New Smartphone Offers Gesture Controls
Samsung's flagship phone Galaxy Note 10, which was unveiled in New York on Aug. 7 (local time), features a new S Pen loaded with new functions.
The most notable feature of the new S Pen is its Air Actions, which is an upgrade of the Bluetooth-based remote control functions of the Galaxy Note 9 that was released last year. The S Pen of the Galaxy Note 9 allowed users to remote-control their phones when they shoot photos or make a presentation by pushing a button on it. They can control the Galaxy Note 10 by moving it right and left and up and down in the air.
For example, if you turn on the camera on the Galaxy Note 10 and move the S Pen right or left in the air with its button pressed, the camera mode will change. If you move the S Pen up, the camera mode will change from the front camera to the rear camera and if you make a circle with it, the camera will zoom in or out.
Users can operate the Galaxy Note 10 with Air Actions from up to 10 meters away, Samsung says. The company plans to unveil S Pen's software development kit (SDK) so that customers can use Air Actions in games and other applications in addition to the camera app.
The augmented reality (AR) doodle function, which allows you to write letters or draw pictures with the S Pen on a video, is expected to gain popularity among millennials. This feature allows users to draw various pictures directly on a video being recorded. In particular, as it can recognize human faces, if you draw a crown on the head of a friend or cat whiskers on the friend's face in the video and the friend moves his head this way and that, the picture will move accordingly.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy Note 10 pursues a minimal design that drastically eliminates unnecessary parts. It adopts the so-called “aesthetics of abandonment.”
The Galaxy Note 10 has no earphone hole in its body and integrates the Bixby button with the power button. In the previous Galaxy S10 model, the camera hole was placed at the upper right corner, but in the Galaxy Note 10, the company brought it to the center of the top and minimized the bezel space. The screen-to-body ratio stands at 93.7 percent for the Note 10 and 94.7 percent for the Note 10 Plus, which is higher than 89.5 percent for the Galaxy Note 9 and 92.4 percent for the Galaxy S10 Plus.
In particular, the elimination of a wired earphone jack has drawn much attention. "We have made a bold decision taking into account the trend towards wireless earphones," Samsung explained. Samsung Electronics is producing the wireless earphone Galaxy Buzz, which is expected to replace wired earphones with the expansion of wireless products in a multimedia playback environment.
However, the company is not considering giving up the edge design yet.