Samsung Galaxy S10+ Review: The Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy S10+ is a great smartphone, but for the first time in a long time, Samsung isn't the first to market with the latest tech and there are other options worth considering.
What we love
- Feels fantastic to hold and use
- Neat new features like in-screen fingerprint scanner and wireless Power Sharing
- Solid battery life
What could be improved
- One of the most expensive phones you can buy
- Camera, while good, is not best in class
- Curved screen and sensitive touchscreen make for daily frustrations
The essentials
- Performance: One of the most powerful phones you can buy. A joy to use.
- Battery: Lasted for about 25 hours, including 4 to 5 hours of screen time.
- Screen: Outstanding colour and detail.
- Camera: Good, but not outstanding, considering the price of the phone.
80/100
From $1,499
- 6.4-inch QHD display
- Exynos 9820 Octa processor
- 128GB/512GB storage, 12GB RAM
- 16MP+12MP+12MP rear-facing, 10MP+8MP front-racing cameras
- 4,100mAh battery
The Samsung Galaxy Series of smartphones turns 10 this year, and you'd argue that the battle for smartphone dominance has been a two-horse race over the last decade. Despite Sony, HTC, LG and others producing some great phones in that time, the choice for most has been between an Apple and a Samsung.
But times are changing and Chinese brands, like Huawei and Oppo, are now beating Samsung to market with key new features and aggressive pricing. I'd argue that it has never been so important for Samsung to remain impressive.
The Galaxy S10+ is Samsung putting its best foot forward with a phone that appears to have everything you could ask for, and yet for the first time I can remember, Samsung is playing catch-up. The Galaxy S10+ is a great smartphone, but in some areas you'd be wise to at least consider the competition, in particular with its camera, battery life and security, which we'll get to later.
What's great about the Samsung Galaxy S10+?
To begin with, it's worth calling out that the parts of the phone where Samsung always excels remain outstanding. First, I love the feel of the Samsung Galaxy S10+. It looks a lot like the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S9, but the S10 is squarer, and it has curves in all the right places, so it fits nicely in the hand. The only callout we have is that the Power button is in a really inconvenient spot, towards the top of the right-hand side. With a phone this big, it is hard to reach comfortably without shifting the phone around in your hand.
The 6.4-inch AMOLED display is superb, and the touchscreen has never felt better. The power of the phone and sensitivity of the screen give the user experience a fluidity which is really pleasing.
Though the touchscreen sensitivity and the curved edges of the display also create a number of frustrating moments too. I struggled taking a photo recently because the screen was detecting my fingers on both sides of the screen and zooming in instead of taking the shot. I've also moved all homescreen shortcuts away from the right-hand side to stop apps from opening by mistake: something that was happening several times per day.
I have no idea why Samsung perseveres with curved screens (and why other manufacturers like Huawei copy it). It's one of the best examples of form over function in modern phones. Curved screens may look great on store shelves and billboards, but this is far outweighed by the frequent annoyances they create.
Another point of contention relates to the new 'Infinity O' front-facing camera holes built into the top-right corner of the display. Some, includes my colleagues at WhistleOut, think that these holes get in the way of things on-screen; especially when watching videos. For me, I don't mind the holes and I don't remember a time while using the phone that I wish I could see what might in this place on the screen.
Samsung Galaxy S10+: Camera
For the first time in a Samsung phone, the Galaxy S10+ comes with five cameras; two on the front and three on the back. This may sounds like a lot of cameras, because it is, but as we've seen with a number of phones recently, an array of cameras and clever AI can take amazing shots.
In general, the Galaxy S10+ takes great photos. The colour our test shots is vibrant without being overwhelming. You don't see 'natural' colours in photos taken on Auto mode, but I'd argue that most of us would prefer photos that look a little better than real life anyway.
But after using the camera now for a few weeks, I find I don't trust the auto-focus as much as I expect to with a Samsung phone. I had been using a Huawei Mate 20 Pro for a few months before trying the S10, and in comparison I find that the Huawei takes a great shot on the first attempt more often than I can say the same when using the S10+. Even when I take my time to settle myself before taking a photo I can still be disappointed in the sharpness of the resulting shot.
My suspicion is that Huawei does a better job of using AI to compensate for subtle movement when taking a photo. Both the Mate 20 Pro and the Galaxy S10+ feature optical image stabilisation, which is the gold standard for mitigating the shakes of unsteady hands. But I'd say that Huawei does a better job of sharpening the image with software to give a more reliable result more often.
This is a croiffle, a croissant-waffle hybrid. The colour in the photo is lovely, but the focus is a little soft.
This is a shot from the Galaxy S10's standard lens.
And here's the same shot from Galaxy S10's zoom lens.
This shot is taken using ultra-wide angle lens. You'll notice fish-eye distortion which makes the buildings look like they are curving in towards the centre of the photo.
The dynamic range on this one is just lovely.
Mostly good, but all the lighting in the image is heavily blown out and the people are soft and lack detail.
Another ultra-wide sample. The fish-eye effect is a lot less noticeable when it comes to nature photography.
This is a panorama shot using the standard Galaxy S10+ lens. The stitching is really seamless.
The zoom lens images tend to lose detail when shot in lowlight.
Samsung Galaxy S10+: Battery Life
With a 4100mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ has more charge than just about any other Samsung phone to date. This results in the best battery life of a Galaxy phone, but it is still a fair distance from best battery life overall.
In my experience during our tests, the Galaxy S10+ lasts for just over a full day. The 'Device Care' app on the phone estimates battery life at 25 hours each day, and I know I can use the phone for about 5 hours on a single charge. This is great for me, it covers my daily commute, lunch break, work calls and messaging, and downtime after I get home.
But, it still falls well short of my recent experience with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro where I could do the same things with the phone and get through two work days. I saw the same battery life a year earlier with the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and with a few Oppo phones throughout 2018.
I've tried several times to extend the battery life of the S10+. I use an aggressive battery saving mode, with the screen resolution set to the minimum level, the Always-On Display disabled and the CPU limited. Happily these changes don't make a noticeable difference but it seems silly to pay top-dollar for a phone and then disable all of its cool features.
Samsung Galaxy S10+: Biometric Security
When Apple revealed FaceID in the iPhone X two years ago it changed the way we think about security. We could keep our digital lives secure with a system that was faster and easier to use than fingerprints. At the time I thought that Samsung would have similar functionality in it's next released, but we're now years later and Samsung is still lagging behind.
Samsung opts for a combination of face recognition and an 'ultrasonic' fingerprint scanner located below the screen. Both sound like good options, but both are slower and less accurate than fingerprint scanners on previous Galaxy phones.
Having a fingerprint scanner below the screen is a great idea, but I've yet to see an implementation of it that works nearly as well as a regular fingerprint reader. As a rough estimate, I'd say about half of my attempts to unlock the S10+ will a finger fail, and there has been several times when I've resorted to entering my PIN after four or five failed attempts in a row.
Face recognition is far more reliable, but perhaps only because it is less secure. Samsung's phones don't use 3D face scanning like the iPhone, and I've had friends unlock my phone using their face, despite not even looking like me. We laughed about it at the time, but it is scary to think about how badly this experience could be for someone else.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S10+?
The Samsung Galaxy S10+ is an excellent smartphone with most of the bleeding edge features you'll find in other phones of this calibre, and price. The phone looks fantastic, as you'd expect from Samsung's designers, but it also feels great too. The edges are smooth and nice to hold, and speedy performance makes the S10+ a joy to use.
But there are shortcomings too. The curved edges of the screen means lots of accidental touches, the position of the power button is inconvenient, and this is Samsung's worst attempt at biometric security in years. But for me, the biggest drawback is that the battery life isn't near the performance you can expect from Huawei's best phones. The battery in the S10+ is huge, and you should make it to the end of everyday with battery remaining, but in 2019 I want more, and other companies are proving that it is possible.
I don't want a Samsung Galaxy S10e, what else can I buy?
Huawei Mate 20 Pro
We referred to it several times throughtout this review, and for good reason. The Mate 20 Pro has all of the Galaxy S10+ best features, like an in-screen fingerprint scanner and wireless Power Sharing, plus it has a better camera and twice the battery life.
iPhone XS Max
Apple's latest and largest won't save you any money, in fact it will cost you more, but you get a similarly large display, a solid camera and world-beating biometric security in Apple's FaceID.
OPPO R17 Pro
You don't have to spend a fortune to get a seriously cool new smartphone. The OPPO R17 Pro sells for half the price of a new Galaxy S10+, but comes with most of the things you'll need in a new phone.
| Phone model | Storage | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Galaxy S10e | 128GB | $1,199 |
| Samsung Galaxy S10 | 128GB | $1,349 |
| Samsung Galaxy S10 | 512GB | $1,699 |
| Samsung Galaxy S10+ | 128GB | $1,499 |
| Samsung Galaxy S10+ | 512GB | $1,849 |
| Samsung Galaxy S10+ | 1TB | $2,399 |
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