Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version)

Even a year since its release, the Galaxy S10 offers superfast performance and a beautiful display, with a less distracting camera cutout than on the larger, pricier S10 Plus. I also love that the S10 offers my favorite feature, Wireless PowerShare. That means you don’t have to splurge on the priciest Galaxy to reverse-charge all of your devices. So buying a 4G phone this year that you hold onto for another two or three years isn’t a terrible idea for many, especially if 5G is still years away from where you live, and it means saving a sizable chunk of change. Specs wise, the Galaxy S10 will valiantly carry you through one more cycle of phone ownership — just so long as it comes down to a price you’re willing to pay. Reveal more in Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version) review.

Specifications – Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version)

General

Display

Hardware

Camera

Software

Connectivity

Sensors

Price and availability – Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version)

The Galaxy S10 initially started at $900 (£799 and AU$1,349), only $100 cheaper than the Plus ($1,000, £899, AU$1,499) and $150 more than the S10E ($750, £669, AU$1,199). Expect price drops to settle after the Galaxy S20 goes on sale, with further seasonal discounts by store and carrier, such as buy one, get one free offers.

There are a few main differences to be aware of between the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus, if you’re considering the two:

• There’s only one front-facing camera on the S10 instead of two, but it doesn’t detract much.
• The screen is slightly smaller (6.1 inches versus 6.4 on the Plus).
• Battery life is a tad shorter (just over 18 hours in our looping video drain test versus 21 on the Plus).
• There’s no 1-terabyte storage option.
• You can’t buy it with a ceramic backing as you can the 512GB and 1TB Galaxy S10 Plus.

Key features – Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version)

Design

• Absolutely gorgeous, slick design, which is truly all-screen, and zero bezels – with a punch hole for the front camera
• Top quality build
• Feels great in the hand thanks to curved sides on the front and back
• More compact and easier to handle than the Galaxy S10+
• The new in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor also works well, and even with wet/greasy fingers – plus it’s more secure than the 2D optical sensor on the likes of the OnePlus 6T, since it creates a 3D map of your finger
• There is also lightning fast face unlock

Display

• Brilliant, killer display – the new quad HD+ Dynamic AMOLED display on the Galaxy S10 Plus is Samsung’s best display yet and arguably the best smartphone display yet, and absolutely immersive, with its all-screen design
• Dynamic Tone Mapping delivers enhanced brightness and a wider color range and Samsung has worked to reduce blue light emission, which can be harmful for your eyes
• The Galaxy S10’s panel also gets plenty bright at 625 nits of peak brightness
• The punch hole for the front camera can be a bit distracting at times – especially when you’re using an app with a white background like Gmail – whether you prefer this approach to a ‘full screen’ device or the water-drop notch approach may be down to personal preference – while notches are usually larger, they still maintain the symmetry of the phone – so it’s a bit of a toss-up – though, just like a notch, this is something you quickly get used to, and ultimately stop even noticing

Camera

• Continuing Samsung’s tradition of including some excellent cameras on its flagships, the 4 cameras on the S10 (3 rear + 1 front) pack quite some punch are are easily among the best on any phone available currently – taking the top spots along with the Pixel 3/XL and the iPhone XS/Max
• The three cameras in the rear include a 12-MP dual-pixel main shooter with a variable aperture (f/1.5, f/2.4), a 12-MP telephoto lens (f/2.4) with a 2x optical zoom and an ultra-wide 16-MP camera (f/2.2) that gives you a 123-degree view
• The ultra-wide angle lens on the S10 Plus can produce dramatic-looking photos, giving you a more captivating view of almost any scene
• If you like portraits, you’ll like the Live Focus effects Samsung has added to the mix – you can choose from Blur, Spin, Zoom and Color point (which puts the main subject in color and the background in black and white) – you can also apply these effects to portraits or selfies after you shoot
• Low light photography is pretty strong too, though not quite to the level of the Pixel 3
• The front camera is pretty good too (though portraits aren’t as good as on the S10+)
• Video recording is top-notch too, especially with the new ‘Super Steady’ mode – that produces the kind of smooth tracking shots you’d see in a movie
• Overall, while the cameras on the Galaxy S10 are right up there with the very best, they are still a shade behind the Pixel 3 and the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, in terms of low-light photography

Battery

• Good battery life with a 3400mAh battery, an optimized processor, and AI based ‘Adaptive Battery’ chops
• The handy PowerShare feature lets you use the back of the S10 to wirelessly charge other phones and gadgets that use the Qi standard (including the iPhones XS, and Galaxy Buds)
• While fast charging is of course supported, the charging speeds over the Adaptive Fast Charging protocol aren’t all that impressive for a 2019 flagship – it will take you 30 minutes to charge the phone to about 36% with the included 15W charger in the box – it’s a decent speed but the fast charging standards of the likes of OnePlus, Oppo, and Vivo are significantly better

Audio

• Includes a headphone jack, something that’s not that easy to find among flagships today
• Has pretty powerful speakers (though they are not up to the level of the the stereo sound from the iPhone XS Max which delivers more robust bass and richer audio overall)

Software

• The OneUI software on the Galaxy S10 is slick and streamlined as promised, and fairly easy to use – it’s one of the better Android UIs you will come across – in fact, it is arguably the best custom Android skin after Oxygen OS, and that’s a huge deal for the Samsung brand

Performance

• With the power beast Exynos 9820 chip inside, the Galaxy S10 is simply the fastest Android phone yet – and only a shade behind Apple’s iPhone XR/XS – it will steamroll through anything you throw at it – and gameplay in even the most complex games is smooth like butter
• There is also a new set of features Samsung calls “Intelligent Performance” – using artificial intelligence, the Galaxy S10 lineup can automatically and continuously optimize battery, CPU, RAM, and even device temperature based on what you’re doing with the phone at any given time – Intelligent Performance also learns when you use certain apps over time, and it can pre-load them in the background based on time and location – this way, your most frequently used apps are lightning-fast to launch

Compare Galaxy S10 vs. S10E vs. S10 Plus vs. S10 5G

Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version) review

Galaxy S10 design

The 6.1-inch S10 has the exact same dimensions as Apple’s 6.1-inch, $749 iPhone 11 but is more than a full ounce lighter. The S10 isn’t a one-handed device for those of us with petite paws; the 5.8-inch S10e is both smaller and cheaper, so go for that device if size is the deciding factor for you in phone selection.

Aside from the hole-punch display, the Galaxy S10 is the same as every other smartphone on the market. That’s not a bad thing, but if you’re waiting for innovative smartphone design before spending close to $1,000 (or far more) for a new device, you’ll have to hold out for the foldable phones arriving this year.

The S10 comes in the same colors as the larger $999 Galaxy S10 Plus, which offers a few simple options (like white and black) and some bolder ones (blue, Flamingo Pink). I tested the Prism Black model, which is a terribly boring glassy black slab. I suggest going with Prism White, or one of the more interesting hues, which will help you stand out. The black model collects so many fingerprints that you’ll look like a really uncool forensics investigator.

Like all Galaxy S models, the S10 is rated IP68 water-resistant, meaning it can survive in up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water for a half-hour. That’s respectable in the flagship phone realm, and thus earns the Galaxy S10 a spot on our list of the best waterproof phones (Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB review).

Display – Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version)

The midsized S10 sports a hole-punch-size cutout for its single selfie lens, which is far less distracting than the S10 Plus’ oval-shaped cutout.

Almost every other smartphone maker has eliminated bezels by adding a notch that swoops down from the top of the device to disguise the front-facing camera. Samsung avoided that trend altogether with all three Galaxy S10 models, instead developing the unique Infinity-O display, which embeds the front-facing camera lens directly in the screen.

I read lengthy New York Times articles, raced my trusty Mitsubishi Lancer in Asphalt 9 and took multiple selfies with the S10, and the hole punch never took away from the experience. When snapping photos of myself, I realized that the obvious cutout ensured I always looked directly at the lens. For those of you who never seem to nail eye contact with the camera lens, the S10’s cutout is a great feature, making this task ridiculously easy.

The S10 broke DisplayMate’s records for display brightness, color accuracy and image contrast, and the list goes on, so the S10 earned an A+ for a virtually perfect display. We found the same in our testing. The S10’s AMOLED display covers 208.2 percent of the sRGB color gamut and notched a 0.38 Delta-E rating for color accuracy (numbers closer to 0 are better). The S10 hit a peak brightness of 611 nits when we shone a flashlight on its sensor, making the phone’s panel almost as bright as that on the S10 Plus (625 nits). The Pixel 3 is ultra-dim by comparison, hitting just 362 nits (Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB review).

You can also hide the hole punch with Samsung’s cleverly designed wallpapers. That won’t help when you’re streaming videos or browsing the web, but the disguise looks pretty damn good when you show it off to friends. The slightly curved glass practically cascades from the phone’s frame. That curved glass also makes it a little too easy to accidentally press something simply because you were holding the device; this was also a problem in past generations of Galaxy phones. If you want to hide the cutout altogether, that’s an option, but that effect is so ugly that you may as well buy another Android device with a notch and call it a day.

Cameras – Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version)

The S10 and S10 Plus have one key difference, aside from the larger phone’s bigger display: The Plus sports an additional 8-megapixel, depth-sensing, front-facing camera for better selfies. Both devices have a selfie-portrait effect, which enables other effects, including wind-swept and black-and-white backgrounds.

As you can see in the black-and-white Live Focus image above, the S10’s camera software gets a little messy around my curls. Meanwhile, the S10 Plus seamlessly softens the background around them, creating a more natural effect.

But the S10 achieves those effects using software instead of an additional depth-sensing lens, and it shows when comparing the two side by side.

I also compared the S10’s telephoto lens and optical zoom with the iPhone XS cameras by playing tourist with a photo of the Statue of Liberty as seen from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. It’s an almost impossible shot, because Lady Liberty is extremely far away and the midday sun is not helpful. The iPhone’s optical zoom fared better, as the S10’s image is darker, with more artifacts in the photo (Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB review).

Otherwise, the S10 and S10 Plus have the same rear triple-lens camera array, with telephoto, standard and wide-angle shooters for capturing a variety of viewpoints. I compared the S10 with a Pixel 3 by capturing a Brooklyn storefront. Both images capture the detail in the brick and the gleam of the coffee shop’s sign, but the S10 is more color-accurate; the neon “No Sleep Till” sign glowed more yellow than blue-white in real life.

The S10’s cameras are good, though if you want more-dramatic photos, the Pixel 3 is still the best camera phone to get. The iPhone XS captures more-natural shots.

Galaxy S10 security

Samsung can’t compete with Apple on biometric authentication, and we’re not sure the Galaxy maker is even trying. This is one area where Samsung needs to work harder to ensure that unlocking your phone and authenticating payments are locked down with the most secure biometric scans that money can buy.

The S10’s in-display reader is more secure, due to an ultrasonic sensor that maps the 3D curves of your fingerprint. You have to press a little longer on the sensor than you would think, but the phone unlocks quickly enough, and I appreciate that it’s not a two-step process, like on the iPhone XS. (On that phone, you have to wait for the camera to scan your face and then swipe up.)

In our testing, the S10’s facial recognition is easily fooled by a photograph of a person’s face. That’s just plain embarrassing. The photo trick doesn’t work if you turn off Fast Facial Recognition in the S10’s settings, but the facial-authentication method is still less secure than it should be. That’s because Samsung doesn’t use hardware to create a 3D map of your face the way Apple does with its Face ID.

There have been some complaints about the Galaxy S10’s ultrasonic fingerprint sensor not working properly when a screen protector is applied to the phone. In fact, one woman claims that anyone could unlock her Galaxy S10 after she purchased a screen protector off of eBay. Fortunately, Samsung issued an update designed to fix this problem shortly after release.

Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB Hybrid-SIM android smartphone – black (UK version) performance review

The Galaxy S10 Plus and smaller S10 have the same exact specs, and it shows in their performance power. With Qualcomm’s 7-nanometer Snapdragon 855 processor and 8GB of RAM, the S10 easily matches the larger S10 Plus’ speed.

The two devices scored evenly on Geekbench 4, a synthetic test of overall system performance. The S10 notched a multicore score of 10,813, sneaking just ahead of the larger phone’s performance (10,732). Both phones lag behind the iPhone XS’ A12 Bionic processor, which blows away the competition with a 11,420 score.

And the S10, like the S10 Plus, pulled ahead of both the iPhone and competing Android flagships in the 3DMark Slingshot Extreme graphics-performance benchmark. The S10 notched a score of 5,606 on the OpenGL ES 3.1 test, just behind the larger S10’s score (5,648) and easily ahead of the results from the OnePlus 6T (5,183), Pixel 3 (4,396) and iPhone XS (4,339).

But both S10s handily crush their Android rivals, including the Pixel 3 (7,316) and OnePlus 6T (8,972).

I unlocked one premium race car after another in my favorite graphics-intensive game, Asphalt 9, easily killing 45 minutes burning rubber around the globe. The S10 never lagged or felt warm to the touch.

Galaxy S10 software: OneUI makes it smooth

The OneUI software on the Galaxy S10 is streamlined as promised and fairly to easy to use. The settings menu, for example, presents a lot fewer options than previous Galaxy phones.

By default, there’s a Recent Apps, Home Button and Back button along the bottom of the display. But you can switch to full-screen gestures. You’ll swipe up from the bottom left to see recent apps, up from the bottom to go home and up from the right to go back (Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB review).

The Galaxy S10 also now offers some of the more compelling software features of the Galaxy Note 10. These include Live Focus video for applying bokeh effects to your footage and Samsung DeX for PC, which allows you to see notifications and send and receive messages on your laptop without having to fire up your phone.

Galaxy S10 battery life

The Galaxy S10’s 3,400-mAh battery isn’t as large as the massive, 4,100-mAh pack inside the S10 Plus. And as expected, the smaller device doesn’t last as long on a charge, though you can still go a long time without topping off your battery.

The S10 eked out 10 hours and 19 minutes on the Tom’s Guide Battery Test, which consists of continuous web surfing over 4G LTE. The S10 Plus landed near the top of our list of longest-lasting smartphones, reaching 12 hours and 35 seconds on that test.

All three Galaxy S10 models have a new Wireless PowerShare feature that we wish every smartphone on the market offered. The tool, which you toggle on in the shortcuts menu by swiping down, lets you charge up any Qi-compatible device (Samsung Galaxy S10 512GB review).

The Galaxy S9 Plus, released in 2018, also lasts longer on a charge than the S10, but that older phone has a slightly larger, 3,500-mAh battery. The S10e and its smaller, 3,100-mAh unit died after 9 hours and 42 minutes. The S10 outlasted both the iPhone XS (9:41) and the Pixel 3 XL (9:30). In the iPhone 11 Pro vs. Samsung’s S10 face-off, the Pro lasted four minutes longer (10:23) than the S10. 

I used this to charge up Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Active, and the process works quickly and seamlessly.

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