Samsung Galaxy Note 10: all of the announcements from the Unpacked event

At Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event yesterday, the company announced no fewer than four partnerships. There was a deal with Discord to build its gaming-focused chat app into Samsung’s game launcher; one with Under Armour to release a special edition of the Galaxy Watch Active 2; Microsoft is bundling its Android apps on the Note 10; and Samsung even invited a representative from the United Nations up onstage to promote a new development goals app that will be preinstalled on Samsung’s phones.

These partnerships set Samsung up to take on longtime rival Apple this holiday season, and even Google as the search giant looks to muscle in on high-end Android sales with the Pixel 4.

Samsung’s just-announced Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus are “not compatible” with Gear VR, the company’s virtual reality headset that works only with a phone slotted in front of the lenses, Samsung confirms to The Verge following an earlier report by tech analyst Anshel Sag. The decision to shut off support for its headset on its newest flagship phones casts doubt on the future of both the Gear VR and other headsets that use phones as their screen and processor, as standalone devices with built-in displays like the Oculus Quest are on the rise.

”We remain committed to innovating in VR and AR to deliver incredible new experiences to our consumers,” Samsung tells The Verge.

The term “phablet” was originally coined to describe a phone that’s about as large as a typical tablet. The word has (thankfully) mostly gone out of popular use, but considering the number of super-sized phones that have been hitting the market, there’s a chance it could be resurrected. The latest to be introduced is Samsung’s impressively sized and equipped Galaxy Note 10 Plus.

The Note 10 Plus, with its 6.8-inch display, may boast the largest screen currently available in the US market. (It is outmatched by at least one non-US phone, the Huawei Honor Note 10, with a 6.95-inch display.) However, the size of the display doesn’t necessarily reflect the overall size of the phone. Although the Note 10 Plus measures 6.39 x 3.04 x 0.31 inches, Samsung’s own Galaxy S10 5G (which has a 6.7-inch display) beats it by a hair at 6.40 x 3.04 x 0.31 inches. And although the Pixel 3 XL isn’t all that much smaller at 6.22 x 3.02 x 0.31 inches, its display is a relatively modest 6.3 inches.

Samsung just announced the Galaxy Book S, a device that looks to promise the best of both worlds by marrying the the battery life and LTE data of a smartphone with the power and feature set of a full Windows 10 laptop.

We were able to try out the Galaxy Book S for a few minutes after the reveal, but unfortunately, the two biggest features here — the new Qualcomm 8cx processor, and the 23-hour battery life Samsung is promising that will provide — are hard to gauge in a brief hands-on.

See the photo above? Given the US pricing, it would be natural to assume that Samsung is releasing a 5G version of the smaller 6.3-inch Galaxy Note 10 to the US — however, you’d be wrong. Samsung isn’t bringing this version of the phone to the US or other regions, for that matter. The 5G version of the Note 10, which was briefly mentioned on a slide during today’s Unpacked 2019 event, is launching exclusively in South Korea.

As for why other countries are only getting the Note 10 Plus 5G, there are a few possible reasons. It’s not unusual for Samsung to treat its home country to exclusive variations of its devices, and given that many of South Korea’s cities are densely populated, it’s an ideal testing ground for the Note 10 5G models.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 is, by no means, a small phone. Its 6.3-inch AMOLED screen is just a few millimeters smaller than the iPhone XS Max’s display. But, as Dieter Bohn noted in his hands-on impressions post, the Note 10 is something different for Samsung.

While the Note 10 Plus feels more like the true Note 9 successor, the Note 10 has a similar feel in the hand to smaller phones like the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the iPhone XS. So it’s worth comparing to other smaller flagship phones that you might also be considering.

Samsung has announced the Galaxy Note 10 lineup, which, unlike past years, consists of two different phones: the Galaxy Note 10 and the Note 10 Plus, and they’re the first Samsung flagship phones without a headphone jack. Actually, there’s a third: the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G. It’s exclusive to Verizon for now, though it will be coming to other carriers later.

They’re all available for preorder through Samsung and US carriers. No matter where you purchase the phone, doing so before August 23rd (the release date) will get you a $100 Samsung gift card ($150 if you buy the Note 10 Plus or Note 10 Plus 5G).

Despite some hardware launch delays Samsung had been experiencing this year, the company is pushing forward with its annual Note upgrade. Today, the company announced the new Note 10 that now comes in a few variants: a regular Note 10 and a Note 10 Plus that includes a new S Pen with Bluetooth and a gyroscope. Most notably, it’s the first Note device without a headphone jack — something that had been previously hinted at when Samsung first spoke of the future of its devices with the announcement of the Fold.

Here are some of the highlights from today’s event.

During Samsung’s Note 10 keynote, it revealed a third version of the Galaxy Watch Active 2 it recently released: a special edition of the watch made in partnership with Under Armour. It will come in a version that supports a Bluetooth connection to your phone — but not LTE — and is $30 more than the regular edition at $309. Samsung says that it will come with preloaded software that integrates with Under Armour’s fitness ecosystem.

It will have Under Armour’s MapMyRun app built in, which, like other fitness apps, lets you track your runs on a map. Samsung is also tossing in six months of membership to UA’s MVP version of MapMyRun, normally a $6 a month cost. It should also pair directly with Under Armour’s connected HOVR shoes, if you want to track yet more data about your runs. The HOVR connection is exclusive to this edition of the watch.

Onstage at Samsung’s Unpacked event today as part of its Samsung Note 10 flagship smartphone announcement, the company revealed that popular gaming chat app Discord will be integrated into Samsung’s Game Launcher, allowing users to chat with their established Discord communities while gaming on the go.

The move comes amid an arms race among smartphone makers to make the best smartphone for gamers, with recent competitors to Samsung’s phones being the Black Shark 2 and the Asus ROG Phone II. Mobile gaming continues to be an extremely lucrative market and since the Fortnite phenomenon, hardcore games have become an ever more serious business there: PUBG Mobile, reportedly the world’s highest-grossing game, has more than 100 million players and brought in more than $146 million in May. 

Microsoft and Samsung are forming a closer partnership for Android mobile apps that will help bridge the gap to Windows PCs. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appeared onstage at Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 launch today, noting that this partnership is “a new chapter of our long term commitment to improve productivity and eliminate the gap between mobile devices and the PC.”

Samsung is bundling Microsoft’s Your Phone app on its Galaxy Note 10, which mirrors Android text messages, notifications, and even your entire screen to a Windows 10 PC. Samsung is also building OneDrive sync support directly into its Gallery Android app, which will see photos sync directly to the cloud storage service.

Samsung just announced the Galaxy Book S, a new ultralight laptop powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx processor, onstage at its Unpacked event. It looks a little less like a Surface Laptop than we originally thought when we first saw the leaks, but it’s not far off. More importantly, with that Qualcomm processor it will perform much differently: with much longer battery life, but much less horsepower.

The 8cx is Qualcomm’s 7-nanometer chip designed for PCs, and Samsung says that this version of the Galaxy Book should have “40 percent greater CPU performance, 80 percent greater graphics performance, and added memory bandwidth” compared to the Galaxy Book 2. It is fanless, too, and the best feature of all is the battery life. Samsung says that it will last up to 23 hours of continuous video playback — but of course actual use will get you much, much less than that.

Samsung’s latest iteration of the S Pen stylus has a new trick: it can be used to perform air gestures, effectively turning it into a Bluetooth wand. The S Pen, bundled with the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10, is a Low-Energy Bluetooth stylus that now communicates gesture commands with its paired smartphone wirelessly.

The stylus now has a six-axis motion sensor, including an accelerometer and gyroscope, that lets it determine how its being held and in what direction in space it’s being moved. That allows Samsung to create some interesting features, like switching between remote camera modes with swipes of the S Pen through the air while setting up a self-portrait with the Note 10. You can also control in-app features for Spotify, YouTube, and other media apps.

Among the many new updates and features coming with the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus is a revamped take on DeX, Samsung’s desktop-like software that is powered by the phone. While prior versions of DeX required you to plug the phone into a monitor and use a mouse and keyboard paired to it, the new version lets you plug a Note 10 into a Windows or Mac computer and brings up a window with all of your phone’s apps that is accessible from your desktop or laptop computer.

Not only can you remotely control your phone and use the apps installed on it without ever taking your hands off of your computer’s keyboard, but you can also drag and drop files from your desktop to your phone and vice versa.

Samsung is announcing not one, but two versions of its flagship Galaxy Note 10 smartphone: the regular Note 10 and the jumbo Note 10 Plus. Really, though, you should think of the Note 10 Plus as the traditional Note — it’s virtually the same size as last year’s Note 9 and continues the tradition of the big-screened, super-powered, stylus-toting smartphone. The Note 10 is something new: the Note’s stylus and power crammed down into something a little closer to the size of the Galaxy S10.

The Note 10 starts at $949 and comes in just one configuration: 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The Note 10 Plus starts at $1,099 with 12GB RAM / 256GB storage and you can spend $100 more to get 512GB of storage. Both are available for preorder today and will ship on August 23rd. There will also be a Note 10 5G available for preorder on the 23rd that will be exclusive to Verizon for “a limited time,” but Samsung had fewer details to share about it ahead of its Unpacked event today.

The writing’s on the wall. Heck, it’s been on the wall for eight months: Samsung is done including a headphone jack in its flagship smartphones, meaning they’re not going to work with your legacy audio devices unless you carry a USB-C dongle.

The evidence: today’s just-announced Samsung Galaxy Note 10 doesn’t include the 3.5mm socket, even though it’s the phone that would have been most likely to keep it around. That’s partly because the Note’s size means more space to fit that jack, and partly because the Note has always been Samsung’s “everything phone” — a phone for people who want all the hot new features instead of having to choose.

You want big? You’ve got it. Samsung is going to be announcing the latest additions to its Galaxy Note line of phones, and if all the rumors are true, the Note 10 and the Note 10 Plus will have some big new features, including big new displays.

The Note 10 Plus, especially, will be one to look at, if everything we’ve heard is correct: we’re expecting a 6.8-inch display (try to get that one in your pocket!), a huge 4,300mAh battery, 20W wireless charging, up to 45W fast USB-C charging, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB storage. The Note 10, with a mere 6.3-inch display, won’t be anything to shrug at either, with a rumored 3,500mAh battery, 12W wireless charging, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.

Updated at 4:20PM ET, August 6th: Droid Life updated its post to mention pricing for the Note 10 phones, so we’ve added that information below.

Samsung will announce the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus tomorrow, August 7th, at its Unpacked event in NYC. But if you don’t want to wait until then to find out more, the Note 10 has suffered yet another leak — through Samsung’s own marketing materials, no less. Droid Life has shared several full-page snippets of Samsung’s materials, which give the best look yet at many of the rumored features we’ve been hearing about.

The Galaxy Note used to stand out — literally. As one of the first truly big smartphones — the original “phablet” back before giant phones became the norm — the old Note models would catch your eye when you saw them in a store or out in public, like an NBA player on a court with a bunch of middle-schoolers. But in the almost decade since the original Galaxy Note launched, the smartphone industry has changed quite a bit. Colossal phones are the new norm, especially from Samsung, and this year’s upcoming Galaxy Note 10 has the potential to get lost in the shuffle of Samsung’s other phones. 

If last year’s Note 9 had the problem of not differentiating itself from the previous year’s Note 8, this year’s Note 10 lineup looks to have the issue of not doing enough to stand out from the other six — yes, six — Galaxy flagships that Samsung has announced in 2019. 

We’re just a few days away from Samsung’s big Galaxy Note 10 event, and the rumors and leaks are in full form, teasing details of Samsung’s latest super-sized flagship. Or rather, flagships, plural, with Samsung expected to take a page from its own Galaxy S line’s playbook and release multiple sizes of the Note 10.

We already know some of the news, with Samsung announcing some of its smaller summer products — like the Galaxy Watch Active 2 and the Galaxy Tab S6 — ahead of the big Unpacked event, presumably leaving more time for the good stuff.

Are you a current owner of a Samsung Galaxy device and a pair of wired headphones? Did it feel like someone just walked on your grave? It may be because pictures of Samsung’s upcoming 3.5mm to USB-C dongle just leaked as the final, irrefutable confirmation that Samsung will be joining the ranks of Apple, Google (not counting the budget Pixel 3A), and nearly every other flagship phone maker in killing the headphone jack on the upcoming Galaxy Note 10, via SamMobile.

The photos depict a dongle that is exactly as you’d expect: there’s a USB-C jack on one end and a 3.5mm input on the other. Samsung appears to be using a sturdier, tapered connector that slopes down to the wire, instead of the more fragile step-style of reinforcement that Apple and Google use on their respective dongles. (We’ve officially been stuck with these ridiculous adapters for long enough that I have apparently become a connoisseur.)

Samsung is allowing people to reserve a spot in the preorder line for “the next generation of Galaxy,” which is another way of saying the Galaxy Note 10. It will accept reservations until 11:59PM ET on August 7th, the same day Samsung is hosting an Unpacked event where we expect it to unveil the Galaxy Note 10, and, possibly, the Galaxy Note 10 Plus. That’s when preorders will open, and if you follow through with purchasing the device, you’ll receive it on August 23rd.

If you’re interested in putting your name down, you can do that now to be among the first to receive the phone when it releases. Samsung says that reserving will grant you $50 in credit to use toward accessories. The Note 10 is likely to be expensive, but you might be able to save some money by trading in your phone. Samsung is offering $600 in credit in exchange for the following devices, assuming it’s in good condition:

As we get closer to Samsung’s August 7th event for the Galaxy Note 10 and larger Note 10 Plus, more details and photos of the devices continue to make their way out. The latest development is images and specs for the larger Plus model, posted by WinFuture. These largely line up with what’s been reported previously: the Note 10 Plus will feature a 6.8-inch display but in a form factor similar to that of today’s Galaxy Note 9. Samsung’s progress with shrinking bezels and a more efficient design have allowed for a bigger screen that hopefully won’t be an unbearable strain on your hands. 

One difference between the Note 10 and Note 10 Plus is that only the latter will include a microSD slot, according to WinFuture’s report. Neither will feature a 3.5mm headphone jack. 

If you’ve been following phone news even a little bit, you know that Samsung’s flagship, stylus-equipped Galaxy Note 10 is coming August 7th. You know it’ll have 5G, and you even have a decent idea what it looks like thanks to these estimated renders from June. But now, we may be getting our best look at the Galaxy Note 10 — the first official photos of the phone have reportedly leaked out.

The images come from both the typically reliable Roland Quandt at WinFuture and MySmartPrice contributor Ishan Agarwal, so we’ve got little doubt they’re legit. And if so, they reveal that Samsung plans to not only produce the Galaxy Note 10 in black, but also an attractive, shiny blue-purple pearlescent color scheme that’s a dead ringer for the Huawei P30 Pro. Interesting.