Never used a smartphone with stylus? It’s time to see the Lite
It’s not as robust and is much less water resistant but for most users those aren’t substantial problems
SAMSUNG NOTE 10 LITE €699 sim-free
SAMSUNG’S Note smartphones have always had one thing that no other mainstream phone had: a built-in stylus.
I’ve never been a wholehearted convert to using a stylus with a smartphone generally, but there are some who swear by them. And it’s not just for scribbling notes on the 6.7inch screen, or using instead of a clumsy, stubby finger. In an era when many of us are seeing a surge in electronic signatures required, a stylus is really useful for those PDFs or Word documents that need urgent attention.
If you felt you needed that option, you generally had to pay close to €1,000 for the Samsung Note. In the last year, though, Samsung has expanded its multi-tiered, multi-priced model options into the Note series.
So as well as the Note 10 and Note+, we now have the Note 10 ‘Lite’ that costs and about a third less than the others. The core functionality of the built-in stylus – the ‘S Pen’ – is basically the same.
This includes things like decent handwriting recognition that now incorporates search function support. In other words, if you write out some notes with the S Pen, you can search for words within those scrawled notes later on.
Another useful one is its ability to trigger photos from the camera.
Where it is ‘lite’ compared to the higher-priced versions is mostly in its build and engine. In other words, this isn’t the latest, greatest processor and the casing is more plastic than metallic. It’s also not quite as robust, with less water-resistant capability, and its screen is flat rather than curved at the sides, as Samsung is wont to do sometimes.
Furthermore, Samsung hasn’t imbued this with any fancy speaker, meaning a slightly tinny standalone speakerphone experience.
For the majority of intended users, I’ll bet that these aren’t substantial drawbacks.
Especially since its other core features are actually fairly excellent. For example, its cameras — a very, very good triple-lens set up on the rear — are almost the same as the senior Notes. Its battery life is similarly excellent. And its superamoled 6.7-inch display is impressive – with a superbright 800 nits for seeing it outdoors – even if its 60hz refresh rate is a little lower than the more expensive models (meaning it’s just a tad slower to scroll through).
There’s even a built-in 3.5mm headphone jack for those still sulking about that feature’s removal from most flagship phones.
This isn’t a 5G phone, which is starting to be a nominal differentiator between high-end phones and lower genres. But even though the new iPhone 12 will likely give 5G a shot in the arm, it simply isn’t regarded as a must-have feature for most of us yet, particularly with such a slow rollout of 5G networks and 4G speeds that regularly top 100Mbs.
There’s no shortage of power, though, with 6GB of Ram backed up by a (still decent) Snapdragon 855 2.7Ghz octacore processor.
It also has just about the right amount of storage memory, at 128GB of storage with room for a memory card in case you need more.
In short, this is a very decent work-focused smartphone that will help you get things done quickly and is good enough to for almost any non-work activities too.