Samsung Galaxy S10 Preview – Versatile camera and fine release
Just as 2017 was a special year for Apple, it is now for Samsung. It’s been ten years since the first Galaxy phone came out. Since Samsung itself touches on this, the S10 phones must be special according to the manufacturer. A day before the announcement, we were able to form a first impression at Samsung’s Dutch headquarters whether that is actually the case.
In any case, it is interesting that the company believes that there is room for a third high-end variant in the S-series. That device is the S10e, which is not entirely surprising under the S10 and S10 +. It is similar to what Apple has done with the iPhone XR, which lacks a number of luxury features, but has the same fast soc, for example.
We were able to briefly hold the three devices and form a first impression based on that.
The design, the choices and the consequences
Apple made a significant change in the design with the iPhone X in 2017, which is also about time as far as we’re concerned. Samsung has already shown quite a bit of design refinement from the S7 to the S8. The step from the S9 to the S10 isn’t as big as that, at least not in terms of the shape of the design. However, the front of the phone has become even more screen and Samsung has not done that by making a notch in the screen. Samsung has taken a different path and chooses to house the front camera behind a hole in the screen.
Samsung is taking a significantly different turn than Apple. The notch of the newer iPhones is necessary to accommodate all Face ID technology. Samsung no longer focuses on facial recognition. Where there was previously an iris scanner on the devices, which, in combination with the front camera, was responsible for the ‘Intelligent Scan’ facial recognition, this has now disappeared. Facial recognition is still possible, but has become a lot less secure. Samsung is therefore fully committed to unlocking with the fingerprint scanner, which is now behind the screen.
That scanner does not work optically, as with the Oppo RX17 Pro, the OnePlus 6t or the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. It is a scanner based on ultrasonic technology. This means that it works with sound waves. In addition, it does not suffer from refraction of light and could theoretically work more consistently. That has been proven so far, because we were able to test it and were positively surprised. The scanner works a lot smoother than we are used to from a fingerprint scanner behind the screen. It also seems more accurate and unlocked the S10, for example, with a reasonably wet finger.
It won’t work if your finger is really soaking wet, and we know of ‘old-fashioned’ capacitive scanners that work faster in our opinion, although we still need to test that better. Still, it is reassuring that it works so well, because in the absence of a good alternative, it is important that you do not get annoyed by the unlocking method, especially given the regularity with which you unlock a phone in a day.
The S10e is not equipped with the fingerprint scanner, which is one of the parts it lacks. That device has a capacitive scanner on the side in the power button, which unfortunately we were not yet able to test on the pre-production samples.
Let’s go back to the housing of the devices themselves. The dimensions of the devices and the screen differ more from the S9 series than those from the S8 series. For example, the S10 is a bit longer than the S9 and the S10E is a bit smaller than the S9. The S10+ is not very different from the S9+. In general, you have a bit more screen in relation to the total front. The S10 and S10+ have become a bit lighter than their predecessors and moved more towards the S8 series again. The bezels have become a lot smaller with the S10 and S10+, but those of the S10e are visibly larger and the relative screen size of that device is, partly because of this, more towards that of the S9. Below you can take a good look at all dimensions.
| Device | S10 | S9 | S8 | S10+ | S9+ | S8+ | S10E |
| Length (mm) | 149.9 | 147.7 | 148.9 | 157.6 | 158.1 | 159.5 | 142.2 |
| Width (mm) | 70.4 | 68.7 | 68.1 | 74.1 | 73.8 | 73.4 | 69.9 |
| Thickness (mm) | 7.8 | 8.5 | 8 | 7.8 | 8.5 | 8.1 | 7.9 |
| Weight | 157g | 163g | 152g | 175g | 189g | 173g | 150g |
| Screen diagonal | 6.1 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 6.4 | 6.2 | 6.2 | 5.8 |
| Relative screen size | 88.0% | 84.1% | 84.2% | 87.5% | 83.6% | 83.3% | 84.5% |
The relatively large screens of the S10 and S10+, but also those of the S10e, are again very beautiful and rich in contrast. We are no different from Samsung, but it remains an important part of the phones. A novelty is that they support HDR10 + and that the cameras on these phones can also record videos with that HDR standard. The video stabilization would also be considerably improved, but we have not yet been able to test that, let alone compare it. But more about the camera later.
There is one more difference to discuss in terms of screen and design, and that is that the S10e does not have a screen that bends to the sides. That will sound like music to the ears of some. After all, there was quite a bit of criticism among users about unwanted touches of the screen with the palm of the hand, due to the deflections.
Polygonal camera
Another major advancement over the S10 series is the camera setup. The regular S10 has improved the most compared to its predecessor. Manufacturers regularly choose to equip only the largest and most expensive phone with more cameras on the back, with various viewing angles. For example, the S9 + had two cameras and the S9 only one on the back. Just like the S10+, the S10 has no less than three on the back, all of which are also useful. Other good news: the S10e has two of the three rear cameras that the S10+ and S10 also have. It does miss the camera with ‘zoom’, or more telephoto angle, but the quality of the other cameras is, therefore, the same and the front camera is also the same as that of the S10.
The S10+ does have an extra camera there and, according to Samsung, it is intended to see depth, in order to apply bokeh effects and, for example, pick out a color and show the rest black and white. However, you can switch to this camera and it turns out to have a wider angle of view. On the one hand, it is quite strange that Samsung does not mention this as an extra feature, but we can also imagine it somewhat. The angle of view differs only slightly, namely about 10 degrees. Moreover, this second camera on the front does not have autofocus, while the other cameras on the front of the S10 devices do.
The primary camera of all these devices still has a variable aperture, from f/1.5 or f/2.4. It has an angle of view of 77 degrees. The second camera is the so-called Ultra Wide camera, which has a large angle of view of 123 degrees. These cameras are on all S10 devices. The S10 and S10+ also have a telephoto camera. This ‘zooms in’ twice compared to the primary camera. Below you can see photos of the Galaxy S10, which were taken with different cameras, to show what the different viewing angles are.
We’ve already been working with the S10’s cameras a bit and the speed of focusing and printing is fortunately high. We also encountered some new modes with the Live Focus mode, which lets you choose different types of artificial blur. More important, of course, is the photo quality. As usual, we can say very little about the quality in different conditions, but we didn’t want to withhold a first mini-comparison with the S9.
First of all: the software of both the camera and the devices themselves was not yet finished and it may well be that these photos are not entirely representative. Anyway, the differences in these photos are not great. The S10 does opt for a higher ISO value and a shorter shutter speed, which means that the photo of the S9 contains a bit more detail. It is likely that Samsung is still tweaking the algorithm, so we do not draw any firm conclusions from this.
Hardware and software
Although older Samsung devices than the S10 have had an update that entails Android 9 and changes to the interface, we still want to briefly discuss it, because the S10 has this software on board from the box. Samsung’s skin is now called One UI and part of the philosophy is that despite the longer screens you can reach everything. The lower part of the screen is for touching, the upper part for viewing only. The icons have also been simplified and therefore the whole looks a bit less busy. This has also been implemented in the camera app and it has our approval, also from an aesthetic point of view. However, a number of apps have been added, which in our opinion belong to the category of bloatware. There is Candy Camera and Lollicam and a variant of Cut the Rope.
In the Benelux, the S10 series will be supplied with the Exynos 9820. The S10e has 6GB of RAM, the S10 8GB and the S10+ 8GB or 12GB. As usual, we switched between apps and launched apps quite a bit. The devices are smooth again, although you can say the same of most high-end smartphones of course. More importantly, the battery capacity and hopefully also the battery life have improved. The S10 has improved by 400mAh and the S10+ by 600mAh. That seems to be proportionally more than the growth and greater energy consumption of the screen. The S9 was downgraded from its predecessor in terms of battery life, so hopefully the S10 is another step forward.
The S10 devices can all be charged wirelessly. In addition, the S10 devices can now function as a wireless charging mat themselves, whereby wirelessly rechargeable devices can be charged via the Qi standard. For example, you can charge the Galaxy Buds, the Galaxy Watch Active or another phone on the back of the phones. That might be fun for a limited audience, but it’s certainly useful.
The 3.5mm port that is still present is also worth mentioning, since Samsung still has a certain exemplary function compared to other manufacturers and it is simply handy.
Finally
Of course, we still have to test and compare quite a bit before we can form an opinion, but the first impression we got from the S10 devices is positive. The S10e is very welcome in our opinion, because it is a minimum 150 euro cheaper alternative, which still retains quite a few high-end features and which seems to last you quite some time. The price increase of the cheapest variants of the S10 and S10+ is fifty euros. That is common and while it is certainly not cheap, it is certainly no longer an exception and we were afraid of a bigger price increase.
The biggest improvement we can see from the S10 and S10+ right now is the versatility of the camera setup. A camera with which you can grab a larger angle of view, as well as one with a telephoto lens, is very practical. The increased battery capacity could also be very successful, depending on the test results of course. The unlocking was also a tricky point at Samsung in recent years, because the face unlocks was not very good and the fingerprint scanner was often awkwardly placed. The new ultrasonic scanner seems to be a nice step forward. Add to that the usual upgrades and smaller new features and the S10 can well throw higher eyes than the S9.