I respect the Galaxy Note series, but I won’t miss it

Opinion from

C. Scott Brown

Rumors have been around for years, but it is very likely that 2021 will be the end of the Samsung Galaxy Note series. Recent rumors suggest that the 2021 Galaxy Note could be the last. It’s even possible we’ve seen the show’s swan song before with the Galaxy Note 20 line. Either way, the smart money is in the Note series, which is saying goodbye in the near future.

The Note line has been so influential over the past decade that many people will be saddened by its alleged departure. However, I am not sad at all. In fact, I’m perfectly fine with the Note line that literally goes into the sunset.

Obviously there are still people out there who are passionate fans of their notes. I know that many readers here buy the latest note like clockwork every year. Although I assume that these people will be very disappointed if these rumors come true, I wonder what the Note line means to them at this point. The first few notes were game changers that absolutely changed the entire smartphone industry. In recent years, however, the Note line has appeared to be a shell of its former selves.

Connected: Samsung Galaxy Note: A Story of Innovation

The Galaxy Note series: the first modern smartphones

At this point, what can be said about the Galaxy Note series that has not yet been said? The smartphone you are currently holding in your hands is a direct descendant of the first note. It doesn’t matter what brand your phone is or what operating system is there. The size and shape of your 2020 smartphone is the same as the first Note phones.

In 2011, the industry thought Samsung was insane to bring out the first Galaxy Note. Compared to his contemporaries, the first note was enormous. It was 5.8 cm tall, 3.3 cm wide and 0.4 cm thick. That may seem small by today’s standards, but the Note was roughly 50% larger than the then-newest iPhone 4S. Some reviewers downright mocked how gigantic the first note looked. Others simply asked whether or not consumers would ever want a phone this big.

Given that most 2020 smartphones are physically larger than the original Note, we now know that early reviewers were very, very wrong.

The runaway success of the first entries in the Galaxy Note line led the entire industry to adopt aspects of their design. Even Apple finally had to give in in 2014 and offer a bigger phone with the iPhone 6 Plus. Interestingly, the physical dimensions of this iPhone are very close to those of the original Note.

However, it wasn’t just the physical size of the Galaxy Note series that pushed the envelope. The inside of the phones also made a big difference.

The phone that gives you everything and more

Samsung set out to make the Note line the place where the best technical data and functions lived. The first entry in the Galaxy Note series had the best (and obviously largest) smartphone display the company had ever released. It also had the largest battery capacity of any Samsung phone. After all, it offered power users a built-in pen, the S Pen.

As the Note series progressed, Samsung began using the line to move the envelope of what a smartphone is and what it can do. The displays got bigger and better. The batteries got bigger and lasted much longer. The cameras became more powerful, the internal storage capacities rose by leaps and bounds, and so on. Sure, you could have found other phones with comparable functionality, but none of the phones offered everything that the Note did.

Also read: How Galaxy Note phone prices have changed over the years

While the Samsung Galaxy S line also deserves recognition for advancing the industry, the Note line is largely responsible for making the ambitions of the entire smartphone industry “better, faster, more powerful”. Apple certainly didn’t take a huge risk with its cell phones like Samsung did with the Note. LG took risks, but with much more mixed results. HTC was already losing market share when the Note line hit the market.

The bottom line is that from 2011 to around 2015 there were innovations for smartphones in the Galaxy Note series. However, for the past five years, not even Samsung has been able to successfully claim that this innovation has continued.

Now only the S Pen is left

There have been many times over the past couple of Galaxy Note series launches that we have questioned the necessity of its existence. Very minor differences aside, a modern touch is simply a repackaged Galaxy S phone with an S-pen thrown in. That’s not a bad thing, but it just isn’t enough to make up an entire line of smartphones.

When rumors surfaced that Samsung might bring S Pen support to the Galaxy S21 line, it was that: it wouldn’t make a difference between the two lines.

It seems that the inclusion of the S pen is all that makes the Note line unique.

For some reason, Samsung shifted its innovation strategy from the Galaxy Note series to the Galaxy S series in the middle of the last decade. It ended up with the Galaxy Note Edge and slowly evolved from there. Until 2018, when Samsung launched the Galaxy Note 9, the best Sammy could do was offer more internal storage than was ever offered in a phone (512GB). This is literally the only thing the Note 9 has done that no other Samsung phone has done before.

Do not miss: The ultimate guide to the Samsung S Pen

When Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 10 in 2019, we all scratched our heads. Why on earth is there a Touch branded phone that is inferior to other Samsung phones? Sure, the Galaxy Note 10 Plus offered most of the cross-border specs and features fans wanted, but the vanilla model was the proverbial straw. If even Samsung doesn’t know what the Note line is supposed to be about, why are they made in the first place?

The Galaxy Note series had its day, and that day is over

In the distance, when historians write books on the development of the smartphone industry, there will be entire chapters devoted to the Galaxy Note line. I am convinced of that. We just cannot exaggerate its importance. But just because something was once a game changer doesn’t mean it stays active forever.

In many ways, an earlier decline could have been better for the Note line. I would have loved to see the Galaxy Note 9 as the last phone in the series. What a way to go out! I’m sure I am speaking for a lot of Note fans when I say the Galaxy Note 9 was the best of the line and certainly one of the best phones ever made.

Instead, we may consider the Galaxy Note 20 series as definitive entries. While nothing about these phones is inherently bad, there is also nothing that really crosses borders. Again, no phone brought anything new to the table outside of minor debuts.

The real innovation in the smartphone space is with Samsung’s leaflets, and this is where the company should focus. Judging by rumors and leaks, it appears to be which is the smart move.

Connected: The best foldable phones you can buy right now

The Galaxy S line will likely pick up the S Pen from the Galaxy Note series, and then that will be it. People who love their notes for who they are can buy a top-notch Galaxy S phone instead. People who loved the Galaxy Note series for its innovation can move into the foldable world for their newest fulfillment.

The Note series served its purpose and changed the industry as a whole. Now it’s time for the next big thing, to do the same.