Samsung has finally unveiled the Galaxy Note10 Lite for the Kenyan market. The device, which was announced in early January alongside the Galaxy S10 Lite and showcased at CES 2020, is an interesting smartphone because it is currently the cheapest Note device of the 10 series, but makes some questionable decisions in terms of internals.
The Note10 Lite, as the name suggests, takes the best features of the Note10+, but waters down a couple of things. Obviously, the S-pen is in tow and is served by all Air Command actions. It features the Infinity-O design language with a centrally placed punch hole 32 selfie snapper. The display is a 6.7-inch at FullHD+.
A headphone socket is here too.
The entire package is powered by the Exynos 9810 from two years ago (it is the same chip that powers the Note9). RAM and storage options are 6 and 8 GB, all for a single 128 GB of media-hoarding space.
The Note10 Lite gets additional points by shipping with a 4500 mAh juicer that can also be charged plenty fast using a 25W adapter.
Rear optics are served by a triple system that includes a 12 MP f2.2 ultra-wide camera and a 12 MP 2x zoom lens.
All these features are actually attractive for a KES 58000 package for the 6/128 GB model.
The price, however, means that the device forgoes some key features. There is no ingress protection here, so do not dunk the smartphone in water. Wireless charging has also been dropped, which also brings the point that the back of the phone is constructed from plastic, or what Samsung calls glastic. Filling up the battery is also capped at 25W, whereas the likes of the Note10+ supports up to 45W charging.
The display is also limited for 1080p, which is not bad, but that should not be a concern because the majority of us cannot tell the difference between 2K and FullHD.
The S10 Lite
On the whole, the S10 Lite is a better phone, but Samsung will not bring it to Kenya. Of course, this has been Samsung’s availability model because it never distributes Snapdragon-powered devices to the Kenya market, especially the high-end models.
The S10 Lite, however, lacks a headphone jack and the obvious S-Pen features, but we would have been delighted to see the South Korean corporation at least bring the Snapdragon 855-powered device to these shores.
It is also worth noting that the S10 Lite is pricier than the Note10 Lite. Local availability wouldn’t have made sense because a higher sticker price would make it a bad purchase because the S10 series have seen their prices drop significantly, and they are the current S flagships.
With KES 58,000, you can also get the standard S10 if you add a few thousands on top, and look around for a deal. However, the Note10 Lite makes sense in some way because it spots a modern design with impressive cameras that have some features that we will see in the S20s that will be unveiled on February 11.
Lastly, the new Lite phones demonstrate the new Samsung approach to selling some of its best features to a demographic that cannot afford its premium handhelds. We are likely going to see a similar marketing model for future releases.
