Samsung Galaxy Note10+ review

Synthetic benchmarks and performance

Depending on your region, you either get the Snapdragon 855 or the Exynos 9825-equipped version. We had the chance to review the latter, which is a slightly improved version of the Exynos 9820 chipset found in the Galaxy S10+. The improvements translate into higher clock speeds on some of the cores and a tad smaller manufacturing process (7nm vs 8nm in favor of the newer one version). The 7nm node also uses the new LPP EUV manufacturing process promising small energy efficiency gains.

Anyway, the Exynos 9825 sports the same two Mongoose M4 cores clocked at 2.73GHz as its predecessor while the 2x medium Cortex-A75 cores tick at 2.40GHz - 90MHz higher clock speeds. The smallest 4x Cortex-A55 cores remain unchanged at 1.95GHz.

The GPU has also been tweaked but Samsung doesn't disclose clock speeds. We know for a fact that the Mali G76 MP12 GPU on the Exynos 9820 is clocked at 702MHz so the newer variant should go a bit higher, which explains the higher scores in some of the graphically-intensive tests.

Memory-wise, the Note10+ is offered in a great hardware configuration as even in its most basic version it comes with 256GB storage and 12GB of RAM. The other storage version is 512GB. In both cases, we're looking at UFS 3.0 flash storage as opposed to the slower UFS 2.1 found on the S10+.

In the multi-core test, the Exynos 9825 loses to the Snapdragon 855. Of course, we didn't expect any major gains from the slightly overclocked medium cores (just 90MHz), so there are no surprises here. In our initial benchmark testing, we strangely observed lower-than-expected numbers until several attempts later. The final resuts were more in line with the performance bumps of the Exynos 9825.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  11432
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  11226
• Black Shark 2
  11192
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  11072
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  10943
• Samsung Galaxy Note10+
  10403
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  10387
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  10014
• Huawei P30 Pro
  9649

As one would expect, the big Mongoose M4 cores provide the best single-core performance in the Android world and gets pretty close to Apple's A12 Bionic chip.

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  4777
• Samsung Galaxy Note10+
  4541
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4522
• Black Shark 2
  3515
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  3493
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  3470
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  3402
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  3323
• Huawei P30 Pro
  3270

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• OnePlus 7 Pro
  364025
• Apple iPhone XS Max
  353210
• Black Shark 2
  343460
• Samsung Galaxy Note10+
  342208
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  333736
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  316156
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  314975
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  310401
• Huawei P30 Pro
  290189

And if we add the iPhone's A12 Bionic into the mix, there's no competition.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  99
• Black Shark 2
  71
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  71
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  70
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  69
• Samsung Galaxy Note10+
  68
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  68
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  56
• Huawei P30 Pro
  54

As we already pointed out, when it comes to GPU performance, the Exynos 9825 goes ahead of its predecessor and Huawei's Kirin 980 but falls short against Qualcomm's Adreno 640 GPU.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  62
• Apple iPhone XS Max
  60
• Black Shark 2
  57
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  57
• Huawei P30 Pro
  50
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  50
• Samsung Galaxy Note10+
  38
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  37
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  33

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  60
• Samsung Galaxy Note10+
  43
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  42
• Black Shark 2
  42
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  42
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  42
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  41
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  33
• Huawei P30 Pro
  29

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS Max
  47
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  37
• Black Shark 2
  36
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  31
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  29
• Huawei P30 Pro
  27
• Samsung Galaxy Note10+
  24
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  23
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  19

3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  6360
• Black Shark 2
  6330
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3
  6264
• OnePlus 7 Pro
  6093
• Samsung Galaxy Note10+
  5287
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4632
• Huawei P30 Pro (perf. mode)
  4315
• Huawei P30 Pro
  3522

Aside from the synthetic benchmark tests, the phone runs great as every flagship should. We didn't notice any major hiccups, hangs, freezes or slowdowns. The chipset is still suited to handle pretty much everything you throw at it.