Samsung Galaxy S10e review – An iPhone XR killer?

Introduction

For the past few years, smart phones are just getting bigger. With bigger displays comes bigger batteries (bigger price tags as well). If you are someone like me, ever wondered to reduce the size of these smaller computers to fit in our pockets and our hands as well, that’s where the Samsung Galaxy S10e comes in.

S10e is the youngest sibling unveiled by Samsung recently in its flagship model S range of smartphones. With S10 and S10plus are the elder siblings respectively and more expensive ones as well, its S10e grabbed the eyes of most.

Samsung Galaxy S10e is aimed right away at a crowd that is craving for a flagship experience but at a considerably lower price bucket. They are ready to sacrifice some features for the so called ‘premium experience’ and their wait becomes fruitful with the debut of Samsung Galaxy S10e line-up.

This phone is all about delivering the essentials (that’s what e stands for ) of the Galaxy S10 experience as a package that feels a lot more manageable both physically and financially as it’s considerably cheaper.  With some key compromises, S10e, the smallest of the line up comes with a lesser price tag value of around Rs.55,900, making it a reasonable purchase in a country like India, where a car owner bargains even with a street vendor. Do Lower prices mean a lesser value device? In this post here, we bring you the best reasons to consider before the purchase.

What’s in the box:

• Phone (duh!)
• Samsung Fast Adaptive wall charger (15 watts)
• USB-C to standard USB cable (for easy data transfer between two USB-C phones)
• microUSB to USB-C adapter (so you can use your old cables)
• SIM tool
• AKG-tuned in-ear headphones with extra eartip sizes
• Perforated Case(same as your phone color & looks funky!)

Design:

S10E is a small form factor phone, feels perfect & comfortable in hands, certainly brings a charm like all the smaller phones does. Galaxy S line-ups are known for their looks and this one too looks gorgeous. While the complete industry is trying to deceive customers with their new different looks, Samsung has played it safe by giving a well-known glass back design on a metal chassis build, relying on its success formula of “adding the entire latest tech”.

And to be fair, this has worked on their favour. Samsung Galaxy s10e is the 1^st after S7 to sport in the small form factor, after a strong gap of 3 years. We have to accept the fact that it’s so easy whether operating the phone single-handedly or just keeping safe in pocket, this phone is just amazing. It’s good to go back to basics after a prolonged use of gigantic premium phones in the market. Actually this new Galaxy is not as tiny as iPhone SE for that matter but exactly similar to that of  Google Pixel 3 or iPhone XS, making comfortable to use.

As much as within 2 years, the screen segment has evolved through a lot like 18:9 display ratio, full length notch, water drop notch, notch-less display, in- display fingerprint sensor and so on. However, it’s a total shock, Samsung who was not known for any such vital change in the display, has directly took us to the next level by introducing Punch-hole display which sports the front facing camera beneath it. We find Punch-hole screens are more engaging than the one sporting a notch. What’s your opinion? Give it on comments section below.

The power button doubles up as a capacitive fingerprint sensor as well, placed on the top right side corner. This is one of my favourite places for a fingerprint reader, it falls in a natural place where we rest our thumb finger(for right-handed people at least), but lefties might still be bothered. Samsung gives you the option to unlock the phone with a soft touch, rather than making you press down on the button, which spares some repetitive stress. Actually, this capacitive fingerprint scanner was more accurate on the Galaxy S10E than the S10 Plus’ ultrasonic in-screen sensor.

My one complaint is that the placement feels unusually high, I’d be happier if it moved down a quarter of an inch so no need to lose grip to unlock. But unlocking the phone isn’t the only thing you use the fingerprint scanner for. A swipe down the fingerprint reader opens the notification shade. Similarly capturing a screenshot, launching the camera app & using it for payment options is also where this capacitive fingerprint scanner comes in as a nifty feature.

And the punch hole camera on the front? Well, it’s tinier than a notch, so it’s less of a distraction, but it’s still definitely noticeable. You can also mask it in settings, but that creates an artificial big bezel at the top of the phone and seems to makes matters worse, not better. One better alternative would be to go for wallpapers that suit this design perfect, like these : https://www.reddit.com/r/S10wallpapers/comments/b2atjs/hexagons_v2_amoled/. More links in the comments section.

With the S10e you get familiar Samsung staples like full IP68 water and dust protection, 3.5 mm headphone jack and a microSD card slot. Speaking of the headphone jack, the AKG-tuned headphones that come for free with the S10e look stylish and sit very comfortably in the ear. The s10 E also sports the stereo speaker setup with the earpiece acting as a second speaker, loudness is excellent and the sound is quite clear.

Samsung used Corning Gorilla Glass 5 to protect on the front and back glass panels while it was Gorilla Glass 6 & 5 for the front & back in the other S10 models. It’s recommended to use a cover case, not to risk dropping the device.

Display:

S10e comes with a flat screen, not a curved one like it’s siblings with a similar premium glass-and-metal construction and tiny bezels, is the best flat-screen flagship Smartphone available in the market right now. Samsung’s AMOLED displays have always been the best & it continues to be with this time, you get a straight up screen which doesn’t spill over to the sides so if you like that infinity edge display available on all the premium galaxies, it’s not here . To be honest I like it this way with a straight screen where you don’t miss details while playing games or watching movies to the infinity edges. What’s your favourite screen? Do let us know in the comments section below.

But, all in all, the “infinity O” screen looks beautiful, and by far, this is the most uniform sized screen bezels on all the 4 sides made by Samsung. The 5.8” super AMOLED display packs 2280x1080p resolution & is HDR+ certified which would make the on screen experience a mind boggling one. Maximum brightness is impressive 389 nits in manual but it goes upto 800 nits in auto mode in bright conditions. As expected legibility outdoors in the sun is really good. Of course as an amoled, you have the option for an Always ON display which is power consuming but it’s nice to be able to see your notifications at a glance

Camera:

The dual rear camera setup which misses out on Telephoto lens but also retains the 12 MP wide-angle lens powered by dual pixel, AF & OIS features. It has a pixel size of 1.4um, FOV of 77 degrees and dual aperture switching between f/1.5 and f/2.4. The second rear camera is the 16MP ultra wide camera that has a pixel of 1um, FOV of 123- degrees and f/2.2 aperture.

The front facing camera boasts of dual pixel AF, pixel size of 1.2um and FOV of 80 degrees with f/1.9 aperture, which is going to take great selfies by the way. Actually this is where cost cutting happened, the rear camera losing out on the telephoto lens, so no extreme close ups & the front camera loses depth sensor which stops us to get live bokeh effect.

When you compare this with the best in the market, multiple things are not upto the mark. For example, say images in the night light mode are not that great like Google’s Pixel 3.

Though the camera app interface looked like a lot of clutter, many iconic features like a floating shutter button justifies it and makes it completely accessible to use. Still, you would appreciate a cleaner app with all basic features in front of us. However, the cameras are not the absolute best but still among the finest of the segment.

Performance:

If S10e is upto something in the market, it is the unmatched functionality that makes this device stand out. In India, S10e comes with Samsung’s very own Exynos 9820 processor which is common for EMEA regions (Europe Middle East Asia) whereas the industry leading Snadragon 855 SoC comes for US and select countries.

With the ultimate prowess of Exynos 9820 processor in conjunction with the Mali-G76 GPU, the s10e performs seamlessly. Trust me, this is as good as the snapdragon 855, like the end user might never feel the difference. The device comes in two versions 6 /128 Gb and 8/256 Gb of internal storage, the later though is not available in India as of now, comes with an extendable microSD card support upto 512Gb. This is something very rare to find nowadays in any of the high-end smartphones, which we recommend highly.

Samsung S10e has it’s very own One UI, running on top of Android 9.0 Pie. This is the most mature level of UI from a Samsung device the world has ever witnessed. One UI is now clean of clutter and user-friendly with nice little touches like a brightness slider that appears on the bottom of the screen within easy reach and with app navigation also moved to the bottom. You also have some little tricks that are not available on stock Android like an easy GIF and collage creation in the gallery & miss out on a few like there is still no native screen video recorder, for instance.

Better than the older interfaces and miles greater than touchwiz kinda UI but still got some hiccups here and there. Hope it’ll be fixed in the future.
Gaming gets better this time, thanks to all high-end spec list and the advanced heat pipe cooling system, which is the same with S10 as well.

Bixby button worries still continue but this time you have an option around to change it with any other application. Samsung’s gotta fix this because the world is moving towards better solutions like Google Assistant.

Battery:

Samsung Galaxy s10e comes with a 3100mAh battery which may sound weak on paper but being a daily driver gets the job done almost. I say almost, it’s because on mixed usage like watching videos to playing games (pubG mostly) this couldn’t take us until the end of the day without battery saving mode. Whereas the handset is great for a light or an average user which limits to checking emails, streaming music & browsing through social media with 5-6 hrs of screen on time. But why does an average user should go for a premium smartphone? Only Samsung knows!

Samsung also provides a 15-watt fast charger in the box and it fully recharges the phone in less than an hour and a half. The brick charger charges at a speed of  just 36% of power in 30 minutes is not the fastest in the market though.  You also have fast wireless charging on board, which is a nice extra (you would need to buy a wireless charger separately, as Samsung does not provide one in the box).

And then the S10e also comes with a reverse charging  feature called “Power Share” which allows your phone itself to act as the wireless charger. This could actually prove useful with Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch Active and Galaxy Buds headphones as both of them have small batteries and you can easily charge these up by just placing them on the back of your S10e. You can also use the reverse wireless charging to charge another phone with the S10e, but that would usually not be a good idea as it drains your battery quickly and charges that other phone slowly. It could prove handy for someone who needs just a quick short top-up, but definitely not as a replacement for regular charging.

Pros

• Beautiful design with IP68 protection
• Impressive screen quality
• Plentiful storage with expandable microSD
• Fast (but not smooth)
• Very good camera (but not quite the best)
•  

Cons

• Bixby
• Side fingerprint scanner is not placed well for lefties
• A bit too pricey

Verdict:

Samsung Galaxy s10e is just a compact, small form factor smartphone which feels lighter, fits in your hand & your pocket and wallet as well. Priced at Rs.55900, we can call this definitely an iPhone XR killer, miles higher than it but considerably lesser in miles with Google Pixel 3 and OnePlus6T.

Sure, it has its flaws: Bixby, the slightly awkward fingerprint scanner, the not quite perfect gesture navigation, the noisy low-light time camera shots, and a few others, but those feel like the proverbial fly in the ointment. The great screen, the fast speed, the plentiful storage and the cleaner One UI easily make up for that, and the S10e is an easy recommendation on our part.

If you’re a Galaxy fan-boy and you wanted to update big-time with a pocket & wallet friendly smartphone, this little beast is for you. For those who want a compact phone that is great in pretty much every aspect, the Galaxy S10e is a “finally!” moment. Finally, a low-compromise compact Android phone!

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