Samsung’s flagship smartphones have always been one of the best looking Android devices out there, and the recently launched Galaxy S10 and S10+ are no exceptions. In fact, in many ways they build upon the successes of their predecessors, and improve upon many of their drawbacks. I’ve been using the Galaxy S10+ as my daily driver for well over a week now, so if you’re wondering what these phones are like, keep reading to get our detailed S10, and S10 Plus review.

Before we take a look at the phones themselves, and their real-world performance, here’s a quick rundown of the specs these flagships are packing inside their glass and metal chassis.

Alright, now that we have the specs out of the way, let’s move on.

First things first, the unboxing experience of the Galaxy S10 is pretty much exactly as it was with past Galaxy flagships, and you find quite a bit of stuff inside the box:

  • The Galaxy S10 or S10 Plus (depending on what you bought)
  • A clear case (of surprisingly good quality)
  • AKG tuned earphones (with braided cables, yay!)
  • A USB Type-A to USB-C cable
  • 15W Adaptive Fast Charger
  • Leaflets and manuals that you won’t read (or at least I didn’t)

A couple of things stood out to me in the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus box. First, the included clear case is of a really good quality, which is awesome because I didn’t mind putting it on my phone at all. Second, the included earphones have a braided cable, which is great, and not something you’d find in most other smartphones.

The Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus (hereafter referred to as the Galaxy S10, or S10, unless stated otherwise) are possibly the most gorgeous phones I’ve set my eyes on. Samsung went all out on the S10, and basically left no stone unturned.

For a phone that’s basically a hole-in-one (pun-intended), the Display is still the show stopper here. It’s a gorgeous WQHD+ SuperAMOLED display which, measured diagonally, is 6.1-inches on the S10, and 6.4-inches on the S10+, and it’s pretty much what you expect from a Samsung display. This has to be the best display I’ve seen on a smartphone so far, and even though it has all of Samsung’s quirks, like the oversaturated colors, it manages to pull it off in such great style that you won’t be able to look at another phone without feeling like those displays just aren’t as good.

Speaking of saturated colors, Samsung does include a ‘Natural’ screen mode on the phone, pushes the saturation down a bit, for anyone wanting a more natural feel on their phones, but I still stuck to the Vivid setting, because it just looks absolutely stunning; but that’s mostly just personal preference, and it’s great that Samsung is giving users the choice.

Normally, I’d move to the performance or the cameras on a review, but the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus come with ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner, which, unlike the optical in-display fingerprint scanners you’d find on most phones, can work even without needing the display to turn on. That’s pretty awesome because you basically don’t need to use the power button any more. Just touch your finger on the screen and it unlocks.

There’s also Face Unlock here, and it’s considerably faster than the fingerprint scanner. In fact, sometimes it opens so quickly it seems like the phone wasn’t even locked. However, this is a simple 2D face unlock system, unlike the 3D system you’d find on something like the Mate 20 Pro, or the iPhone XS line up. It doesn’t have an IR sensor either, so it doesn’t work in pitch darkness. However, it’s still surprisingly good at detecting faces in very low light. There’s an opt-out feature that makes the screen brighter to unlock the phone in dark conditions, and that sort of works, but it’s very uncomfortable in pitch darkness because the screen is just so bright it hurts your eyes.

In terms of performance, the S10 comes with the Exynos 9820 in India, and it’s Samsung’s top-of-the-line flagship processor built in the 8nm process, so amazing performance and better battery life is pretty much guaranteed on the phone. However, the S10s retailing in the US pack in the 7nm Snapdragon 855, and while that 1nm might not a big deal, what is a big deal is the fact that the cores on these processors are clocked considerably differently.

The Snapdragon 855 inside the Galaxy S10 comes in a tri-cluster architecture, with 2 extreme performance cores clocked at 2.84GHz, two high performance cores clocked at 2.41GHz, and four high efficiency cores clocked at 1.78GHz.

To be fair, a score of 331,245 is nothing short of awesome, but it’s a little concerning that the scores differ this much simply because of the choice of processor here.

User Interface

As far as real world performance is concerned, the Galaxy S10 is mind-blowing, and it doesn’t feel bogged down at all.

Bixby

Bixby is still here, not that I was expecting it go away. I was hoping that it’d go away though, because it’s basically unusable. It’s the Siri of the Android world, and just like previous S-series flagships, it still has its very own button on the side which you will eventually press by accident and come face to face with Bixby.

Cameras

In terms of cameras, the Galaxy S10 brings Samsung flagships to the triple camera world. Both the phones feature three cameras on the back, and instead of making the third one a 3D TOF sensor or (even worse) a monochrome sensor, Samsung chose to put in an ultra-wide angle lens there instead, which just adds quite a lot more to what this camera can do.

The ultra-wide lens here is a pretty nice addition to the camera system. It allows for some unique perspectives, especially when you’re shooting pictures of a landscape, and the AI in the phone is actually smart enough to figure out when ultra-wide might look good. It actually suggests sometimes that you switch to the ultra-wide lens, and it’s usually right.

In low light, the S10 does struggle a bit, as most phones do, and the Pixel 3 XL easily beats it out, but once again, the S10 is easily the second best camera in low light too. We compared the S10 with the Pixel 3 XL, the iPhone XS, and the Mate 20 Pro for these tests, and the S10 was consistently better than the iPhone XS and the Mate 20 Pro.

On the front, the Galaxy S10 Plus comes with a dual front camera. There’s a 10MP selfie camera, along with an 8MP depth sensor for portrait mode photos. The Galaxy S10, on the other hand, comes with a single 10MP selfie camera and uses AI for depth in the portrait mode. Still, portrait selfies from both the phones are equally good, with ample detail and good colors. There’s not a lot to talk about as far as the selfie-capabilities of these phones are concerned.

As far as videos are concerned, the Galaxy S10 can shoot 4K videos at 60FPS, which is not really that big a deal even if it is a welcome feature. What is a big deal though, is that the S10 can shoot 4K HDR10+ videos, and these have some impressive colors all around. The HDR10+ recording is only available while shooting in 30FPS, though, so that’s something you should know, and it also has to be enabled. Out of the box, the S10 doesn’t record in HDR10+.

This is again a section I usually don’t include in a review, but the S10 kind of deserves it. The phone comes with stereo-speakers, and even though the top speaker is embedded inside the really slim forehead, it gets incredibly loud. The S10 can serve as a decent music listening speaker if you want it to, and the balance between the speaker on the top and the one on the bottom is pretty great too.

Battery

Moving on to the batteries, the S10 comes with a decent-ish 3,400 mAh battery while the S10+ comes with a considerably big 4,100 mAh battery that’s a huge jump over the 3,500 mAh battery inside the Galaxy S9+.

The good thing is, the phone does charge decently fast enough. It’s nowhere near the competition, but it’s not something I’ve found reason to complain about. With the included 15W adaptive fast charger, the phone took exactly 90 minutes to go from 10 to 100%, and that’s only decent. In comparison, the Mate 20 Pro, with a larger 4,200 mAh battery charges from 0 to 100% in less time. So yeah, it’s disappointing when you compare it, but it’s just fast enough to not feel slow.

Before I conclude this review, here’s a quick look at the S10’s strong suits and short comings:

  • Best looking display on a smartphone
  • Headphone jack
  • IP68 rating
  • Amazing stereo speakers
  • Versatile camera system
  • Great pricing (for a $999 phone)

Cons:

Conclusion

All things considered, the Galaxy S10 is a pretty great smartphone, and in my opinion, it’s the best Android flagship you can buy right now. It has the best display on a smartphone so far, it has a gorgeous design, cameras that are right up there with the best, great video shooting capabilities, IP68 rating, a headphone jack, performance that you’d expect from a flagship in 2019, and a much improved, more streamlined software experience.

Buy the Galaxy S10 Plus (starts at Rs. 73,900)