Samsung’s Galaxy Note gets even larger (and smaller)

The first Note was a spectacle. It wasn’t just the reintroduction of the stylus. In 2011, the idea of a 5.3-inch phone was laughable. Around the same time, Steve Jobs famously mocked a push toward 4-inch-plus phones, telling a press conference, “no one’s going to buy that.”

With the average phone size hovering about 5.5 inches these days, Samsung clearly won that round. Of course, the push has been helped considerably by an ever-improving screen-to-body ratio. Jobs’ concerns about not being able to get one’s hand around a device no longer apply to a majority of these handsets.

Today in Brooklyn, Samsung is pushing things even further, with the introduction of a new subset of Galaxy Note devices. The Note 10+ is a 6.8-inch device. Among other things, the introduction of a new model differentiates the line slightly from Samsung’s other flagship line. The earlier arrival of an S Plus model meant that the S Pen was essentially the only distinguishing factor here.

Having spent some time with both Note 10 models, I can say I’m impressed with what the company has managed to do from a design perspective. The 10+ impressively has roughly the same footprint as the 6.4-inch Note 9, making carrying around such a massive device that much less absurd.

What’s really interesting here, however, is that the company took the rare action of actually shrinking down the standard Note from 6.4 to 6.3 inches. Weird, right? Yeah, well, these are weird times, friend.

The thinking behind the smaller screen was apparently to make the device more accessible to first-time buyers. That seems a bit silly when talking about a literal fraction of an inch, but the improved screen-to-body ratio makes it that much smaller.

Here are the main distinctions between the two models:

• Note 10: Display 6.3-inch FHD+ AMOLED, 2280×1080 (401ppi); Note 10+: 6.8-inch Quad HD+ AMOLED 040×1440 (498ppi)
• Note 10: 3,500mAh battery; Note 10+: 4,300mAh battery
• Note 10: 8GB RAM, 256GB storage; Note 10+: 12GB RAM, 256GB storage (with 512GB option)
• The Note 10+ also has an additional TOF sensor on the rear-camera array for depth sensing and an optional 5G model
• Note 10: Starts at $949 ; Note 10+: Starts at $1,100

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