Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Rumoured to Ditch Physical Buttons in Favour of Force-Touch

It hasn't been long since Samsung launched its S10 flagship trio and already, we starting hear murmurs of its next flagship, which will presumably be called the Galaxy Note 10. A new wild rumour doing the rounds suggest that the Galaxy Note 10 will ditch all the physical buttons in favour of force-sensitive buttons, in order to achieve a true, seamless design. This would be quite uncharacteristic of the company to make such a drastic design change, especially since it resisted the urge to add a notch to its flagship phones, even when the smartphone industry jumped on that bandwagon with both feet.

According to South Korean news website ETNews, the Galaxy Note 10 is expected to be the first Samsung phone with a completely keyless design. The report further states that this design would eventually trickle down to other Samsung phones too, such as the Galaxy A-series, but whether we'll see such lower-end products in 2019 or early 2020, is still unclear. The Korean translation isn't the best but from what we can make out, an industry observer has reportedly stated that NDT, a manufacturer of force-touch modules, is in consideration for supplying such modules to replace the power and volume buttons on the Galaxy Note 10. There's also a good chance that the Bixby button will also be swapped out in favour of a touch sensitive panel.

Going keyless is not exactly a brand new design direction. At MWC 2019, Vivo showed off the Apex 2019 concept which didn't have a single button or even a port for charging the phone. Meizu also showed off a similar concept called the Zero, which turned out to be more of a marketing stunt rather than a proof of concept. Now, it's unlikely Samsung will be going to that extreme and take off all the ports from its next flagship, but considering how the headphone socket is slowly disappearing and fingerprint sensors are being shifted to under the display, it's not a completely wild thought to get rid of the buttons.

Personally, we don't see any need to get rid the physical buttons. It's not something we feel most people complain about or have an issue with. These are still very early rumours so it's best to take it with a large pinch of salt. The phone is slated to arrive sometime in August with four cameras at the back, similar to the Galaxy S10 5G variant. Don't be surprised to see a 5G version of the Galaxy Note 10 too.