Samsung's first phone launches of 2020 are cut-down versions of its best-known 2019 flagships: say hello to the Galaxy S10 Lite and the Note 10 Lite. In Samsung's own words, they bring "premium features" at an "accessible price point."
To put it another way, a more modest set of specs than those found on the Galaxy S10 and the Galaxy Note 10, at a more affordable price – though Samsung hasn't yet revealed the exact pricing for these new handsets.
The S10 Lite comes with a 6.7-inch, 1,080 x 2,400 pixel Super AMOLED display, 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM, 128 GB of internal storage (expandable via a microSD card), and a Snapdragon 855 CPU (last year's top-end processor from Qualcomm). The rear camera is a triple-lens 48 MP + 12 MP + 5 MP affair.
That's a bigger display but at a lower resolution than last year's Galaxy S10, though the internal specs are similar. The rear camera on the S10 Lite doesn't include the 2x optical zoom of the S10, but does feature what Samsung is calling "super steady" optical image stabilization.
The 4,500 mAh battery on the S10 Lite beats the 3,400 mAh one on the S10 too, so you can probably look forward to superior battery life. On the downside, wireless charging and IP68 waterproofing have been dropped on this newer model.
As for the Note 10 Lite, it's more closely related to the S10 Lite than the Note 10 – the specs of the two Lite phones are the same, though the Note 10 Lite has a different rear camera configuration and of course comes with the S Pen stylus that all Note devices have.
The Note 10 Lite replaces the 5 MP macro lens on the S10 Lite with a 12 MP telephoto lens, offering 2x optical zoom, though the "super steady" OIS gets dropped. The main lens is a 12 MP affair rather than a 48 MP one too.
These two phones – one with a stylus, one without – can definitely hold their own against the flagships of 2019, though you might miss features like waterproofing and wireless charging. It's going to be interesting to see exactly how Samsung prices them, and those prices will play a large part in determining just how appealing these handsets end up being in an already crowded market.
Samsung is promising more details at the CES 2020 tech expo that gets underway in full next week. It has also confirmed a February 11 launch date for the Samsung Galaxy S11 phones, and a foldable follow-up to the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
Source: Samsung
