Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus review - Almost apex - Android
Update February 17: Samsung recently announced the Galaxy S20 series, including the S20, S20 Plus, and S20 Ultra. These phones are a huge step up from the S10 family in terms of specs and features. Some of the biggest improvements include 120Hz displays, the latest processor, huge allotments of RAM, big batteries, flexible cameras, and 5G.
More pertinent to this review, Samsung dropped the price of the S10e, S10, and S10 Plus. The phone’s now cost $150 less each, meaning $599 for the S10e, $749 for the S10, and $849 for the S10 Plus. These change the value equation, as the phones are much more affordable than the very pricey S20 series, which cost between $999 and $1,599 depending on model and options.
What we’re saying is there is a lot more value to be had here.
I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus on Google Fi in the U.S., Spain, and Portugal for 13 days. Our Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus is running Android 9 Pie and Samsung One UI version 1.1 on the February 1, 2019 Android security patch.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus review unit was provided to Android Authority by Samsung. Full disclosure, Samsung also took us to Montserrat, Spain for a day to test out the camera and video capabilities, but my thoughts on the camera capabilities are mine and mine alone.
We originally held off publishing this review because of a number of software updates Samsung said would be coming soon, and as of now we have received a biometric fingerprint reader update and an update to Bixby which allows remapping of the Bixby key. Another update which adds things like Instagram Mode to the camera is coming closer to launch, and we’ll update our Galaxy S10 Plus review once we receive it.
The first smartphone I ever pre-ordered was the Samsung Galaxy S3. Its nature-inspired design looked modern, fresh, and helped make the smartphone something that fits naturally in your hand, rather than an awkward yet functional brick.
Clearly times have changed. Samsung has iterated on the form of its smartphones in the seven years since then, and I think it’s peaked with the Samsung Galaxy S10, at least in the form factor that smartphones currently take.
This is our Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus review.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 is technically the third iteration since the company redefined the core form of a mainstream smartphone. The Galaxy S8 focused on refining the display to achieve the highest screen-to-body ratio possible and transformed modern smartphone design, while the Galaxy S9 felt like it rehashed things. At the time, the Galaxy S series’ curvy design made the Galaxy Note line feel less relevant, with its noticeably boxier form factor.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 feels different.
This is peak Galaxy S design.
The Galaxy S10 finally feels like Samsung decided it was okay to merge the best of the S line with the Note line, with flatter sides and a less sharp curve at the edges of the glass. If you’re worried this compromises the edge features introduced on the Galaxy S6 Edge, don’t be. It’s still easy to swipe from the sides to activate them, and it’s actually harder to do it accidentally now. The curve on both sides of the phone clearly defines the Galaxy S series, but the updates make the phone more functional instead of simply making it beautiful.
The bottom of the device features a USB-C port, along with a speaker grille and a headphone jack, something Samsung has refused to remove. The left side of the phone houses volume rockers and a dedicated Bixby button, something the company has also refused to remove.
Surprisingly, Samsung now lets you remap the Bixby button to launch nearly any app on your phone, a functionality the company has consistently blocked since the Samsung Galaxy S8 first introduced the button. I say nearly any app because other virtual assistants are disallowed, making it clear Samsung is still grasping for relevance in the AI wars.
The right of the device houses just the power button, which I think is placed far too high. I assume Samsung wanted to maintain button placement similar on both the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus, which resulted in the button resting near the top of the right side. But, for a phone this tall, users would be better suited to a button aligned with the Bixby button on the Z-axis. Up top, you’ll find a SIM card tray with microSD expansion and a microphone.
Besides the annual shrinking of the bezels on the front of the phone, you’ll find a cutout in the display for the front-facing cameras. These cameras are placed in line with the notification icons, making the cutout mostly a non-issue. If you’re watching lots of full-screen content on your device, you might find the cutout obnoxious, but I personally don’t think it’s that bad. I much prefer it to the notch designs we’ve all but normalized by now. The standard Galaxy S10 has a smaller cutout with only a single selfie camera, but the Galaxy S10 Plus’ cutout is wider due to the dual camera design it houses.
On the back of the device sits the rear camera module. This year, Samsung placed three cameras on the back of both the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10 Plus, giving users a wide, standard, and 2x telephoto lens (more on that in the camera section). If you want some cliff notes, I love the versatility, but the quality is disappointing.
The actual design of the camera bump is much more my style than last year. When I said I feel like Samsung is more okay with boxier features in the S line, this is what I meant. I found the Samsung Galaxy S9 camera bump too round, and the Note 9’s too boxy. This feels like a nice balance.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10 Plus come in a huge variety of colors, but Samsung gave us the Prism White variant for review. This colorway shifts between white, blue, and pink depending on the angle, and I think it’s the best color available. The glass’ nice shine gives it a premium look and feel, and allows for things like wireless and reverse wireless charging.
In my opinion, this is both the best designed and most functional Galaxy S phone to date. Before Samsung goes all in on foldables, I can’t see it changing the form of the Galaxy S line to any significant extent.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus has Samsung’s best display yet, full stop. This Dynamic OLED panel has rich and vibrant colors, but the resolution and saturation are turned down a bit out of the box. The new panel changes the organic material of the OLED to achieve the same Color Volume 100% certification given to high-end Samsung TVs, while also reducing power consumption. The device is set to 2,280 x 1,080 to save battery life, and defaults to the “natural” color setting, which is a bit more muted than the optional “vibrant” setting. Even though other settings are available, these are the ones I tested the device on, since the average consumer probably won’t bother to change them.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus has Samsung's best display yet.
The display is fairly massive at 6.4 inches, but it doesn’t feel overwhelmingly large due to the minimal bezels on the device. While the Samsung Galaxy S9 already had moderately minimal bezels, the Galaxy S10 shrinks them even more, partially due to the Infinity-O punch hole in the top right of the device. The punch hole is in line with the notification icons on the display, and so it doesn’t really obstruct any part of the display you would normally focus on. It really only got in the way when watching content in immersive mode, and even then it didn’t bother me as much as a centered notch.
Samsung is using Qualcomm’s ultrasonic in-display fingerprint reader in this phone, making it the second device in the U.S. to offer an in-display unlock option after the OnePlus 6T. However, while the OnePlus 6T’s in-display fingerprint sensor used light, Qualcomm’s ultrasonic sensor uses sound to read the ridges of your fingerprint through the display. This means it should work better through water, grease, or other liquids, since light won’t get refracted, and it does. It also means you can’t use most glass screen protectors.
In my testing, the fingerprint reader on the Samsung Galaxy S10 was extremely inconsistent. Samsung issued a software update a couple of days after we received the device which was meant to help with accuracy, but I didn’t see much improvement after re-registering my thumbs. The optical reader on the OnePlus 6T has been much faster and more reliable so far, but it’s also been updated nearly every month since the phone launched back in October. While we haven’t seen a lot of success with this reader so far, we’re hopeful it will improve as Samsung tweaks the software over time. Given the frequency with which updates are still going out, the fingerprint sensor’s performance may be very different by the time the phone ships. We’ll update this Galaxy S10 Plus review if we see any changes.
From a hardware perspective, the Samsung Galaxy S
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