How Good Is The Samsung S10? Here's What The Reviews Are Sayng
Samsung never gave into the notched display and no-headphone-jack trends and they're not about to start with their latest flagship models, the S10 and S10 Plus. Adopting a camera cutout in lieu of a notch, the S10 and S10 Plus cut bezels to a bare minimum. Of course, you'll be paying for the luxury — the S10 starts at $900 and the S10 Plus at $1000. Are the phones worth the cash?
The Great
The Headphone Jack
It exists, what more could you ask for in 2019?
The Display
Aside from the hardware design, the main head turner with any Samsung phone is the display, and the S10 Plus' does not disappoint in the least. It's a 6.4-inch OLED panel with rich, vibrant colors and excellent viewing angles. It gets extremely bright for use in direct sunlight, and has enough resolution that individual pixels are impossible to see with the naked eye. The screen stretches all the way to the top and bottom of the phone, with just the slimmest of bezels above and below it.
Samsung seems to have toned down its aggressive saturation, and the "Natural" mode, which is what I've been using, looks very nice and drops the eye-searing neon colors Samsung was known for.
Every smartphone maker's goal right now is to cover as much of a flagship phone's face as possible with display, and Samsung has more reason than most to work toward this goal. Why? Because Samsung's smartphone screens are the best on the planet.
[BGR]
The Performance
In virtually every operation, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ was a champ. I did what I could to push it, loading graphically intensive games like Fortnite, Asphalt 9, and Modern Combat 5.
[OneZero]
As the first phone with Qualcomm's 7-nanometer Snapdragon 855 processor in the U.S., the Galaxy S10 Plus is the fastest Android phone we've ever tested—even if the iPhone XS is faster in some tests.I played the Asphalt 9 racing game without a hint of lag. And in Mortal Kombat X, the graphics were so gory that when I burned a hole through someone's torso, I felt like I was playing on a console.
The Wireless PowerShare Feature
I love this feature, which will charge any other Qi-enabled device when you place it on the Galaxy S10's back. Samsung isn't the first to implement this, but it's a real asset, especially for topping up accessories, or giving your friend's phone a boost. Wireless charging isn't as fast or efficient as wired charging, but this does allow you to leave more cables at home, especially for short jaunts. I can see a scenario where you charge your phone overnight and charge up a second device on top of it.
[CNET]
The Good
A Very Good — But Not 'Best' — Camera
Unless you're a stickler, the camera will satisfy you completely. But it's not quite up to par with the best of the best, which you might expect from Samsung's flagship:
Make no mistake, this is no B-team camera, but it does not instantly set a new standard, which is what we'd hope for in one of the most anticipated Androids of the year. Though it will likely improve in the coming months.
[Wired UK]
If nighttime photography is a make-it-or-break-it feature for you, you may want to wait for next month's Huawei P30 Pro, October's (likely) Pixel 4, or cross your fingers that Samsung might push out a software upgrade. Low-light shots aren't a deal breaker for me, especially compared to the Galaxy S10 Plus' other benefits, but being able to match those other night modes would make the S10 Plus the undisputed champion across the board. As it stands now, the S10 Plus is an excellent device that I'd be happy to use every single day — and I think you'd feel the same way, too.
[CNET]
One UI
With the S10, Samsung is rolling out their new default software — the redesigned One UI.
For many years, Samsung phones had beautiful, capable hardware that was let down by lousy software. I'm happy to say that's not the case with the S10. Its software isn't perfect, and there is still room for improvement, but overall it looks nice, makes sense, and is mostly easy to use.
The Not-So-Good
The Fingerprint Scanner
The S10 no longer has a a capacitive fingerprint scanner, but rather than following Apple's Face ID, Samsung has gone for an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor embedded in the screen. It sounds cool, but Samsung would have been better off leaving the actual scanner on the back:
But it's not as fast or reliable as the traditional, capacitive fingerprint scanner on the back of the S9. The target area for the reader is rather small (though the lockscreen will show you a diagram of where to place your finger) and I had to be very deliberate with my finger placement to get it to work. Even then, I often had to try more than once before the S10 would unlock. I'd just rather have a Face ID system that requires less work to use, or at the very least, an old-school fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone.
My bumpy experience with the print sensor firmed up one conclusion: Face recognition is a more convenient method for unlocking phones, and Samsung is behind Apple in this area.
The Camera Hole Punch
The hole punch design is… fine. It works for getting more screen on the phone, but it can also be distracting:
Now that I've been living with the S10 Plus, I'd say that the holes can be distracting, especially when you're using an app with a white background like Gmail. It's like two tiny eyes staring at you. And there's a reason Samsung created wallpapers for this phone that are darker toward the top right corner: to help hide these holes.
The Samsung Galaxy S10+'s is the most obvious punch hole we've seen. It's more than twice the size of the Honor View 20's and Galaxy S10's, because this phone has two selfie cameras rather than one. When you're trying not to be distracted by the blob of black in your Netflix movie, you might question Samsung's decision. However, this does seem a much more practical solution day-to-day than a slider, which offers yet another part to fill with dust or come slightly loose after six months.
[Wired UK]
Though not all reviewers agreed:
I did a lot of gaming on the phone, which was also an opportunity to see if the screen cutout bothered me. It did not. I barely noticed it and thoroughly enjoyed gaming on the 6.4-inch device.
[OneZero]
TL;DR
The S10 isn't the smartphone of the future. Instead, it's the culmination of 10 solid years of cutting-edge smartphone work that's resulted into one of today's most solid mobile devices.
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