We’re at that weird point in the week where CES simultaneously has and hasn’t started, and it’s already becoming clear Samsung isn’t sticking to business as usual in 2020. That’s partially due to the hype surrounding its curious Neon project, but also because Samsung just revealed two modest versions of its most popular smartphones. The Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite are exactly what their names suggest, and while I’m always in favor of phone makers crafting high-powered devices that don’t cost a ton, Samsung is being surprisingly tight-lipped about them. That said, we did learn a few things after a bit of Vegas hands-on time.
Oh, and while the Note 10 Lite we played with used an octa-core Exynos chipset, the S10 Lite actually just contained a Snapdragon 855. If I were a betting man, I might take that to mean the S10 Lite will be the only model to wind up in the US, but Samsung wouldn’t say much on the matter.
Another lesson learned today: The compromises Samsung had to make here don’t feel as dramatic as you might think. Both of these devices feel flagship-fast, and while the Note 10 Lite has the nicer camera setup, the S10 Lite’s cameras certainly aren’t stinkers. And while neither of these screens are as pixel-dense as the high-end versions launched last year, I honestly don’t have much to complain about. Colors looked a little off to me at first, but that was mostly because I don’t Samsung phones’ default color mode. Look a little closer, though, and Samsung’s changes become more apparent.
Going into this, I just sort of assumed the Note 10 Lite would use the regular Note 10’s S Pen, but that’s not actually true — this version of the stylus doesn’t seem to have a gyroscope, so you can’t use some of the magic-wand-y Air Actions Samsung introduced last year. That’s far from ideal, sure, but I honestly stopped using those Harry Potter gestures pretty quickly anyway. For people new to the Note experience, this won’t feel like a big loss. Not when writing on the Note 10 Lite’s spacious screen feels as good as it always did.
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Author: Chris Velazco
Source: Engadget
