Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Samsung Galaxy S10+ Review: High, Wide & Handsome”.
[ Michael ], In a world in which smartphones like this exist, it’s kinda hard to care about ones that look like this.. But while the Samsung Galaxy Fold looks to reinvent the smartphone for tomorrow, the Galaxy S10 Plus looks to perfect it for today. And it gets really close to doing just that. ( upbeat music ).
I’Ve spent two weeks on two continents with the Galaxy S10, Plus the most capable of the three main Samsung flagships. This year.. This is not the phone most folks will buy..
The Galaxy S10 brings most of the same features for substantially less, and even the cheaper S10e is a monster of a smartphone.. The S10 Plus is where Samsung gets to flex a little with a bigger display and more storage and RAM options, plus an optional ceramic finish.. The most useful plus feature by far is the big battery. Taking a brand new phone into the mayhem of a trade show, as I did at Mobile World Congress last week, is the nightmare that phones have when you put them to sleep., But with a 4100 mil Amp hour battery, I was able to use the S10 Plus for 18 hour days. Days, full of shooting my own photos and video and then lending it to Alex Dobie for Android Central’s coverage.. All the time ferrying constant message: traffic, while immersed in an RF swamp of overloaded cell and wifi networks..
Now I could kill it if I tried. Toggle, that always on display and you’ll burn between one and 3 % more juice per hour.. But if you use it with even a cursory thought toward power management, the S10 Plus is a battery champ. The only way to kill it in a hurry is to use a feature.
I first checked out on a Huawei phone. Switch on wireless power share and you can transmit power to another device like the Galaxy Buds or Galaxy Watch. No cable, necessary.. Just don’t go thinking. You can be the Robin Hood of amp hours for all your friends’ phones..
While it’s possible to charge other handhelds, it’s not efficient and it’s not fast. I’ll, show ya I’ll pop my Pixel 3 on here and toss it into the time lapse. Chamber.
We’ll come back in a sec, so you can see what I mean. I’m jonesin’ to get to the camera folks, but we need to touch on what’s on screen first., While Samsung phones, usually sport, speedy performance out of the box, they’ve, never felt this smooth before.. The combination of response of interface with the screen coding that I swear is slicker than usual. It means that over used expression of buttery smooth applies more than ever here.. The 6.4 inch display those graphics are riding on is once again being called the best you can find on a smartphone. Where it improves over the Galaxy.
Note 9 is in max brightness this year, peaking at 1200, nit. And honestly, even the Note 9 was brighter than most folks will ever need outside the desert.. It’S also HDR Plus certified and it hides a 3D sonic fingerprint reader beneath it, which, while not as fast or accurate as a capacitive sensor, seems to work better than optical scanners..
In short, for other smartphones that try to live up to this screen. Well, tell’em, Oscar from Armageddon. (, electronic music ) That sound is coming curtesy of Samsung’s, typical, half front half side, dual speaker arrangement.
For phone calls. This is a wonderful system.. Callers are plenty loud and in speaker, phone mode, sound comes from both earpiece and speaker, ports., Which I think is a first and even if it’s not it’s exceptionally rare.. As for media playback, well, it’s loud and clear enough, but I still really don’t like side firing.
Speakers at all. I wish Samsung would give us true front firing. Speakers like the Pixel, 3 does., Oh and speaking of the Pixel. That’S our time! Travel, timer, trilling away.! So, let’s see what 30 minutes of wireless power share gave: us.
Okay, the Pixel that started at 10 % is now at 22 %, while the galaxy that started at 80 % is down to 60., And that means the Samsung sacrificed 20 % of its capacity to Top up the Pixel by 12 %. So again, if you need to charge someone else’s phone, you can, but for the most part, you’ll wan na stick to the watch and the buds. And folks, if you’ll permit me one more Pixel, 3 reference I’ll use it to kick off the camera chunk of this Review., Google’s Night Sight beats the devil. Out of anything. The Galaxy S10 can do in low light., But Samsung’s phone has a huge advantage in any situation where you need to cram more into the frame.. I’Ve been praising wide angle phone cameras since LG made them a fixture about three years ago. But too often LG and later arrivals. Like Huawei made. You sacrifice quality for that wide angle. Shot. Samsung achieves what I think is a sensible compromise.. It does fall off a bit on image quality by using a lessor sensor and omitting OIS, but it makes up for those hardware gives, with intelligent software stabilization and processing., Not to mention being the first manufacturer to put the lens controls where an actual human can reach.
Them. Pro tip press and hold the shutter button and you can drag it anywhere. Also. You get very wide 123 degree field of view, rather than the 107 degree lens that LG started sneakin’ into recent phones.
And you don’t get the reduced frame rate in video mode. That Huawei’s wide angle suffers from. The new camera even helps with Samsung’s usual dash of fun features.. When your shooting live focus now you don’t have to back six feet away from your subject to take a portrait shot.
In some. This is the best smartphone wide angle. Camera I’ve tested. And when you pair it with the standard and telephoto cameras, it makes the Galaxy S10 Plus the most versatile camera phone.
There is right, now., We’ll see if that holds when the Huawei P30 launches in a few weeks., And if you wan na make sure you don’t miss my coverage on that. Please subscribe to the Mr. Mobile on YouTube.. It’S been a bit of a love fest. So far so before we wrap up, let’s touch on the three things: I’d change., First you’ll notice, there’s a dual selfie camera on the front side, and while I was hoping for an ultra wide angle lens there too. Unfortunately, the second shooter is just a depth sensor. For more of those portrait shots., Second, the phone’s software is based on Android Pie, but the new One UI, a topic I find simplistic.
To me. It looks like it was designed for folks whose next phone might be a Jitterbug.. Actually, you can magic it away with the built in themeing tools or a custom launcher.
And third, the much badgered Bixby.. Some of you think we reviewers beat up on Bixby too much. So let me tell ya the first thing: Samsung’s not very useful assistant did when I took this phone out of the box was to tell me that a flight that wasn’t scheduled until the next day was in fact taking off in 19 minutes. Way back when the Galaxy Note 9 launched. I think it got me lost somewhere in Brooklyn, looking for a coffee shop., So you can understand why some of us want to remap the Bixby button to the infinitely better Google Assistant.. Like many other manufacturers allow you to do., While Samsung has given an inch, it’s not yet allowed us to take the full mile..
While you can now reprogram the Bixby button to another app and that other app can be almost anything you like it can’t be. Google Assistant., Let’s hit that conclusion., I’m not even gon na bother with a rhetorical setup. Yes., The Galaxy S10 Plus is worth the money.
Again, it’s not the best value you can get from Samsung., That’s probably gon na be the S10e., And if you wan na save even more, you can sacrifice a lot of features to get the 6T from OnePlus.. But if your finances or your carrier plan mean a thousand dollar smartphone, is something you’re open to. I can’t think of a better balanced one than this.
Just make sure you protect it with a custom skin if you’re a butterfingers like me. Dbrand is today’s sponsor and they sent me 40 billion. Different looks for this thing., The newer Matrix and the newest Swarm finishes. Caught my eye, but for the S10 Plus I’m partial to concrete., Get 20 % off through Friday March, 8th with no coupon necessary hit’em up at the link in my description.
And thanks to Dbrand for sponsoring. Folks. I’Ve padded out this review with some clips from Alex Dobie and Hayato Huseman’s excellent cinematography building that Android Central Galaxy S10 review be sure to check it out, androidcentral.com. And I’d like to cover one more from the S10 family before too long. Let me know in the comments whether you’re interested in the S10 or the more affordable and more colorful S10e. Until next time, thanks for watching and stay mobile, my friends .