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Galaxy Note gone in 2021 - I doubt it

By Chris Burns/

The latest rumor in Samsung Galaxy smartphone universe centers on the all-powerful Samsung Galaxy Note. The rumor has to do with a leaked roadmap for the Samsung smartphone hero lineup for the year 2021. It's been suggested that the full lineup of Samsung smartphones (the AAA lineup) will not include a Samsung Galaxy Note device, and instead will include several Galaxy S models and several foldable devices (Galaxy Z devices) instead – including several with S Pen styli inside.

Does it make sense to remove the Galaxy Note from Samsung's yearly release lineup? As you'll see in the tweet from Max Weinbach below, the Samsung Flagship lineup does not include the Note brand.

Per Weinbach, "3 of these devices will have SPen support." UPDATE: To be extra clear, the "this year" in Weinbach's Tweet should actually be "next year, 2021." Just a brain fart, that was.

The reason I doubt Samsung would get rid of the Samsung Galaxy Note line is the relatively constant high ratings the Galaxy Note line gets in customer satisfaction ratings. If we look all the way back to the 2016 ACSI report on smartphone customer satisfaction, we see the Galaxy Note 5 at the top of the list. The Galaxy Note 4 took 4th place in that same survey. The Galaxy Note has been up near the top or at the top of this list every year for the past half-decade.

Fast forward to the most recent ACSI report on smartphone customer satisfaction. The ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) shows the Galaxy Note 9 at the top of the list for Smartphone Customer Satisfaction 2020. These results were released in May of 2020. The ACSI's report for 2019 also showed the Galaxy Note 9 at the top of the list.

So, hold on... The Galaxy Note 9 remained at the top of the list for two years. The 2020 rankings place the Galaxy S9+ in 2nd place, followed by Galaxy S10, iPhone XS Max, iPhone X, and Galaxy S9. The trendline here suggests that people aren't as thrilled with the newest set of devices as they were with the Galaxy S9 and Note 9 lines.

If course customer satisfaction rankings aren't the one element we'd need to predict the future of the Samsung phone lineup. We can also look to Samsung's willingness to take big chances with new smartphone brands as hero phones – with the folding display "Galaxy Z" line, for example – and the fact that the "Note" brand doesn't mean what it used to.

The Galaxy Note used to be the device that was crazy large and included a port hole for a stylus. Now that Samsung's sold this device for a decade, the thrill might be over. The positive elements consumers enjoyed the most from the Note line could very easily be moved to the Galaxy S+ and Galaxy Z smartphone lines, and the Note could be ended with relatively little fanfare.

There's also a note from Ice Universe as of November 14, there's a conspicuous lack of information on the development of the Galaxy Note series.

So what's it going to be, Samsung? Is it time to move the S Pen to devices unknown? Or is it time to get rid of the stylus altogether?

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