Samsung will reportedly kill the Note line to focus on foldables

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It has been rumored for years, but now even Reuters is claiming that Samsung is killing the Galaxy Note. Samsung's big-screen, stylus-packing phone has struggled for years to differentiate itself from the Galaxy S line, and with the rise of foldables, Samsung apparently doesn't have room anymore for redundant slab phones. Reuters says that "the South Korean tech giant does not have plans to develop a new version of the Galaxy Note for 2021" and "development efforts that normally would have been directed to the Note would now be channeled into its foldable phone range." That would mean 2020's Galaxy Note 20 is the last of Samsung's Note line.

In the early days, the Note line led the charge toward ever-bigger screen sizes, but for many years now, the Note has struggled to justify its existence compared to the mainline Galaxy S series, which gets released earlier in the year. Usually, the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note have similar specs, similar screen sizes, and similar designs, leaving only a stylus as the Note's defining feature. We usually skip reviewing the Note line because there's nothing to say compared to the S phone released earlier in the year, and every year you'll see calls from various outlets to kill the Note because it just has nothing new to offer.

Reuters claims the Galaxy Note's one defining feature, stylus support, will actually be ported over to other devices. The report says the S21 "will have a stylus" and the "next version of Samsung’s foldable phone" (we assume this means the Galaxy Z Fold 3) "will be compatible with a stylus."

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from Tech – Ars Technica https://ift.tt/3qik41V