note 10 is how it feels in your hand - at 6.3 inches, the Galaxy Note 10 has a slightly smaller screen than the 6.4-inch Galaxy Note 9, but it’s remarkably thinner and lighter - the result is a Note that is surprisingly comfortable to use one-handed - if you're especially mindful about owning a phone that slips easily into your pocket, or generally isn't cumbersome to live with, the Note 10 offers the biggest possible display in the smallest possible footprint right now
• The power button can be programmed for long presses and double presses to launch Bixby (default) or other apps
• Of course, one of the key highlights of the Note series is the S-Pen: it's one of those things that some people don't use at all, while some swear by - apart from taking notes, handwriting recognition (much improved), it can be used to control music, advance slideshows and snap photos via air gestures
• The ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint scanner is not quite as fast as 2nd gen optical fingerprint readers on the likes of the OnePlus 7

Display

• Incredibly good looking, 6.3-inch, sharp AMOLED display - it has excellent outdoor legibility, displays beautiful, vibrant colors, has excellent contrast, and excellent viewing angles - it's basically as good as smartphone screens get - and even though it has a lower pixel density than it's big brother the Note 10+, but in real life, the difference is hardly discernible

Software

• Samsung's OneUI is one of the best custom Android skins at present - it's well optimized for single handed use with more controls in the easier to reach bottom part of the screen, looks stylish, and of course has a few useful options on top of stock Android
• If you like the idea of using your Note 10 on a bigger screen, Samsung makes it easy with its upgraded 'DeX' functionality - all you need is the provided USB Type-C cable that comes with the phone, as well as the DeX desktop app for your Windows PC or Mac, and you can run Android applications on your computer's display and manage your files through a phone-like interface, only on the big screen

Performance

• Top-end performance with the flagship Exynos 9825 - as expected, it's a performance beast: it flies in benchmarks, receiving top scores, and it performs excellent in games
• The storage is also of the new UFS 3.0 standard and it is the absolute fastest storage of any phone yet - the real life implications of having such fast storage it is just that everything loads and runs faster, from large games and videos, to smaller files

Camera

• Top-end tripe camera setup on the rear - 12MP standard + 16MP ultra-wide + 12MP telephoto
• The camera setup continues to be one of the best in mobile - and the inclusion of telephoto and ultra-wide lenses allow for a wide range of different shots, and the hardware coupled with machine learning makes it a lot more difficult to take a bad photo
• The live focus feature (Portrait mode, essentially) comes to video, with four different filters, including Color Point, which makes everything but the subject black and white
• Samsung’s also brought a very simple video editor into the mix here, which is nice on the fly - it's also one of the better uses for the S Pen
• There is also an improved Super Steady offering for videos, which smooths out shaky video, including Hyperlapse mode, where handshakes are a big issue
• There is clever Zoom-on Mic functionality - while shooting video, pinch-zooming on something will amplify the noise from that area
• The 10-megapixel camera for selfies is very good as well - and it also supports Live Focus so you can blur the background and it does a very good job, with a good amount of detail and with vibrant colors
• Overall, as you would expect, this is one of the best, most versatile camera setups on any smartphone - you are going to love photography with your Note 10
• Misses out on the fourth 'DepthVision' Camera of its elder brother, the Note 10+, that allows more comprehensive depth information capture - although it's not missed much in practical terms

Audio

• Excellent stereo loudspeakers - they are capable of blasting music with quite the powerful punch
• Samsung matches the industry trend here and lets go of the the headphone jack (you do get a nice pair of AKG USB-C headphones in-box)

Battery

• Good battery life, with a 3500mAH battery, and a 1080p display - you will get close to 1.5 days with moderate use, and 1 day with heavy use - similar to its elder brother Note 10+
• Very fast charging with the included 25W charger (and support for up to 45W chargers) - you will get 61% charge in 30 minutes, and a full charge in 1 hour - one of the highest recorded charging speeds for any smartphone
• Support for (fast) wireless charging and wireless power sharing

Verdict

• Samsung built the Galaxy Note brand on delivering the best big-screen phones around, but the best thing about the new Galaxy Note 10 is how delightfully compact it is - if you want the biggest screen possible in the most relatively compact size, this is it - Note 10 succeeds as both a productivity device (thanks to additions like DeX and added cross-platform functionality with Windows 10) and an everyday handset - so if you need a new phone, are looking for something big (and still compact) and flashy and are willing to splurge, the Note 10 is an excellent choice
• That said, the Note 10 series is no longer the 'best at everything' phones they used to be at one time - you will get a more fluid feeling experience on the OnePlus 7 Pro (thanks to the 90Hz display), an even better all-round camera on the Huawei P30 Pro or the Google Pixel 3, and some powerful 10x zoom on the Oppo Reno 10x - so there are lots of options to look around at now, many of them cheaper too