Samsung would kill Note line to focus on foldables

Rumors have been circulating for years, but even now Reuters claims Samsung is killing the Galaxy Note. Samsung’s big-screen and stylus phone has struggled for years to differentiate itself from the Galaxy S line, and with the rise of foldables, Samsung apparently has no room for redundant slab phones. Reuters claims that “the South Korean tech giant has no plans to develop a new version of the Galaxy Note by 2021” and that “development efforts that would normally have gone to the Note would now be channeled into its range of foldable telephones “. This would mean that the Galaxy Note 20 of 2020 is the latest in Samsung’s Note line.

At first the Note line led the charge towards ever-larger screen sizes, but for many years now, the Note has struggled to justify its existence compared to the main Galaxy S series, which released earlier in the year. ‘year. Usually the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note have similar specs, similar screen sizes, and similar designs, leaving only a stylus as the defining feature of the Note. We usually skip the Note line review because there is nothing to say about the S phone that came out earlier in the year, and every year you will see calls from various outlets to kill the Note because it simply has nothing new to offer.

Reuters says the only defining feature of the Galaxy Note, stylus support, will in fact be ported to other devices. The report states that the S21 “will have a stylus” and the “next version of Samsung’s foldable phone” (we assume this means the Galaxy Z Fold 3) “will be compatible with a stylus”.

It is important to understand the distinction between a retractable stylus and “stylus compatible”. The Galaxy Note line comes with a retractable stylus, which means a large part of the body is recessed so the pen can be stored inside the phone. There are already renderings of the Galaxy S21 based on the CAD files sent to case makers, and there is no hole in the phone for a retractable stylus. If we are to align Reuters reports and renderings, it looks like Samsung will sell a compatible stylus alongside the Galaxy S21, but you won’t have anywhere to store it.

The good thing about not having pen storage is that draining the phone costs a bit in the run department, as any available space in a phone is usually filled with battery. Consider that this year’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and Galaxy S20 Ultra both have 6.9-inch displays, but the S20 Ultra has a 500mAh battery advantage over the Note (5,000mAh vs. 4,500 mAh), thanks to the absence of pen storage.

Note launches towards the end of the year mainly only made sense from a marketing standpoint: the Galaxy S line comes out early in the year, as soon as Qualcomm’s new SoCs are ready, and at the start of the year. time when the holiday season arrives. with the new iPhones and other competitors, Samsung doesn’t want to send a nine-month-old phone into the fray. The production of a new phone model, even though it is nearly identical to the model nine months earlier, gives the tech giant new coverage of news, promotions and other attentions it does not would not have otherwise.

With the rise of foldable smartphones, Samsung’s “flagship” line has doubled in size last year. Besides the usual Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20, there was the hybrid phone / tablet, the Galaxy Z Fold 2, and a foldable flip phone, the Galaxy Z Flip. These two new models offer a real differentiation from the Galaxy S line, and with the line more crowded, it makes sense to kill the Note line in favor of the Galaxy Fold’s rise as the primary holiday phone.