I Said Goodbye To My Laptop For 2 Weeks And Did All My Work Using This Phone

• Features include the ever-present S-Pen, a massive 4,300mAh battery, improved cameras and gorgeous display.
• The Samsung Galaxy Note10+ can be purchased at a retail price of RM4,199/ SGD1598.

The Samsung Galaxy Note10 series was released with a lot of local fanfare and an impressive promotion, which led to it being sold out in 7 days. People were excited because the base version of the Note10 series starts at 256GB of storage.

Now, that’s pretty enticing when you consider how a certain brand named after a fruit starts their devices at 64GB in the year 2019.

The Note series used to be/is still the grand-daddy of specs, with everything thrown in, such as the latest processor, an eye-popping display, a long-lasting battery, an S-pen and more. But this time around, they’ve removed the headphone jack, much to my disappointment.

Thankfully, as someone who is transitioning away from wired headphones to wireless ones, the change is not too drastic for me. All I had to do was buy a Bluetooth receiver for my car, and it was on my shopping list for a while now anyway.

All About Them Note10+ Specs

In my opinion, the phone ticks a lot of boxes for someone that is in the market for a do-it-all phone.

The display is gorgeous to look at, but the hole punch cut-out for the front camera does take some getting used to. It didn’t really bother me as much compared to a conventional notch though.

Not to mention, the switch of the power button is now on the left instead of the traditional right-side placement. But, after using it for a while, my finger naturally reached out to the left to power the phone.

Coming from a Note8 user, the phone is a clear upgrade in all departments. The battery of my Note8 now barely lasts a day with minor use and the Note10 with its large 4,300mAh battery easily lasts twice as long as the Note8.

I’ve even had instances where I forgot to charge it before I go to bed and it still has enough charge to last me through half of the next day. With all this power under its hood, I decided to see if it could replace my laptop for work, so I set out to test the capabilities of Samsung DeX.

Laptop Disguised As A Phone

Samsung DeX is a feature that “simulates” a desktop experience using just a Samsung phone. To do so, you will need to have a few things—a monitor and a USB Type-C to HDMI cable. Since I have both of those, the set-up process was fairly simple.

DeX can be used for a myriad of things. You can mirror your phone and use all the apps like you would like a normal phone on a bigger screen or you could use it as a second screen. This is beneficial if you want to do a presentation, for all you need is just your phone (and maybe a USB Type-C to HDMI cable.)

However, it was a little more complicated than I initially thought. While you can use DeX without any additional peripherals, it is not easy for my line of work. As a writer, I will need to type, browse the internet and reply to emails.

While DeX does allow me to use the phone’s screen as a touchpad, typing on a phone keyboard while working is rough, to say the least. Luckily for me, I do have a Bluetooth keyboard that I could use to easily work on.

To work, all I need to do is fire up Google Docs and I’m set. If you are in another profession, then your needs for this setup might differ.

After the initial setup, everything was running smoothly, the keyboard I was using had no delays and while using the phone as a touchpad did get a little annoying, I was able to get my work done. Until I decided to go for lunch.

Trouble Doesn’t Simply Strike Once

After leaving for lunch and coming back to work, I realised the keyboard will not re-sync to my phone. I had to reset the keyboard’s Bluetooth for it to reconnect. However, this could be an issue with my keyboard and not the phone.

I then stumbled onto another issue. I will have to add images on the piece I’m working on. Without a proper mouse, adding images into the document is a pain in the rear. So, my natural next step was to get a Bluetooth mouse and luckily, my colleague had one.

Once I got that connected to my phone, I had a total of 4 active Bluetooth connections to the phone—my wireless headset, keyboard, mouse and my fitness band. Things were going along smoothly.

I was originally quite content with the setup; I could reply to messages on my phone while working, easily add images to the Google Docs and so on. It was almost like I was working on a desktop. I could even do some sneaky gaming on the side on DeX. Some mobile games work better on a larger screen.

But, sad to say, I did reach my tipping point after a few days. The keyboard would disconnect often along with the mouse and that soured my experience with the whole test. But, do note that it could be a problem with my own peripherals instead of the DeX platform itself.

Verdict

If I were able to find a setup that would not disconnect, I think the experience would be quite ideal. Picture this: You can strut into the office with just your phone in hand. Plug it into a monitor and et voila, time to work.

The full setup did drain the battery, but I was able to end my workday with roughly 15% of charge left. If you do have a wireless charger, you can keep your phone topped up that way because the charging port is taken up by the HDMI cable.

Personally, I think the concept is neat and can be executed seamlessly but you do need to have the existing peripherals to pull it off. Otherwise, you’ll be paying extra for something that could potentially be a gimmick.

• Find out more about the Samsung Galaxy Note10 series here.

VP Verdict is a series where we personally try and test out products, services, fads, and apps. Want to suggest something else for us to try? Leave a comment here or send the suggestion into our Facebook page.