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Samsung Galaxy S10+ Review: Breakthrough

Charles TYK

Introduction

Earlier this year, Samsung announced three new Galaxy S10 devices — the Galaxy S10+, Galaxy S10, and Galaxy S10e. So, what’s new this year? We’ve been using the Galaxy S10+ for a few weeks. Without further ado, let’s dive into the Samsung Galaxy S10+ review.

Unboxing

The phone comes in a black box, like in previous years. However, Samsung has opted for sustainable packaging materials, instead of plastic. As our review unit isn’t the retail unit, duly note that there are some items missing in the box. The box contains:

It’s good to see that the phone actually comes with a protective case, which is quite useful especially for people like me who has slippery hands. Additionally, the phone also comes with the pre-applied screen protector, though it gets scratched quite easily. Still, better than nothing!

Glass Sandwich Design

In terms of design, the Galaxy S10+ looks pretty much like its predecessor. The phone now has a more boxy design, which looks more like the Galaxy Note lineup. Samsung has kept this glass sandwich design language since the Galaxy S6 and the company perfected this design since the Galaxy S8. After that, the company did some minor improvements each year, not really a bad thing but we’ve been seeing almost the same thing every year.

Perhaps the most noticeable difference is the camera cutout at the top right corner of the screen. Gone is the dedicated fingerprint sensor on the back, which is now being replaced with the new ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor. The new ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor works better than the optical one, which we’ve seen on many new phones nowadays. Unlike the optical counterpart, it works even if your fingertip has dirt or water, and it doesn’t illuminate extremely bright since it uses sound waves to detect your fingerprint. The ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor is faster and more accurate than the optical in-display fingerprint sensor, but I would still say the dedicated one works faster and more accurate.

Thankfully, you still get the 3.5mm audio jack, which located next to the USB-C port, the microphone, and the loudspeaker. The S10+ also has the stereo speakers — one at the bottom, another one also doubles up as the earpiece.

The power button is located at the higher right of the phone, while the left side houses the volume rocker and Bixby button. You can finally remap the Bixby button to open a specific app like camera, but you can use it to open Google Assistant.

Dynamic AMOLED Display

The phone sports a 6.4-inch QHD+ curved Dynamic AMOLED display with a wide Infinity-O cutout to house the dual-front camera setup. The screen resolution is set to Full HD+ by default, but you can always change it in settings.

Additionally, the screen also supports HDR10+ tech, making it the first phone to have HDR10+ support in the market. To make use of the HDR10+ screen, the phone is capable of recording HDR10+ videos too.

As usual, Samsung made one of the best top-class displays in the world. The screen has good color reproduction and is pleasing to the eye. The phone now only has two screen modes — Vivid and Natural. Basically, both have noticeable differences in terms of contrast level and color saturation.

As for the Infinity-O cutout, it doesn’t bother me too much, to be honest. The information icons such as the battery life with percentage, phone service signal strength, and Wi-Fi have now been moved to slightly left. If you think the cutout is a little bit annoying, Samsung actually gives you the option to hide the cutout entirely or just specific apps.

Exynos 9820 SoC

The Galaxy S10+ is powered by an Exynos 9820 processor, which is a 7nm SoC, with 8GB RAM and 128GB UFS 2.1 expandable storage. The phone performs quite well in day-to-day usage without any hiccup or lag, multitasking with it is not a big problem as well.

In terms of gaming, the phone runs games like PUBG Mobile and Real Racing 3 smoothly with high graphics settings. The phone also kept the temperature under control while gaming, so far I didn’t experience overheating.

One UI

The Galaxy S10+ runs on Android 9 Pie with Samsung One UI out of the box. One UI was rolled out earlier this year to the Galaxy S9 devices. Overall, Samsung cleaned up a lot of things and made everything easier to use. For starter, the company moved the buttons to the bottom of the screen for easier navigation, especially for one-handed usage.

When you open system apps like Phone and Message, you’ll notice that the first half of the screen shows the big text of the specific system app, while the bottom half is where you interact. This really shows how Samsung really focusing on the way users interact with the phone, and it certainly more user-friendly than before. Sadly, third-party apps like Facebook and Twitter still work the same as before.

Bixby has been improved as well, but I still prefer Google Assistant more. Finally, I really like the Night Mode feature, which technically is the dark mode that many users been waiting. This time around, Samsung really took advantage of its AMOLED display with the Night Mode, for sure it will help in prolonging the battery life.

Five Cameras

This year, the Galaxy S10+ comes with five cameras — two on the front and three on the rear. The front cameras are the reason why it has such a wide Infinity-O cutout, housing a 10MP F1.9 sensor + 8MP F2.2 RGB depth sensor. As for the rear, it still has the same 12MP F2.4 telephoto lens with OIS + 12MP F1.5/F2.4 wide-angle lens with OIS and SuperSpeed Dual Pixel AF. What’s new is the 16MP F2.2 ultra wide (123°) camera, which means you now have three different focal lengths.

The camera also comes with the Instagram mode, which allows you to capture photos and videos for your Instagram Stories using either its telephoto, wide, or ultra wide camera.

2 / 10

Image quality generally is pretty good, not the best but most photos turn out to be eye-pleasing. I really enjoy using the ultra-wide camera, especially when it’s quite hard to get everything in a frame, the ultra-wide camera does its job! Overall, I am quite satisfied with the Galaxy S10+ camera performance, though sometimes I wish the photos captured could be more natural.

4,100mAh Battery

The phone packs a huge 4,100mAh battery that supports fast wired and wireless charging. The battery life is great as it was able to last through a day easily. Based on my usage, I was able to get nearly 6 hours of screen-on-time. Unfortunately, Samsung still uses the same old Adaptive Fast Charger from a few years ago, which took around an hour and 40 minutes to charge the phone from 15% to 100%. The fast charging doesn’t really work while you are using the phone or keep the screen on. Comparing to most flagships nowadays, the Galaxy S10+ charging speed is really slower than its rivals. However, news suggested that Samsung will be rolling out an update for the Galaxy S10 series, which will provide a faster-charging speed via a 25W charger. Right now the one that came in the box is only 15W.

The phone also comes with Wireless PowerShare feature, which is a reverse wireless charging feature. The phone can reverse charge other Qi-enabled phones wirelessly such as the iPhone Xs, Huawei P30, and even the old Galaxy S9.

Pricing

The prices for the Galaxy S10 series devices are as below:

Duly note that the 1TB model of the Galaxy S10+ has 12GB RAM, which is more than the 128GB and 512GB variants (8GB RAM).

Final Words

Samsung didn’t really make a huge change from the Galaxy S8 to the Galaxy S9. This year, it seems that the Galaxy S10 series doesn’t have a big change as well. Instead of making the change, I would say Samsung has improvised over its predecessor, making the Galaxy S series even better than before. There are changes like the Infinity-O camera cutout on the display, the ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor, and the ultra-wide camera. All of these are really good changes, the cutout doesn’t bother me, the ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor works better and faster than the optical one, the ultra-wide camera takes great photos, what else do you want? One more thing, Samsung One UI is even easier and more user-friendly than before too!

Overall, the Galaxy S10+ is one of the most powerful smartphones you can buy right now, and it’s cheaper than the iPhone Xs!

Yay

Nay

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