Samsung Galaxy S10 review

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Introduction

Step by step and year by year, we're now at 10 - the Samsung Galaxy S-series have matured over the past decade with big and incremental upgrades alike bringing us closer to that elusive 'perfect smartphone'. The Galaxy S10 is by definition the best one ever, so let's see just how good the best is.

There's little to separate the S10 from the S10+ we had a closer look at last week, and most of it is a matter of scale. The S10's got a smaller display than the Plus at 6.1 inches - the 0.3-inch spacing Samsung instituted between the four S10s. And then with a smaller display a smaller battery is in order, the 3,400mAh capacity a slightly bigger downgrade than the diagonal. And that's about it - unless you absolutely insist on 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, an option only available in Plus size.

Then comes the sole difference that isn't merely quantitative - the S10 only has a single selfie cam, where the S10+ has a depth sensor to assist with portraits. But generations of Galaxies before this one only had one front facing cam and somehow we made it to here.

Other than that, the Galaxy S10 comes with the usual annual chipset update and it's top quality silicon whether it's Exynos or Snapdragon trim. The triple camera setup on the back with a brand new ultra wide module is the same as on the Plus - so two cameras more than last year's regular sized S9. If only all incremental upgrades were like this one.

Here's a quick refresher on the internals, before we take the phone out of the box.

Samsung Galaxy S10 specs

• Body: Aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass 6 front, GG5 back, 149.9x70.4x7.8mm, 157g; Prism White, Prism Black, Prism Green, Prism Blue, Canary Yellow, Flamingo Pink color schemes. IP68 rating for dust and water protection.
• Display: 6.1" Infinity-O Dynamic AMOLED, 1,440x3,040px, 19:9 (2.11:1) aspect ratio, 550ppi; HDR10+ support (first).
• Rear camera: Wide (main): 12MP, 1/2.55" sensor, f/1.5-2.4 aperture, 26mm equiv. focal length (77° FoV), dual pixel PDAF, OIS. Telephoto: 12MP, 1/3.6" sensor, f/2.4 aperture, 52mm equiv. focal length (45° FoV), PDAF, OIS. Ultra-wide: 16MP, f/2.2 aperture, 12mm equiv. focal length (123° FoV), fixed focus.
• Front camera: 10MP, f/1.9 aperture, 25mm equiv. focal length (80° FoV), dual pixel PDAF.
• Video recording: Rear: up to 4K 2160p@60fps, EIS up to 2160p@30fps, slow-mo up to 1080p@240fps, super slow-mo 720p@960fps for up to 0.4s (12s playback at normal speed); HDR10+ recording. Front: up to 4K 2160p@30fps with EIS.
• OS/Software: Android 9.0 Pie, Samsung One UI.
• Chipset (market dependent): Snapdragon 855 (7nm): octa-core CPU (1x2.8GHz & 3x2.4GHz Kryo Gold & 4x1.7GHz Kryo 485 Silver); Adreno 640 GPU. Exynos 9820 (8nm): octa-core CPU (2x2.7GHz Mongoose M4 & 2x2.3GHz Cortex-A75 & 4x1.9GHz Cortex-A55); Mali-G76 MP12 GPU.
• Memory: 8GB RAM with 128GB storage, 8GB RAM with 512GB storage; microSD card slot (hybrid on the dual SIM versions).
• Battery: 3,400mAh Li-Ion (sealed), 15W wired charging (Adaptive Fast charging, QuickCharge 2.0 compatible), 15W Fast Wireless Charging 2.0, Wireless PowerShare.
• Connectivity: Single-SIM, Dual-SIM available in certain markets (hybrid slot); LTE-A, 7-Band carrier aggregation, Cat.20/13 (2Gbps/150Mbps); USB Type-C (v3.1); Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac/ax MU-MIMO; GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo; NFC; Bluetooth 5.0.
• Misc: Ultrasonic under-display fingerprint sensor; stereo speakers (bottom-firing + earpiece); bundled AKG headphones.

Samsung Galaxy S10 unboxing

This year's package is a bit different from the previous three generations and their blue-accented black boxes. A black box it still is, but there's now a bolder 'S10' printed on top in a color that matches the paint job of the phone inside. Take off the lid and you'll see the phone, the accessories underneath, and little has changed here.

What you're getting is a 15W charger that supports Samsung's Adaptive Fast Charge standard (QuickCharge 2.0 compliant) and a USB cable to go with it. There's also a nice AKG branded headset with braided cables and Samsung's usual set of two USB adapters - female A to male C and female micro B to male C. We've previously seen bundles missing one of these adapters, so this will likely vary by region. Same thing with the case - in some markets there will be one bundled, but we didn't get any with our review unit.

Design and 360-degree view

We asked a hundred people what's the single most-striking design feature of the Galaxy S10 and 93 said it's the punch hole camera in the display. Okay, we really didn't, but we assume the results would have been in that ballpark.

That's not to say all of these people would be loving the cutout - on the contrary, we've heard polar opposite opinions with some folks at the office insisting that the punch hole effectively robs you of more screen estate than the more conventional notches, under some use cases.

No matter where you stand, the punch hole is Samsung's solution for fitting a selfie camera on an all-screen flagship phone, and that's how it's going to be until a less offensive one comes along. For what it's worth, after we moved past the stage of examining the S10 to actually using it, the punch hole pretty much disappeared. Like most notches, for that matter.

Now, if it still bothers you, you can hide it entirely in settings by toggling the 'Hide camera' option on. What that will do is basically erase the the top portion of screen and the phone will treat it like it isn't there. It's not the most elegant solution as you'll get a huge forehead on an otherwise very thin-bezelled phone, but also you'll be wasting usable screen area - the S10 won't use the black bar for status icons or notifications.

So, embrace the punch hole you should - Samsung's done it. They may have taken it a step too far by naming their displays Infinity-O, but we're definitely enjoying the 'Infinity' part - the Galaxy S10 offers perhaps the most screen you can get in a phone this compact.

The phone measures 149.9x70.4x7.8mm - 6.3mm taller and half a mil narrower than an iPhone XS for roughly 10% more nominal display area (without accounting for notches/punch holes), and 4.3mm taller and 2.2mm wider than a Pixel 3, while offering more than 20% extra screen than the Google phone. The S10 is also a tangible 20g lighter than the iPhone, though 9g heavier than the Pixel.

For all its compactness, the S10 has one very real usability flaw, and that has to do with the power button placement. It's way too high on the right side of the frame and doesn't fall where you'd naturally have your thumb if you're a right-hand user. It's even less convenient for the left-hand folk. That said, simply because the S10 is a smaller phone, reaching the power button is slightly less problematic than on the S10+.

The rest of the controls are laid out in a familiar fashion with the volume rocker and Bixby key on the left. The Bixby is now partially remappable - you can assign a single click to the Samsung assistant, and a double click to another app, or the other way around, but not fully disable it.

Down on the bottom, there's the usual stuff you'd find on a Samsung phone of recent years - a USB-C port in the middle, headphone jack to one side, and a loudspeaker and microphone to the other.

Up top there's another mic pinhole and the card slot which will take a nano SIM and a microSD on single SIM versions of the phone. Dual SIM variants have the second slot shared between a nano SIM and a microSD - the hybrid slot variety.

The frame on Samsung's high-end phones has been made of aluminum since the S6 days, and the S10's is as well. It's polished to a shine and with a pale tint in the general direction of the back color. Colors include the Prism Green of our review unit and a handful of other 'Prism' options that will vary by market, but there are no ceramic versions like you can have on the S10+. Colors aside, the S10 has Gorilla Glass 5 on the back (GG6 on the display), and is IP68-rated.

Galaxy S10 in Prism Green and S10+ in Prism White

The back of the S10 features the same camera/flash/sensor array behind a shared window that S10+ has. It's a remarkably clean look for the amount of stuff that's gone in there - three cameras, LED flash, heart rate and SpO2 sensors.

That minimalist back design is in no small part helped by not having to fit a fingerprint reader in there - it's on the front, under the display, instead. It's the ultrasonic type - it emits high frequency sound waves through the display layer and recreates a 3D map of your fingertips. You can read more on our experience with it in the software section, but let's just say here that it's good, not great.

The punch hole aside, the Galaxy S10's design can be summed up as evolutionary, and in a good way. Samsung's been pushing towards bezelless phones since the Note Edge in 2014 and while the display curves have been getting more subtle, the non-display bits on the front have been shrinking. The end result is one sexy looking phone.

6.1-inch HDR10+ capable Dynamic AMOLED

The smartphones in the Galaxy S10 family are equipped with Samsung's first Dynamic AMOLED displays. It's like the Super AMOLEDs of yesteryear, but with an emphasis on HDR - these Galaxies are the first smartphones to support HDR10+ (the '+' is what counts here). But most importantly, these panels are much better now.

The S10 has a smaller 6.1-inch panel than the 6.4-inch one in the Plus, but the resolution and aspect ratio are the same - 1440x3040px resolution in a 19:9 aspect. The same number of pixels on a smaller screen equals higher density - 550ppi on the S10 vs. 526 on the Plus. Math.

The smaller screen on the S10 is marginally brighter than the one on the Plus - we measured 396nits of maximum brightness on our S10 vs. the 385nits on the bigger brother. That's when setting the brightness manually - when left in auto, it can go as high as 820nits under direct light. It's one of the highest readings we've got in modern times.

As we mentioned in the S10+ review, let's clarify again why our results differ from the numbers Samsung quotes (up to 1200nits). We carry out our brightness testing at a 75% average picture level (APL), which means that our white test pattern takes up 75% of the physical size of the screen as we consider this a rather real-life level.

Due to the nature of the technology, an AMOLED screen would be able to push its brightness progressively higher as the area that needs to be lit up in white gets smaller. So whenever an AMOLED max screen brightness measurement is concerned, there always needs to be a clarification about the size the test pattern takes.

We can only imagine Samsung's claim for 1200nits maximum brightness may very well be true, it would just be measured under different conditions (with a smaller APL). We played around just to see what happens and we got a 1010-nit reading with a 10% APL.

Also, we can't exclude the option that Samsung may be driving their screen to this brightness level only when certain conditions are met - such as when playing HDR video.

Display test	100% brightness
	Black, cd/m2	White, cd/m2	Contrast ratio
Samsung Galaxy S10	0	396	∞
Samsung Galaxy S10 (Max Auto)	0	820	∞
Samsung Galaxy S10+	0	385	∞
Samsung Galaxy S10+ (Max Auto)	0	793	∞
Apple iPhone XS	0	660	∞
LG G7 ThinQ	0.225	460	2044
LG G7 ThinQ (outdoor)	0.499	920	1844
Xiaomi Pocophone F1	0.314	461	1468
OnePlus 6T	0	453	∞
Google Pixel 3	0	426	∞
Huawei Mate 20	0.347	491	1415
Huawei Mate 20 (Max Auto)	0.554	778	1404
Apple iPhone XR	0.425	700	1647
LG V40 ThinQ	0.002	323	161500
LG V40 ThinQ (Max Auto)	0.008	638	79750
Xiaomi Mi 9	0	428	∞
Xiaomi Mi 9 (Max Auto)	0	620	∞
Sony Xperia XZ3	0	442	∞
Sony Xperia XZ3 (Max Auto)	0	620	∞

Predictably, the Galaxy S10 aced our sunlight legibility test, posting contrast readings in line with the best in class. The iPhone XS, however, remains unbeaten on top of this chart.

Sunlight contrast ratio

• Apple iPhone XS
  5.171
• Apple iPhone X
  5.013
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro
  4.965
• OnePlus 5T
  4.789
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  4.768
• Asus ROG Phone
  4.765
• Samsung Galaxy S8+
  4.658
• Samsung Galaxy S9
  4.63
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  4.615
• Samsung Galaxy S9+
  4.537
• Samsung Galaxy Note9
  4.531
• Apple iPhone XS Max
  4.516
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4.514
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  4.502
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  4.498
• Motorola Moto Z2 Play
  4.459
• Oppo R11
  4.454
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
  4.439
• Oppo RX17 Pro
  4.434
• OnePlus 3
  4.424
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  4.376
• Google Pixel 3
  4.35
• Huawei Mate 20 X
  4.337
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018)
  4.324
• OnePlus 6
  4.321
• Xiaomi Mi Mix 3
  4.291
• vivo NEX Dual Display (second display)
  4.289
• HTC One A9
  4.274
• LG V40 ThinQ
  4.256
• Oppo R15 Pro
  4.251
• Samsung Galaxy Note7
  4.247
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  4.241
• Nokia 8
  4.239
• Google Pixel 2 XL (pre-update)
  4.234
• OnePlus 3T
  4.232
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
  4.22
• Google Pixel XL
  4.164
• ZTE Axon 7
  4.154
• Samsung Galaxy Note8
  4.148
• Meizu Pro 7 Plus
  4.147
• OnePlus 6T
  4.138
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  4.124
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
  4.124
• vivo V11
  4.113
• vivo NEX Dual Display
  4.108
• Huawei Mate 10 Pro (normal)
  4.096
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  4.09
• Huawei P20 Pro
  4.087
• Xiaomi Mi 8
  4.086
• Meizu 15
  4.082
• Nokia 6 (2018)
  4.052
• Google Pixel 2 (pre-update)
  4.023
• LG V30
  4.022
• Huawei Nexus 6P
  4.019
• vivo NEX S
  4.012
• Honor Magic 2
  4.01
• Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro
  3.998
• OnePlus X
  3.983
• Vivo Xplay5 Elite
  3.983
• LG G7 ThinQ (outdoor)
  3.978
• Oppo R7s
  3.964
• Apple iPhone 7
  3.964
• Apple iPhone 8 (True Tone)
  3.957
• Huawei P9 Plus
  3.956
• Oppo Find X
  3.954
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  3.935
• Lenovo Moto Z
  3.931
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  3.921
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)
  3.918
• OnePlus 5
  3.914
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  3.911
• Xiaomi Mi 8 SE
  3.901
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  3.896
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  3.895
• Samsung Galaxy J7 outdoor
  3.879
• Samsung Galaxy J2 outdoor
  3.873
• Motorola Moto G6 Plus
  3.865
• Samsung Galaxy A8
  3.859
• Samsung Galaxy A8 (2018)
  3.842
• Apple iPhone 6
  3.838
• Microsoft Lumia 950XL
  3.837
• Samsung Galaxy A6+ (2018)
  3.834
• Sony Xperia XZs
  3.818
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016)
  3.817
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  3.816
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  3.812
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
  3.804
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) outdoor mode
  3.802
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  3.798
• LG V20 Max auto
  3.798
• Sony Xperia XZ
  3.795
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  3.789
• Apple iPhone 6s
  3.783
• Meizu Pro 5
  3.781
• Microsoft Lumia 650
  3.772
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  3.767
• Sony Xperia XZ1
  3.765
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
  3.756
• Nokia 8 Sirocco
  3.745
• Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact
  3.729
• Apple iPhone 8 Plus (True Tone)
  3.725
• Oppo F1 Plus
  3.709
• Vivo X5Pro
  3.706
• Sony Xperia X Compact
  3.694
• Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
  3.688
• Huawei P20
  3.683
• Apple iPhone SE
  3.681
• Huawei Mate 9
  3.68
• Samsung Galaxy A7
  3.679
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact
  3.675
• Meizu PRO 6
  3.659
• BlackBerry Priv
  3.645
• Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
  3.597
• Huawei Honor View 20
  3.597
• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  3.588
• Sony Xperia XZ2
  3.58
• LG G6
  3.556
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  3.53
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  3.526
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
  3.523
• Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) outdoor mode
  3.523
• Acer Jade Primo
  3.521
• Microsoft Lumia 950
  3.512
• Oppo R7 Plus
  3.499
• Nokia 7 plus
  3.479
• nubia Z11
  3.466
• Huawei P10 Plus
  3.456
• HTC U Ultra
  3.453
• Motorola Moto G6
  3.448
• Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra
  3.445
• Sony Xperia XA2 Plus
  3.445
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  3.422
• Motorola Moto G6 Play
  3.419
• Meizu MX5
  3.416
• LG V20
  3.402
• Samsung Galaxy A6 (2018)
  3.397
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 AI Dual Camera
  3.393
• LG G7 ThinQ
  3.39
• Huawei P10
  3.379
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  3.378
• Oppo R9s
  3.352
• Honor Play
  3.349
• Honor 8 Pro
  3.341
• Oppo F7
  3.333
• Oppo R7
  3.32
• Lenovo P2
  3.316
• Archos Diamond Omega
  3.305
• Honor 9
  3.289
• Xiaomi Mi 5s
  3.276
• Nokia 5
  3.261
• Nokia 6 (Chinese version)
  3.244
• Xiaomi Mi 5
  3.24
• Nokia 6 (Global version)
  3.238
• Samsung Galaxy J2
  3.235
• Oppo Realme 2 Pro
  3.235
• Sony Xperia X Performance
  3.234
• Xiaomi Mi Note 2
  3.228
• Motorola Moto X Play
  3.222
• Oppo F3 Plus
  3.218
• BlackBerry KEY2
  3.212
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  3.206
• Huawei P9
  3.195
• Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
  3.19
• Motorola Moto G7 Play
  3.18
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  3.176
• ZTE Nubia Z17
  3.159
• Oppo R11s
  3.153
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  3.113
• Honor 8X
  3.113
• HTC U11 Life
  3.108
• Motorola Moto X Force
  3.105
• LG Nexus 5X
  3.092
• HTC U11
  3.089
• Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite
  3.087
• HTC U12+
  3.085
• Xiaomi Redmi S2 (Y2)
  3.077
• Huawei Mate S
  3.073
• Oppo F9
  3.069
• Huawei P Smart 2019
  3.069
• Microsoft Lumia 640 XL
  3.065
• Xiaomi Mi Max 3
  3.061
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1
  3.059
• Huawei Mate 20
  3.052
• Huawei Mate 20 Lite
  3.051
• Motorola One (P30 Play)
  3.026
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  3.023
• Asus Zenfone 4 ZE554KL
  3.019
• Sony Xperia XA1
  3.012
• Motorola Moto X4
  3.012
• Motorola Moto G7
  3.011
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  3.01
• Oppo Realme 2
  3.006
• Sony Xperia L1
  2.994
• Sony Xperia X
  2.989
• LG Q6
  2.987
• Huawei P10 Lite
  2.974
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.97
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro
  2.966
• Huawei P20 Lite
  2.952
• Xiaomi Redmi 5
  2.951
• Huawei Mate 8
  2.949
• Sony Xperia XA2
  2.938
• Oppo Realme 1
  2.932
• Razer Phone 2
  2.932
• Xiaomi Redmi 4
  2.92
• Realme 3
  2.918
• Xiaomi Redmi 3S
  2.913
• Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
  2.913
• Sony Xperia XA Ultra
  2.906
• LG G5
  2.905
• Huawei Honor View 10
  2.896
• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  2.893
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  2.893
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  2.884
• Sony Xperia XZ Premium (sRGB)
  2.877
• Sony Xperia XZ Premium
  2.877
• Sony Xperia Z5
  2.876
• Nokia 3
  2.871
• Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium
  2.867
• Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite
  2.862
• Microsoft Lumia 550
  2.851
• Nokia 3.1
  2.837
• Realme U1
  2.815
• Lenovo Moto M
  2.813
• Nokia 7.1
  2.804
• Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
  2.803

The handling of colors that's been more or less unchanged for generations of Galaxies has been overhauled. The menu now gives you two settings - Vivid and the default Natural. Natural is tuned for the sRGB color space where we measured an average DeltaE of 1.7 and a maximum of 3.4 - slightly better performance than on the S10+. The whites remain accurate to within a DeltaE of 2.

The Vivid mode comes with a significantly punchier output which we didn't find to be accurate to any particular color space. Previously, the Basic mode was tuned for sRGB, AMOLED Photo was accurate to the AdobeRGB color space, and AMOLED Cinema was the go-to mode for DCI-P3 content. On the S10 and S10+ you don't get that differentiation.

When in Vivid mode, you get a slider for adjusting the color temperature in a five-step range from cool to warm, with the default in between. There is an additional set of RGB sliders under the advanced button below. We didn't find the sliders to improve accuracy, though we won't judge if you like a particular look you can achieve with them.

Display color settings

As for HDR10+, let's try for a simple explanation. Think of it like this - even an HDR panel may end up having a narrower dynamic range than you may want within a single movie. HDR10 content comes with static metadata that specifies how to allocate that available dynamic range from the moment you start the playback. If your display's dynamic range is 16 arbitrary units, and your movie spans 20 units, you'd lose 4 when playing back because the dynamic range was preallocated for the best average for this movie. Imagine that you could allocate on the fly the 16 units of DR based on the dynamic range needed to display each individual frame instead of setting it in the beginning. That's roughly what the '+' in HDR10+ does. Basically, HDR10+ uses a similar principle for employing dynamic metadata to Dolby Vision, only minus the royalty fees.

There's the tiny caveat that as of now, HDR10+ content is realistically only available on Amazon Prime Video, and devices that support it are few. Those include, you guessed it, some Samsung TVs, some TVs by Panasonic and Philips, and these Galaxy S10s here.

Samsung Galaxy S10+ battery life

The Galaxy S10 has a 3,400mAh battery capacity - not an insignificant 700mAh difference compared to the Plus. It's still a lot if you look at competitors like the iPhone XS (2,658mAh) and the Pixel 3 (2,915mAh).

We measured a little over 10 hours in our Wi-Fi web browsing test, and a few minutes short of 13 hours in video playback - each figure around 2 hours short of the S10+'s. Similarly, the S10 couldn't quite reach the Plus's 24-hour voice call result and called it quits at 21:19h. The overall Endurance rating works out to 79 hours (91h on the S10+).

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSer App. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Samsung Galaxy S10 for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.

The S10's scores compare favorably to the ones we got out of the two phones above - virtually identical longevity in web browsing, and a 15-20 percent advantage in video playback.

Filling up that battery once it's been depleted happens with Samsung's Adaptive Fast Charger that's been around unchanged since the S-series only had flat-screened phones - the Galaxy S5 times. It's rated at 9V/1.67A and 5V/2A, so 15W is the maximum it'll output. It turns out things aren't as grim as expected though and a 30-minute charging session from flat will get you to 48%, while a full charge takes 1:31h. The Pixel 3 and its 18W Power Delivery charger are actually a slower combo, with 45% at the 30-minute mark and 1:42h for a full charge. Meanwhile, the iPhone XS and its ancient 5V/1A adapter can only do 22% in 30 minutes.

The Galaxy S10 can also be charged wirelessly, and it supports Samsung's Fast Wireless Charging 2.0, which is Qi-based as before. We didn't have such a charger to test with, but the previous generation 9W Samsung Fast Chargers yielded something along the lines of 20% for 30 minutes and 3 hours for a full charge.

Not only can the S10 be charged wirelessly, but it can also charge other devices - the feature is called Wireless PowerShare. It has a toggle to enable it in the quick toggles area, and it'll turn off if there's nothing to be charged within a certain amount of time. Perhaps the best bit is that you can be charging your S10 with a cable and it can simultaneously charge a second device wirelessly. We can see this being handy for filling up two devices overnight when traveling light and carrying a single adaptor and cable.

Loudspeaker

The Galaxy S10 has a stereo speaker setup that's made up of the main bottom-firing loudspeaker and the earpiece, which is on the front, as earpieces tend to be. When holding the phone in landscape, each speaker handles the respective channel, while in portrait they're assigned the channel they had last time they were in landscape. Of course, the dedicated bottom speaker is boomier, there's no escaping that.

Surprisingly, we got more decibels out of the S10 than what measured on the S10+ - we don't have a higher mark than Excellent though, so both get that. And as the bigger phone, the S10 sounds equally great.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Xiaomi Mi Mix 3	67.9	71.6	73.7	Good
BlackBerry KEY2	66.5	72.0	79.8	Good
Nokia 7 plus	67.5	71.3	79.7	Good
LG V40 ThinQ	68.2	74.1	77.4	Very Good
Samsung Galaxy S9	68.5	74.3	81.1	Very Good
OnePlus 6T	67.2	72.5	84.5	Very Good
Xiaomi Mi 9	70.1	74.2	81.6	Very Good
Apple iPhone XS	71.5	75.7	78.9	Very Good
Sony Xperia XZ3 (ClearAudio+)	68.0	75.3	84.0	Very Good
Sony Xperia XZ3	71.0	75.4	82.9	Excellent
Google Pixel 3	77.5	71.7	81.1	Excellent
Apple iPhone XR	76.9	74.8	79.3	Excellent
Samsung Galaxy S10+	74.4	74.2	83.6	Excellent
Samsung Galaxy S10	82.2	74.9	85.5	Excellent

Audio quality

Somewhat surprisingly, the Samsung Galaxy S10 didn't quite manage to match its Plus sibling when it comes to audio output. The vanilla flagship is still an excellent performer, mind you, it's just not the chart topping beast that its sibling is.

The clarity of the output is top notch with an active external amplifier and the only damage caused by headphones is a very minor increase in stereo crosstalk. Loudness was also well above average in both cases, adding up to really solid showing. In fact the differences between the S10 and S10+ will only matter to select few audiophiles armed with very high-impedance headphones - everyone else should be perfectly happy with either of them.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Samsung Galaxy S10	+0.03, -0.04	-92.2	92.0	0.0015	0.0079	-92.7
Samsung Galaxy S10 (headphones)	+0.06, -0.03	-91.9	91.7	0.0020	0.037	-77.0
Samsung Galaxy S10+	+0.03, -0.05	-93.0	92.8	0.0015	0.0070	-94.3
Samsung Galaxy S10+ (headphones)	+0.06, -0.03	-92.7	92.5	0.0044	0.044	-87.2
Xiaomi Mi 9	+0.02, -0.01	-93.9	93.1	0.0015	0.0066	-91.9
Xiaomi Mi 9 (headphones)	+0.05, -0.04	-92.6	93.5	0.0026	0.072	-58.7
Huawei Mate 20	+0.02, -0.16	-92.1	92.0	0.0017	0.013	-85.6
Huawei Mate 20 (headphones)	+0.07, -0.07	-92.1	92.4	0.0021	0.106	-66.5

Samsung Galaxy S10 frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.

Android Pie with One UI

The Galaxy S10 family comes with yet another new Samsung take on user interface. Through the years we've witnessed the controversial TouchWiz morphing into Grace and later becoming simply Samsung UX.

The latest iteration is called One UI and we're somewhat familiar with it from the Pie update to the S9 and Note9, but the S10s are the first phones to ship with it. It's characterized by its rounded menus and buttons, its focus on single-handed use, and a colorful iconography.

There's an Always-on display, of course, and with One UI it can also be not-so-always-on - now you can have it displayed only when you double tap on the screen, in addition to being able to setup a daily schedule as before. You can, of course, you know, keep it always on. The clock faces are mostly the same as the ones we found on the S9.

Always on display settings

The locksreen has the usual camera and dialer shortcuts, which you can reassign to any app. Interestingly enough, the notification cards that were introduced with Nougat and can be found on most droids since, are gone on One UI. Instead, you're getting just the icons, clumped together next to a clock. Double tapping them pulls down the notification shade where the familiar cards are. Hmm.

You're also seeing the fingerprint reader icon on the lockscreen, indicating where to press to unlock, if you've setup fingerprint unlock. If you've got Face Unlock running, the outline of the camera will light up, indicating it's looking for your mug. Iris recognition is gone - there's no room for an IR emitter and an extra camera.

The setup process is a bit lengthy, requiring a lot of taps, but that's generally a good thing - it should theoretically mean more reliable recognition later on.

However, as we observed on the S10+, much to the displeasure of our readers, it's anything but flawless. It requires just the right type of action at just the right spot to unlock and we'd rather not have to think when unlocking our phones.

Samsung's promised a software update that should bring significant improvements to the fingerprint reader performance. While some users have reported on the update already arriving, we've had no such luck yet. We'll be sure to update you on the FP behavior post said update.

Lockscreen • FP reader ripple effect • Security settings • Face recognition • Fingerprint settings

One UI's new default icons are large and colorful and a departure from the more subdued and minimalist look of the previous generation. Some will love them, most won't care. If for some reason you'd like a landscape view of your homescreen, you can enable the rotation in settings.

One thing Samsung could have finally changed for the better, is opening folders in a more compact window next to the folder icon. Instead, just as before, they open full screen sending the apps up and away from immediate reach.

Homescreen • Folder view • Homescreen settings * App drawer • ...or no app drawer

The notification shade is one of the more heavily redesigned UI elements. Upon first pull, it's a row of toggles and notifications - business as usual. Pull again and the upper third of the screen shows just a clock while the toggles are brought down much lower, making them easier to reach. Mind you, there's a setting that lets you pull the shade from an empty area of the screen, not just the top, so flipping your toggles is no longer a two-hand task.

Samsung has managed, on the other hand, to ruin its task switcher, thanks in no small part to Google's own native Pie solution. And while the new task switcher is bearable, less so is the fact that One UI adopts Android 9's roundabout way of going into multi-window by tapping the app icon and selecting Split Screen from the menu. And then, after you're already into split screen, gone are all the options you used to have for swapping the apps, going into popup view, snap window and app pairs. Bummer.

Notifications • Toggles are nearby • Brightness settings • Task switcher • Multi window

Edge panels remain, fret not, though they are arguably not the most popular feature. Introduced with the S6 Edge, they're a set of panes that slides in from the side with shortcuts to contacts, apps, tasks, tools or whatnot. Edge lighting is also here with customizations options for color, width, transparency, and a few effects.

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Edge panels • Edge lighting

The edge functions go way back, but the option for gesture navigation is brand new - another party that Samsung joins rather late. You can replace the actions on the classic navigation bar with swipes from the bottom up that do the same. You swipe up from the center to go home, swipe up on the right to go back and swipe up on the left to open the task switcher. A swipe up and hold from the center will launch Google Assistant. You can choose to show or hide the bars that indicate where the swipes should be done and if you're going the gesture route, it does make more sense to hide them altogether.

We feel that Samsung's implementation of gesture navigation is a bit half-baked and doesn't do much to speed up interaction or make it any more natural than taps do. It does free up screen estate by removing the nav bar, so there's that.

A bunch of familiar gestures and motion controls is available on the S10 as well. You can go into a shrunken-down one-handed mode (either triple press home, or swipe in from a bottom corner), and you can launch the camera with a double press of the power button. Meanwhile, Smart Stay will use the front camera to determine whether you're looking at the phone so it won't go to standby if you're staring blankly at the screen for a long time. All of these can be switched off.

Navigation options • Gestures

Secure folder, Game launcher, Bixby - the usual suspects are all here as well. Secure folder lets you keep files, memos, and apps away from prying eyes. Game launcher groups all your games in one place and makes sure your gaming sessions remain as uninterrupted as possible.

Secure folder • Game launcher

Bixby is the same assistant no one asked for, but now you can assign the button to launch another app or carry out a whole routine of actions, quick commands Samsung calls them. You have to choose whether a single press will launch Bixby and a double press will run the app, or the other way around - you can't disable Bixby entirely. Still, we very much appreciate the change.

Bixby

Samsung's Gallery has stood the test of time and still makes it to every new Galaxy. Makes you wonder who uses the Stories - shareable, collaborative albums where your friends can add their own photos from the party or just a Story on a shared theme (e.g. sunsets). The Albums pane gives you a sorted view of your images by origin (camera, screenshots, downloaded images) while the Pictures pane is effectively a timeline - it aggregates all of your images and arranges them chronologically. Several image editing tools are available - from basic cropping, to collage making, to a more capable editor (which supports image correction, effects and drawing).

Unlike the in-house Gallery, music playback is left in the hands of Google's own Play Music. The player and the service are ubiquitous and it can play your local files, as well as stream music from the cloud. Samsung's extensive sound enhancements do come as standard, and they include the SoundAlive equalizer and our favorite - Adapt Sound that tunes the EQ to your hearing and your particular pair of ears and headphones by playing multiple frequencies and asking how well you hear them.

Gallery • Google Play Music • Adapt Sound

Synthetic benchmarks

Samsung's fresh new S10 lineup is once again powered by the best the industry can offer - the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 or Samsung's in-house Exynos 9820 chipset, depending on the market.

We typically get Exynos in our neck of the woods, and so is our S10 review unit. The 8nm chip's CPU is in a 2+2+4 configuration with two big Mongoose M4 cores clocked at 2.7 GHz, two Cortex-A75 cores ticking at 2.4 GHz, and 4 Cortex-A55 cores runninsg at 1.9 GHz for less demanding applications. The GPU is Mali-G76 MP12. Unlike the S10+ which can be had with 8GB or 12GB of RAM, the S10 only comes with 8GB.

As we established in the S10+ review, the M4 cores of the Exynos CPU offer the highest per-core performance in the Android world, still a little short of the iPhone XS' Vortex. The Snapdragon 855's Kryo Gold in the Mi 9 and the standard Cortex-A76 in the Mates' Kirins can't quite keep up.

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  4823
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  4543
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4522
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  3503
• Huawei Mate 20 (perf.)
  3401
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
  3390
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  2486
• OnePlus 6T
  2431
• Google Pixel 3
  2377

The Snapdragon snaps back in the multi-core test, where the Mi 9 takes the lead - the S10 is on par with the Mate 20 pair in multi-core loads, but none can match the Mi 9.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  11472
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  11181
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  10387
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  10174
• Huawei Mate 20 (perf.)
  10138
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
  10110
• OnePlus 6T
  8977
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  8607
• Google Pixel 3
  8146

In Antutu, the S10 scores a notch below the S10+, but some 10% more than the Mate 20 and the Snapdragon 845 devices of last year. The Mi 9 is well ahead, however, even beating the iPhone XS (yes, yes, cross-platform benchmarking isn't a reliable source of data for performance comparisons).

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 9
  372006
• Apple iPhone XS
  346379
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  333736
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  328366
• Huawei Mate 20 (perf.)
  308307
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
  308050
• OnePlus 6T
  293994
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  284555
• Google Pixel 3
  233699

In the offscreen graphics tests in GFXBench the Mi 9 and S10 pair post largely the same fps numbers, securing a healthy lead to the tune of 20% over the S845 devices and about 30% more than the Kirin 980s.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  98
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  70
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  69
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  68
• OnePlus 6T
  60
• Google Pixel 3
  57
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  56
• LG V40 ThinQ
  56
• Huawei Mate 20 (perf.)
  55
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
  54

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  60
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  43
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  42
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  42
• Google Pixel 3
  35
• OnePlus 6T
  35
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  35
• LG V40 ThinQ
  34
• Huawei Mate 20 (perf.)
  33
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
  33

Onscreen tests put a heavier strain on the Mali in the higher-res Galaxy than the 1080p display of the Mi 9 exerts on the Adreno inside it. Hence, the fps scores are significantly higher on the Snapdragon device than what the S10+ and S10 can output.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  98
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  70
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  69
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  68
• OnePlus 6T
  60
• Google Pixel 3
  57
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  56
• LG V40 ThinQ
  56
• Huawei Mate 20 (perf.)
  55
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
  54

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone XS
  60
• Samsung Galaxy S10
  43
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  42
• Xiaomi Mi 9
  42
• Google Pixel 3
  35
• OnePlus 6T
  35
• Sony Xperia XZ3
  35
• LG V40 ThinQ
  34
• Huawei Mate 20 (perf.)
  33
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro (perf.)
  33

The Exynos Galaxy S10 and S10+ perform to a very high standard, delivering the highest single-core CPU results among fellow droids and demonstrate similar raw graphics power to what we got out of the only S855 device we've tested so far. It will be interesting to see how Galaxy S10/S10+ units with the Snapdragon SoC compare to their Exynos stablemates, and we'll be sure to check that when we get a chance.

On the S10, much like on the S10+, we observed significant heat build up under sustained load with the throttling that comes with it - a 10% drop in Antutu scores after 6 runs and no more in subsequent runs. The entire device becomes warm, which means it's dissipating heat efficiently, but also that it's generating a lot of it. Again, we're eager to compare against a S855 version.

All of the cameras - the right ones, too

Samsung may have been late to the dual camera party with a telephoto module appearing on a flagship only as late as the Galaxy S9+ last year, but it's catching up quickly with trends. On the Galaxy S10 and S10+ they've also added an ultra wide angle module to the back for a complete and versatile triple setup.

The ultra wide-angle camera covers a field of view of 123 degrees, which translates to an equivalent focal length of 12mm in 35mm film terms. To put it bluntly, it's VERY wide. The lens has an f/2.2 aperture and its focus is fixed - there's no autofocus.

For comparison, the ultra wide cameras on the Xiaomi Mi 9 and the Huawei Mate 20 Pro both have autofocus, though neither is quite as wide as the one on the S10+. Then again, the Xiaomi does get very close with its 13mm equivalent and 117-degree coverage. Meanwhile, the LG V40 ThinQ and the Mate 20 non-Pro have fixed-focus ultra wide lenses that are 16mm and 17mm respectively.

There's a 16MP sensor behind that lens and the S10 outputs 16MP images as it should. We're pointing it out because for whatever reason our Galaxy S10+'s ultra-wide shots came out at 12MP shots.

The other two cameras have been carried over from the S9+ and the Note9. The primary module uses a 12MP sensor with 1.4µm pixels and dual pixel phase detect autofocus. It's got a dual aperture lens in front which is able to switch between f/1.5 to capture more light in dark scenarios and f/2.4 for improved sharpness in good light. The focal length is equivalent to that of a 26mm lens on a full frame camera (77-degree field of view). The lens is also stabilized.

The telephoto camera's optics are stabilized too and offer an equivalent focal length of 52mm or a 45-degree field of view. The sensor behind has 12 million and change 1.0µm pixels. Phase detect autofocus is available too, only it's not the dual pixel variety.

On the software side of things, Samsung's expanded the range of scenes its Scene Optimizer will recognize and optimize for by 10 for a total of 30, and they're all listed on the official S10's specs pages if you're that curious. More importantly, there's now a Bright night mode, which should improve low light performance, although we didn't find it to make much of a difference.

A whole new feature is Shot suggestions. The phone analyzes the scene and suggests the right framing and it will go ahead and take the shot if you align the phone accordingly. We found it more irritating than useful.

Other than that, the camera app is a natural evolution of the one found on the S9+ and Note9 with some extra input from the A7 and A9 for handling the camera switching. That would be the tree designation - '3 trees' means ultra wide-angle cam, '2 trees' denote the regular camera, and '1 tree' means the telephoto. Pinch to zoom is also available and it switches seamlessly between the three cams unlike on the A9 where there was a jump between ultra wide and regular.

Camera UI

Basic operation is straightforward with side swipes for cycling through modes and an up/down action for toggling between the rear and front cameras. You can add, remove and rearrange the modes in settings. The HDR (Rich tone) setting is not only in the menu but it's even more convoluted as it has an on/off toggle, and then when it's on, you can choose whether to kick in automatically or be always on. This one we keep in auto.

There's a Pro mode too, and it's one of the pro-est around. You can select ISO (50-800), push shutter speed around (1/24000s-10s), manually select the aperture of the main cam (f/1.5 or f/2.4), focus manually (with peaking to aid you), and select the white balance (by light temperature). Metering mode and AF area options are available too. A new addition is a set of picture controls for contrast, saturation, and whatnot. Sadly, there's no live histogram.

Camera UI

We have to complain about Samsung's choice to bury a couple of settings deep where you won't look for them. One is the selfie flipping, which is turned on by default so you'd end up with mirrored selfies out of the box. The other is the software correction for the ultra-wide camera photos which we thought wasn't available. It is. Both toggles are under Save options in settings.

A major change this year comes in portrait mode - Live focus, that is. Samsung's switched to using the primary camera for capturing the photo and the telephoto for gathering depth data, as opposed to the other way around. This carries the same implications we've pointed out a numerous number of times.

Let's repeat once more - a wider angle lens when shooting portraits means having to be uncomfortably close to your subject to get headshot-style framing and wide angle lenses are typically less flattering on facial features, but, on a positive note, it also means having the superior (larger) sensor capture the image, which is essential in low light and appreciated in good light.

Only one selfie cam on the S10

Over on the front we find one of the few principal differences between the S10 and the S10+. Where the S10+ has a secondary camera module for depth detection, the S10 only has the main 10MP selfie shooter - Live focus portraits will only rely on the NPU for discerning between subject and background.

The primary cam is listed at 10MP, but that's not strictly true. Yes, it does take 10MP stills in a 4:3 aspect 3648x2736px but if you switch to 16:9 aspect you'd get 3968x2232px images. So the sensor has at least 3968x2736px to work with, or 10.85MP. 3968px on the long side is also enough for the 4K video that the selfie camera is capable of (3840x2160px), which 3648px clearly isn't.

There's another thing that's more perplexing. There are two modes on the selfie camera - wide and slightly less wide. It's a bit misleading, because the wide one actually uses the entirety of the sensor (well, the entirety available at the selected aspect) and produces full-size selfies, while the tighter one simply crops the center and you end up with smaller images (10MP and 6.5MP in 4:3, respectively). But why?

Wide • Less wide

Image quality

In daylight, we're seeing predictably great photos from the main camera - detailed and clean, with Samsung's signature, highly-competent noise suppression leaving pretty much no trace of noise while preserving detail. Colors are lively but not over the top and dynamic range is excellent - as our snail test shows.

Main camera samples

The telephoto camera is also a proven player, and we've come to expect solid results from it in bright light. In such conditions it captures images with very similar quality to ones from the main cam. Comparing to the S9+, we're inclined to think we're seeing a slight improvement in contrast.

Telephoto camera samples

The ultra wide lens predictably has some barrel distortion as all lenses this extreme. There's a setting for correcting the distortion in software, and it helps a bunch. Here are a couple of sample images from our S10+ review (we only discovered the setting after returning the S10 review unit, and the S10+ was still around).

Ultra wide camera correction: Off • On • Off • On

Distortion aside, at fit to screen magnifications the images look pretty nice with pleasing colors and very good dynamic range as far as these types of cameras go - due to the extreme coverage you're inevitably going to get a wider margin between the lightest and the darkest area in the frame, and the HDR algorithms can only do so much.

Pixel-level detail is also respectable if you don't stare too closely at the corners and if you get the focus distance right - that's not the case with the second sample below where the closest flower pot is too close to be in focus. So that's one of the main uses cases for an ultra wide camera that the Galaxy S10+ can't excel at due to lack of AF. But we feel like we may be judging it too harshly.

Ultra wide camera samples

In low light, the main camera captures excellent images with well defined detail and little noise. Dynamic range is also very good - check out the flood lights on the top floor of the yellow building below, usually clipped to white.

Main camera, low-light samples

The Galaxy S10 is more inclined to actually use its telephoto camera for '2x' zoomed in shots - previous models straight up defaulted to a digitally zoomed in shot from the primary cam. Even so, it still resorts to the main module under a certain light threshold, it's just that it's apparently lower now. The fact is however, neither approach produces stunning results and telephoto shots are just usable, but little more.

Telephoto camera, low-light samples

That just about sums up the low-light photos from the ultra wide camera as well. The thing is though, you won't be looking at them up close because then you'd be missing the... big picture.

Ultra wide camera, low-light samples

Samsung's got a 'night mode' of sorts called 'Bright Night', which is a toggle in the settings under Scene Optimizer. You can't force it on, and it'll only engage in extremely dark conditions. It'll tell you to keep the phone steady and churn away, but the interface isn't very intuitive and it doesn't let you know how long it'll take. In our set of samples, between two phones - the S10 and S10+, it only kicked in in one scene, and only for one of the shots while the rest ended up regular night shots. That was on the S10+.

On the S10 non-Plus we observed another peculiarity, which we didn't encounter on the Plus. With Scene optimizer enabled, the phone would create a starburst effect for pretty much every point source of light. It's wildly over the top and obviously fake. Here are a few samples across all three cams.

Starbursts

You can head over to our Photo compare tool to have a look at how the Galaxy S10+'s camera stacks up to competitors' in the controlled environment of our studio.

Galaxy S10 against the iPhone XS and the Pixel 3 in our Photo compare tool

The S10 may be taking the portraits with the main cam as opposed to the telephoto, but we're really happy with the shots we're getting out of it. The subject/background separation is excellent, faces are nicely detailed and skin tones are just right. Naturally, you mileage will vary with the complexity of the subject and its relation to the background, but even unruly-hair-guy is satisfied.

Portrait samples

Live focus also does more than a respectable job with non-human subjects and you can use it for close-ups of flowers and whatnot.

Portrait samples, non-human subjects

One camera short on the front

The Galaxy S10 comes with the same all-new 10MP front facing camera that the S10+ calls primary, but is missing the bigger model's 8MP auxiliary unit for gathering depth data. This makes no difference outside of Live focus mode and the S10's regular selfies are equally as great as the ones from the S10+.

Selfie samples

That was in good light - when light levels drop, the selfies aren't as awesome - they quickly turn soft.

Dim light selfies

So, just how different are the S10's single-camera selfie portraits from the ones the S10+ makes with its two cameras? Well, it depends. The most obvious difference is with subjects that are difficult to recognize by the NPU - it can tell a face is a face and blur around it, but accessories will confuse it. For example, the shades on the subject's head are blurred out in the S10's sample, but sharp in the S10+'s image. But even without such complications The S10+ is that one bit better at the border areas.

Additionally, there's a difference in the way the background blur is rendered on the two phones. The S10 draws more defined circles making for an overall busier look, while the S10+'s rendition is smoother.

The differences are clearly there, and the S10+'s extra hardware has does add to the quality of the selfie portraits. Whether that alone is worth going for the S10+ over the S10 is for you to decide, but we're leaning towards a 'no'.

Selfie samples, Live focus: Galaxy S10 • Galaxy S10+

Video recording

The Galaxy S10 is a highly-capable video camera that offers 2160p video at 60fps and 30fps, HDR10+ capture, and 960fps slow motion recording at 720p. Of course, there's also 1080p at 30fps and 60fps as well.

With the H.264 codec, the 4K@60fps videos are captured at 72Mbps bitrate, the 4K@30fps - 48Mbps, the 1080p@60fps - 28Mbps, and the 1080p@30fps - 14Mbps. H.265 is also available, bringing those numbers down. HDR10+ footage is in H.265 only and the bitrate is 54Mbps. The audio is always recorded in stereo at 256Kbps bitrate.

There's electronic stabilization available in all modes except 2160p/60fps. That's not all though - there is also a Super Steady mode for extra-bumpy occasions. Aiming to replace your GoPro, it uses the ultra-wide camera, which means no autofocus. It's also only available in 1080p resolution due to the processing power requirements and the lack of many extra pixels outside of the 2160p frame for the stabilization to crop in from. Those caveats aside, the results are mightily impressive (as impressive as having this reviewer go for a run at all).

The regular stabilization is already very good and it has you covered when more detailed footage (or, you know, autofocus) is required. It smooths out shake nicely and we didn't observe any jello effect or issues when panning.

Otherwise video quality is very good. 4K footage from the main cam is detailed and contrasty, with spot on color reproduction. There's virtually no difference between 30fps and 60fps clips in terms of detail, which is quite a feat.

1080p videos are similarly great and aside from the obvious drop in resolution (and consequently detail) when compared to 4K, they exhibit the same qualities.

The telephoto camera's output is nearly as good in 2160p@30fps as the main one, but going to 60fps brings a noticeable degradation in quality. And, surprise-surprise, the same applies to 1080p recording, only 1080p@60fps comes with an extra crop compared to 1080p@30fps.

There are no such issues with the ultra wide camera - it simply doesn't have 60fps modes. The 30fps ones are excellent though, provided your subjects are far enough to be in focus. Because, you know - fixed focus lens, and not fixed up close.

Samsung's doubled the time you can record super slow motion video to 0.4s in 720p, which translates to 12s when played back at normal speed. Alternatively, you can shoot in 480p for up to 0.8s and the S10 will upscale it to 720p. The feature that auto starts slow motion when it detects action in the frame is still here, and it's a blessing. It's optional, of course, so if you want to time your recording yourself you have that ability.

Samsung was keen to point out the S10 family's capability for 4K video recording with the selfie cam. Footage is very sharp and detailed, and the dual pixel autofocus locks onto your face nicely. Dynamic range isn't too wide, however, and more importantly the focal length is such that if you're hand-holding the phone in landscape (how all of video is meant to be recorded) you'll just manage to fit your head in the frame. Grab a selfie stick though, and it could work.

Here's how the Galaxy S10 compares against iPhone XS and the Google Pixel 3 in our Video compare tool.

Galaxy S10+ against the iPhone XS and the Pixel 3 in our Video compare tool

Competition

While the S10+ competes with all of the big-screened phones on the market, the S10 with its emphasis on compactness, has a bit of a narrower set of natural competitors.

The iPhone XS is the original archrival and while this dilemma is often decided on grounds of ecosystem preferences, some other considerations could come into play. The S10's ultra-wide camera has obviously no answer from the iPhone, but when it comes to selfies the S10 is slightly better too, even for the same number of modules. The Samsung phone lasts longer in our battery tests, charges faster, and has a brighter display out in the sun. It's also substantially lighter, which is likely important if you're eyeing the non-Plus/Max versions.

Apple iPhone XS • Google Pixel 3 • Samsung Galaxy S10 • Xiaomi Mi 9

If pocketability is the top priority, the Pixel 3 is still that one bit ahead of the S10, though at the expense of screen estate. The Google phone is a couple of cameras short on the back, and one has to wonder if the versatility of three modules doesn't beat having a single awesome one (it probably does). The Pixel does have two selfie cams and one is a true wide-angle unlike the Galaxy and its sort-of-wide/cropped-in trickery. Then there's the vanilla Android vs. One UI conundrum.

LG's G8 ThinQ will come with a heavily-modded UI like the Galaxy, and we know how both skins have passionate haters. That aside, the G8 should pack a triple camera setup like the S10's (unless you're in a market where the G8 will have two cameras, because LG) and a nifty ToF camera to complement the 8MP selfie shooter, though we're still leaning towards the S10's dual pixel 10MP cam. The S10 outclasses the G8 in terms of design, but we can't yet comment on the objective stuff like battery life and display quality.

The Xiaomi Mi 9 isn't quite as compact as the S10, but if you can live with the extra bulk, you'll be rewarded with better battery life, an autofocusing ultra wide camera as opposed to Samsung's fixed focus one, and substantial savings - you can have two Mi 9s for the price of a Galaxy S10.

Verdict

The regular-sized Galaxy S10 is the one to have this year if you're not entirely convinced you want the extra screen the Plus delivers. Sure, the bigger phone will come with a battery life advantage and the added depth sensor on the front will make for better selfie portraits. But we feel it's not quite worth it - unless, again, screen size is a driving factor.

The S10 makes a lot of sense as a replacement for the S9 in a way that a yearly upgrade rarely does - two more cameras on the back and a new one on the front sounds like reason enough. If you're coming from the S9+, it's less definitive, because last year's Plus still has better battery life and is only missing an ultra wide cam.

In the end, we feel like the Galaxy S10 is the superb phone we could have predicted it was going to be. Years of refinement have brought us to a place where groundbreaking changes are unlikely, but as incremental upgrades go, this is one of the more meaningful ones and it's easy to recommend.

Pros

• Standout design, compact size, top-quality build, unique colors.
• Spectacular display.
• Superb photo and video quality with minor exceptions.

Cons

• Frustrating fingerprint reader experience (to be improved via an update).
• Battery life is just average (but competitors aren't any better).
• Low-light selfies are meh, portraits aren't as good as on the Plus (duh).
• We wish the ultra wide cam had autofocus.
• Bright night mode isn't up there with the Pixel's or Huawei's night modes.

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