Samsung Galaxy S10+ review

Where to buy

Samsung is pretty easily the most popular Android brand in the flagship space in Australia, and the anticipation around its annual Galaxy S series updates is at a fever pitch right now. Samsung of course hypes up its new flagships – it has phones to sell – and for the most part, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ delivers the kinds of premium features that you'd want out of a flagship phone.

However, Samsung is somewhat playing it safe rather than really pushing the envelope with the Galaxy S10+. It's a great phone, but it's one that's not quite as much at the forefront as some competitor devices, especially when it comes to overall battery endurance.

Design

• Range of colour choices.
• "Infinity O" punch hole camera.
• Dynamic AMOLED display.
• In-glass fingerprint sensor.
• Still has a headphone jack.

• Read more on the Samsung Galaxy S10+'s design

  The Samsung Galaxy S10+ is available in a variety of colours. The model I tested with was the Prism White, but you could optionally pick up the Prism Black or Prism Green models, or the S10+ exclusive Ceramic Black or Ceramic White finishes. Sadly, there's no sign of the Prism Blue option for Australians at launch, although Samsung has some form in bringing new colours to market after a while. You could always import one if the blue finish really appeals to you.

  While the style is distinctly Samsung, the Galaxy S10+ is notably a little thinner than last year's crop of Galaxy S9 phones, which makes it a little easier to hold in the hand.

  The new design note for the Galaxy S10+ is of course the use of a "hole punch" camera, rather than a block or teardrop style notch. Samsung's official designation for this is the "Infinity O" display. The front-facing cameras sit distinctly in the upper right hand side of the Galaxy S10+ display screen, although how apps treat it can vary. If you go for full screen display on apps that support it, it will wrap around the hole punch. Apps that don't support full screen typically tend to treat the entire upper segment of the S10+ display as a gigantic notification bar.

  Whether or not this is an issue will, I think, largely depend on what you think about notches generally. If you hate notches, you'll probably dislike this just as much, but I rather quickly forgot it was there. There's also a pretty lively community of folks designing wallpapers to obscure the punch hole camera if that's your style.

  Samsung's claim is that the Galaxy S10+ is a "bezel-free" design. That's not 100% accurate, with a small top and bottom chin but not much you'll notice in day to day use. What you will notice is the Galaxy S10+'s 6.4 inch "Dynamic AMOLED" display, which is simply gorgeous, especially if you opt for the vivid display style and pump up the resolution to WQHD+ (3,040 x 1,440) for video watching purposes.

  By default the Galaxy S10+ has the vivid screen style switched on, but the resolution is kept to a more battery-friendly FHD+ (2,280 x 1,080). For video watching there's really no screen on the market right now that bests the Galaxy S10+, although of course you've got to match it up to suitable content.

  

  Around the back, you'll find the camera array with a small camera bump. Because the lenses are arranged horizontally there's not too much of a tipping issue with the Galaxy S10+, although it does mean without a case it can't quite sit flat on a table.

  What you won't find at the back is a fingerprint sensor. That's because Samsung has built it in under the glass, using an ultrasonic sensor that it claims is faster and more secure than existing optical sensors used in phones such as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro or Oppo R17 Pro. For Samsung's part, it's a much welcome shift away from having the fingerprint sensor located perilously close to the rear cameras, so there's little risk of smudging the lenses when all you want to do is unlock it.

  Samsung has kept the faith when it comes to the headphone jack, so if you're a fan of wired headphones, you've still got the option to use them without having to resort to clunky USB-C adaptors.

  Samsung's Bixby assistant is baked into the software, and this means that the generally unwelcome Bixby button is also present on the left hand side of the Galaxy S10+. You will likely hit it at least once or twice when trying to hit the volume buttons that sit above it.

  The glass back of the Galaxy S10+ allows for easy wireless charging, but it also predictably makes the phone very slippery in the hand or pocket. During testing it's slipped out of my pocket more than once. Where last year's Galaxy S9+ at least came with a simple plastic case supplied, there was no such enclosure in this year's Galaxy S10+ box. As such, investing in a phone case, even though that will add a little bulk to the phone is a recommended step.

  Samsung's also used its standard dual tray for the Galaxy S10+, which means you can drop a single nano SIM card in alongside a microSD card for storage expansion purposes. It's a nicely flexible step.

Camera

• Triple lenses give you plenty of photographic choice.
• Good low light performance.
• Animoji remain a silly gimmick.

• Read more and see camera samples from the Samsung Galaxy S10+

  Flagship phones in 2019 have to provide superior camera performance to justify their asking prices, and for the Samsung Galaxy S10+, Samsung is definitely pushing its competitors pretty hard. At the rear, it features 3 lenses, with a 12MP wide angle, 12MP telephoto and a 16MP ultra-wide lens with a 123-degree field of view.

  Triple camera arrays aren't a Samsung invention, to be sure, but there's definitely something to be said for lens variety when it comes to shot selection choice. Having that wide and zoom lens means you can grab either more of a landscape or a closer shot of your chosen image. It can even give you a variety of perspectives on the same shot.

  Here, for example, is a shot taken with the ultra-wide lens.

  

  Here's the same photo using the standard wide lens.

  

  And then again with the telephoto lens.

  

  The other area that a premium flagship phone has to stand out in is low light performance. The Galaxy S10+'s primary wide lens has a variable aperture of f/1.5-f/2.4, so it can adjust on the fly to produce better low light images.

  I've already put the S10+ through its paces against the Apple iPhone XS Max, Huawei Mate 20 Pro, Google Pixel 3 and Galaxy S9+, which you can read in full over here.

  To give a quick comparative overview, here's how it compared taking a shot in near complete darkness of a local playing field.
  
  The S10+ night mode does a good job of capturing the detail that's there, even if I can't entirely make it out with the naked eye.
  
  Huawei's Mate 20 Pro also compares well.
  
  Without night sight invoked the Pixel 3 doesn't compare well.
  
  But with it engaged, it's much more pleasing, although the Pixel's tendency to super-saturate colours is noticeable in those grass tones.
  
  The variable aperture of the S9+ gives it more detail than you'd expect from a 2018 phone camera.
  
  The Apple iPhone XS Max has the worst low light performance, and by a pretty wide margin.

  At the front, that "Infinity O" dual camera array provides both standard and wide angle "group" selfie options, as well as the return of Samsung's animated emoji "AR emoji" feature, first introduced on the Samsung Galaxy S9 series. This captures your face and creates an animated avatar of you for calling and emoji creation purposes. You can even wear your own AR Emoji as a personal mask if you wish, although the results can be somewhat alarming.

  

  It... sorta... looks like me. But it's in no way flattering. Image: Alex Kidman/Finder

  AR Emoji, like Apple's similar Animoji are a gimmick, plain and simple. If you already liked them, that's fine, but they're not exactly a social phenomenon.

  The Galaxy S10+'s general camera performance is very good indeed; right up there with the very best that you can get right now, although arguably not substantially ahead of the pack. Holding at the top is no bad place to be, but there's a lot of competition for the best smartphone camera crown.

  Samsung Galaxy S10+ Sample Photos

  

  

  

Performance

• Exynos 9820 gives you plenty of power.
• One UI provides a smooth overlay.
• Gets warm under heavy workloads.
• Fingerprint sensor works, but it's not fast.

• Read more on Samsung Galaxy S10+'s performance

  The model of the Samsung Galaxy S10+ sold in Australia (and as tested) was the variant running Samsung's own Exynos 9820 processor. Internationally, Samsung is using the Snapdragon 855, largely for radio compatibility reasons on network frequencies not used in Australia.

  The typical story for Samsung's Exynos processors is that they're not quite as fast as their Qualcomm equivalents, but they're often better when it comes to battery endurance. Based on its straight line benchmarks, there's little to complain about when it comes to CPU grunt. Here's how the Exynos 9820-based Galaxy S10+ compares while running in Optimised performance mode against a range of flagship Android phones.

  There's still a benchmark performance gulf between the top Android phones and Apple's A12 Bionic CPU that powers the Apple iPhone XS family though.

  On the 3D visual front, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ also returns pleasing benchmark scores.

  There is a flagship variant of the Samsung Galaxy S10+ that ships with 1TB of storage as its headline feature, but also packs in 12GB of RAM compared to the 8GB found in the reviewed model. You'd hope to see even better performance out of that handset, especially at its stiff asking price. External benchmarks do suggest that there's a substantial performance boost with the Snapdragon 855 variant, so we're not getting the fastest Galaxy S10+ model.

  However, benchmarks are only a comparative tool. For most apps the Samsung Galaxy S10+ was swift and responsive, although I did notice that if I was pushing it particularly hard with, say, a long game session or multi-tasking apps, it had a tendency to get fairly warm as a result. The thinner profile of the Galaxy S10+ might be more pleasing to the eye, but it appears that it's at the cost of heat dissipation.

  The Galaxy S10+ is an Android 9 based phone, with Samsung's own new "One UI" launcher on top. Previously I've been annoyed by Samsung's launchers, but One UI is very nicely presented, and even if you prefer a clean Android look, it's perfectly fine. It's also miles ahead of competing launchers in terms of ease of use and included apps compared to, say, Huawei's EMUI or Oppo's ColorOS.

  The Galaxy S10+ provides a variety of unlocking mechanisms, but most folks will be drawn either to face unlocking or the in-screen fingerprint reader. The face recognition feature certainly works, but arguably too well. Even Samsung notes that "there is a possibility that someone who looks like you or who uses an image of your face could unlock your phone".

  They're not kidding. Face unlock is convenient but it's in no way at all secure, and very easily fooled.

  

  The biometric approach of the in-glass fingerprint scanner is a much better bet from a security standpoint, though it's not without its quirks. If you're used to a standard fingerprint scanner, you'll quickly work out that it's substantially slower to register a fingerprint, and as a result more tardy when you do want to unlock.

  The use of an ultrasonic sensor does mean it will work with wet or greasy fingerprints, and it's a better overall solution than the similar optical sensors found in phones such as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro or Oppo R17 Pro.

  The Galaxy S10+ is NFC compatible, which means it's compatible with payment systems such as Google Pay and, naturally enough, Samsung Pay.

  As with prior Galaxy S series phones, it's also IP-rated for immersion in water, up to IP68. As a reminder, that's a rating for fresh water immersion, so if you do accidentally dunk it into seawater or a nearby river, it'd be wise to remove it rapidly.

Battery life

• 4,100mAh battery doesn't last as long as expected.
• Fast wired or wireless charging.
• Wireless power share.

• Read more on the Samsung Galaxy S10+'s battery life

  Up until the Huawei Mate 20 Pro launched last year, Samsung had an absolute lock on premium smartphone battery performance. If you wanted good battery life – and who doesn't – you bought a Samsung phone.

  My expectations were high for the Galaxy S10+, especially as it's the first Samsung phone to punch over the 4,000mAh battery barrier. With a 4,100mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ should be right up there with the very best premium flagships.

  Sadly, that's not the case. Here's how it compared using Geekbench 4's battery test, with the screen at the more battery-friendly FHD+ resolution, the phone set to "optimised" power mode and screen dimming enabled.

  However, Geekbench 4's battery test is entirely linear and few of us use our phones in exactly the same way over every minute of the day. In more anecdotal testing, I can typically end the day with around 15-30% of the battery remaining, although predictably very heavy usage can send it flat before then.

  That's probably fine for most users, but it's well below what you should expect from a premium handset. It may be that heat issue with performance, and possibly Samsung can tweak the push on the Exynos 8920 to improve battery life later on, but right now, it's hard not to be a little disappointed in the Galaxy S10+ battery life, if only because it always used to be a high point for Samsung phones.

  At least when it is running low on juice it's easy to charge up, either with the supplied fast charger which connects over USB-C or via wireless charging with support for both Qi and PMA standards. You're much less likely to hit a PMA charger than a Qi one, but either way it's easy to top up the battery.

  The Samsung Galaxy S10+ also provides support for reverse wireless charging, which Samsung calls "Wireless PowerShare". It's accessed via an icon on the pull down settings menu, which is a little easier to manage than the settings menu approach found on the similarly equipped Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

  

  Wireless PowerShare certainly works for charging other Qi-compatible devices, and I can very much see the appeal of using it for Samsung's own Galaxy Buds headphones, although I'm yet to test that capability. Still, just as it is on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, it's slow and a bit fiddly. In the real world, you're not likely to want to lose access to your phone for long enough for it to make a real difference to the charge of other devices.

  Curiosity compelled me, so I decided to see what would happen if you told both the Galaxy S10+ and Huawei Mate 20 Pro to charge each other wirelessly.

  The good news is that it didn't kickstart a chain reaction leading to the end of the Universe, or indeed explode either phone.

  The bad news is that while either phone will take a charge from each other if its respective wireless charging feature is disabled, if they're both functioning, neither will transfer power.

Verdict

• A good update to the Galaxy S line.
• Battery life should be better.
• Feels like Samsung is playing it safe this year.

• Read our full Samsung Galaxy S10+ verdict

  

  Buy the Samsung Galaxy S10+ 128GB from Amazon

  The Samsung Galaxy S10+ packs a massive 6.4-inch screen with support for HDR10+ and an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor concealed beneath the display. Grab yours now from Amazon Australia.

  View details

  We've seen more than a few smartphone manufacturers play it safe with annual updates, and it's somewhat hard not to think that this is what Samsung has done with the Galaxy S10+.

  Is it a premium flagship with the expected features of a 2019 flagship phone? Undeniably, this is so. The camera is good, the screen display is spectacular and general performance is right up there with other Android flagships.

  The biggest complaint I've got against it is battery life, and that's largely because while it's acceptable, as a premium phone it's a notable step down from what I'd expect from a flagship Samsung phone.

  Alternatives

  If you're rocking an existing Samsung Galaxy S handset of the S8 or older generations, the Galaxy S10+ is an easy upgrade that will deliver a significant performance boost.

  It's the flagship of the Galaxy S10 series, at least until the Galaxy S10 5G arrives, but you do have other options. If you'd prefer a smaller display, the slightly less expensive Samsung Galaxy S10 might be a better choice:

  

  Buy the Samsung Galaxy S10 128GB from Amazon

  Samsung's Galaxy S10 features an in-screen ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and a pin-hole selfie camera, providing more room for its 6.1-inch screen to shine. Get yours now from Amazon Australia.

  View details

  If you're more strapped for cash, you could also consider the entry-level Samsung Galaxy S10e.

  

  Buy the Samsung Galaxy S10e 128GB from Amazon

  The most-affordable entry in Samsung's Galaxy S10 product line packs all the core features of its siblings at a less wallet-stinging price. Get one now from Amazon Australia.

  View details

  If you've got a Galaxy S9+ the Galaxy S10+ might be a tougher sell. While the camera is much more flexible, the battery life isn't as good, and the general advice to stick with a phone for two years definitely applies.

  Indeed, if you wanted to save a little, it might be worth shopping around for a Galaxy S9+ handset, which you can do easily right here.

  The other obvious competitor within the Samsung family would be the Samsung Galaxy Note9. It's not as fast as the Galaxy S10+, but it's got much better battery life. You can compare Note9 deals in Australia right here.

  

  Samsung Galaxy Note9

  Samsung's productivity phone returns

  The Samsung Galaxy Note9 features exceptional performance, top-notch battery life and the exclusive features of Samsung's S-Pen in a phone like no other.

  Buy at eBay
  

  If you're not tied to the Samsung brand for your smartphone choices, the obvious competitor right now is the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. It goes neck and neck with the Galaxy S10+ on camera and power terms, but features much better overall battery life.

  Conversely though, Huawei's EMUI launcher isn't as nice as Samsung's One UI, and the in-display fingerprint sensor is much slower. Huawei's P30 series is coming soon too, and it may be worth waiting to see how that compares. Again, shopping around is smart, and you can compare the best prices on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro right here.

  

  Huawei P20 Pro

  A premium phone for camera lovers

  The Huawei P20 Pro features three stunning rear cameras, helping you take your mobile photography to the next level.

  Buy at eBay
  

  If what you desire is a more stock Android experience, the Google Pixel 3XL is the obvious competitor product. It uses computational photography rather than a multi-lens approach, but if what you want is the absolute latest in Google's Android OS, there's simply no other competing phone. You can compare local deals for the Google Pixel 3XL right here.

  

  Google Pixel 3 XL

  Google's newest big flagship

  The Google Pixel 3 XL combines a clean Android interface with the smarts of Google in a handset clearly designed for Android lovers.

  Buy at eBay
  

Pricing and availability

• Price: RRP $1,499 (128GB)/$1,849 (512GB)/$2,399 (1TB)
• Where to buy: The Good Guys | Samsung | eBay

Compare plans for the Samsung Galaxy S10+

Specifications

Latest Samsung news

Father’s Day gift ideas: $400 off iPhone 12 Mini and more from Telstra

With Father's Day just around the corner, we're giving all you last-minute planners easy-to-order gift options for your tech-loving dad.

Read more…

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 Review: Flippin’ great… except for the battery life

Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 3 is here, and we've gone hands on with the company's more affordable, more durable folding phone.

Read more…

Galaxy Z Flip 3: Australian pricing, release date and specifications

At Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event, the company unveiled a new Galaxy Z Flip folding phone at a considerably lower price point.

Read more…