I didn’t think I’d see the end of my time with Pixel phones cut short – after all I was a big fan of them – but time and necessity made me make a snap decision and move on. The last few months haven’t been great with my old phone as it hit that “planned obsolescence” hump a little too hard and the battery wasn’t lasting a day without charging. In the last week it reached the point of needing to be charged three times a day so I had to bite the bullet and find a replacement that would fit my needs nicely and avoided me having to run around with a portable charger. The Pixel 4 is still a couple of months away (at least) so I thought I’d try something different and now I’m sporting a new Galaxy Note 10+. Since my Pixel I’ve found myself increasing my phone usage for a lot of day to day tasks so any replacement needed to do the same.

First glance at the Note and one thing is clear and that’s it looks more like a modern smartphone than any Pixel has… ever. Samsung knows what they are doing when it comes to hardware design – except maybe for that little “catching on fire” thing a few years ago – and I can’t help but be impressed right away with the huge screen. The battery life is impressive too with it being able to run a day and a half easily without a charge. Software though is another matter. Why Samsung had to reinvent the wheel with Android apps I don’t really understand but to me it’s more flash and less substance and I prefer Google’s own versions. And the less said of Bibxy the better… except maybe why? Thankfully the phone is customisable and I’ve already swapped in the Microsoft launcher and Google’s keyboard and am finding a happy compromise with what I have.

I’m sure I’m going to find more I love and hate about it over the next couple of years but at least the battery lasts long enough for me to find out. 😉