The Galaxy Note is dead, long live the Galaxy Note.
Samsung's latest high-end phone, the Galaxy S22 Ultra, is a Galaxy Note by another name. It has more in common with the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra than the Galaxy S21 Ultra, touting a wider, squared-off design, and most importantly, an S Pen holster. I'll reserve my final judgment for my actual review, but from a brief hands-on, it seems like the kind of phone that will make stylus fans happy.
Sure, the Galaxy S21 Ultra also had S Pen support, but the stylus was an optional extra and there was nowhere to stow it on the phone. It was a half measure, although one that signalled Samsung wouldn't release a Note in 2021.
While the stylus-touting flagship has its loyalists, the move wasn't all that surprising. After all, every phone is a Galaxy Note now.
The original Galaxy Note was an unexpected success for Samsung. Its massive 5.3-inch screen was unheard of at the time, it was widely mocked for being too big. Despite this, the OG shipped over 10 million units and the Note family became a tentpole product for Samsung.
The S Pen was clearly a drawcard for some, but the Note was about more than that: it represented the best of the best of the Samsung. They were superphones designed to push boundaries, and they were your best bet if you genuinely wanted a big screen. Take the Note 5; it measured in at 5.7-inch, while the Galaxy S6 was just 5.1-inch that year.
But that was 2015. In 2022, the phone industry has well and truly coalesced around a homogenous design. With a few foldable exceptions, every phone is a variation on a big screen glass-and-metal sandwich. It's rare to find a device under 6-inches, with many cutting in shy of 7. Big phones like the Note may have once been mocked, but the Galaxy Note won. Every phone is a Galaxy Note now.
In the case of Samsung, the S series and the Note series started to blur together. In my Note 20 Ultra review, I quipped that it has become "just like any other phone". The market also noticed. Samsung reportedly scaled back Note 20 production after sales fell below expectations. It manufactured around 3.2 million Note 20 devices, down from 9.7 million Note 10s in 2020, which also represented a drop from 2019.
The slowing pace of phone innovation clearly hasn't helped either. Year-on-year differences are becoming harder to spot. Take the standard Galaxy S22 - the biggest improvement over the Galaxy S21 is the move to a 50MP primary camera. While Samsung was once able to make pretty significant changes between its S series devices and its Note series devices, this is no longer the case. It ultimately got to the point where it was releasing the same phone twice in one year.
When you also factor in higher outright prices, a pandemic, Samsung's booming budget handset business, chipset shortages, and the fact consumers are holding onto phones longer, the death of the Note was inevitable. At the very least, the S Pen lives on with the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and the Note's supersized essence imbues every phone.
Alex Choros
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