All Samsung phones in the last couple of years have come with various power saving modes to allow users to enhance battery life on their device when they need it. The power saving modes have gone through various revisions over time, and on current Galaxy devices, you get four power modes to choose from on Samsung's flagship devices. There's the default Optimized mode, a medium power saving mode, a maximum power saving mode, and a high performance mode.
The high performance mode would suggest a device would offer higher levels of performance over the other modes, but up until the Galaxy S10, the so-called high performance mode would only increase the brightness of the screen and set the screen resolution to maximum (all Galaxy flagships come set to Full HD/HD+ resolution out of the box). It didn't really make a lot of sense, and Samsung finally realized that and has updated the high performance mode to also increase the system speed on the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10+.
It doesn't actually seem to improve performance, though
The screenshot below shows you the high performance mode screen on the Galaxy S10+ (left) next to the Galaxy Note 10+. Notice how the Note 10+ mentions “higher system speed” in addition to maximum screen brightness and resolution? Yep, the Galaxy S10's high performance mode, or the one found on older flagships like the Galaxy S9, is pretty much a farce if you go by what those words would generally mean for a smartphone, something Samsung has fixed with the Galaxy Note 10/10+.
Now, before you rush to enable the high performance mode on your Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10+, we should tell you that the mode doesn't really seem to increase performance — or affect battery life — in any noticeable way. Apps still install and launch at the same speed, the interface animations don't become any smoother, and games don't run any faster. We tried using one of our Note 10+'s a full day with the higher performance mode enabled and couldn't see any improvement whatsoever.
Maybe benchmarks would benefit from this mode, but that would make it something for showing off, not something that would make your day-to-day user experience better. And perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that is the case. Perhaps Samsung just decided to throw in the “higher system speed” text in there to not come off as foolish for calling a mode that increases screen brightness and resolution a high performance mode instead of making some under the hood changes that would actually increase overall performance.
Try the high performance mode for yourself
If you want to try out the high performance power mode on your Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10+, open the Settings app, tap Device care, select Battery, then tap Power mode. Here, select High performance and hit the Apply button. You can also change the power mode using its toggle in the notification shade (drag the notification shade down twice to see the full list of toggles).
Do let us know if you see any performance improvement once you've enabled that high performance mode on your Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10+!
