INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Launching around the globe a few days ahead of the world largest mobile show was the ultimate big-dog move
Samsung celebrated the 10th anniversary of its flagship phone line by launching its latest device on Apple sometimes-stomping grounds at San
Francisco Bill Graham Civic Center.
The timing was less than ideal for all of us jet-lagged gadget reviewers, but the effect clearly paid
Dozens of the world highest-profile reviewers have been roaming the streets of Barcelona with the S10 in hand and Galaxy Buds in ears
You couldn&t pay for that kind of publicity.
And, naturally, none of us minded testing those new photo features in one of Europe most
beautiful cities.
Here everything announced at Samsung Galaxy S10/Galaxy Fold event
But the 10th anniversary Galaxy arrives at a
transitional time for Samsung — and the industry at large
The last couple of years have seen smartphone sales plateau for the first time since anyone started keeping track of those sorts of numbers,
and big companies like Samsung and Apple are not immune.
That manner of existential crisis has led to one of the most eventful Mobile World
Congresses in memory, as companies look to shake the doldrums of a stagnant market
It also led Samsung to open last week Unpacked event with the Galaxy Fold — first the cryptic product video and then the product
unveil.
It a heck of a lead in, and, quite frankly, a recipe for disappointment
Here a look at the future, and now let talk about the present
Several people saw that I was carrying around a new Samsung device, got excited and were ultimately disappointed with the fact that I
couldn&t unfold the thing.
None of this is any reflection on the quality of the S10 as a device, which I will happily state is quite high
But unlike the iPhone X, Apple 10th anniversary handset, the new Galaxy isn&t an attempt at a radical departure
Instead, it a culmination of 10 years of phone development, with new tricks throughout.
The Galaxy S10 doesn&t offer the same glimpse into
But it does make a strong claim for the best Android smartphone of the moment
Starting at $1,000, it going to cost you — but if Samsung $1,900 foldable is any indication, smartphones of the future could make it look
like a downright bargain.
Screen time
The Samsung Galaxy S10+ has been my daily driver for a week now
It joined me on an international road trip, through several product unveils from the competition and is responsible for all of the images in
Sometimes the best camera is the one in your pocket, as the saying goes.
A closer look at Huawei folding Mate X
Like other recent Samsung
flagships, it going to be a tough device to give up when review time comes to a close
It a product that does a lot of things well
Tending, as Samsung often does, toward jamming as much into a product as possible — the polar opposite of chief competitor Apple
approach.
But in the case of the Galaxy line, it all comes together very nicely
The S10 doesn&t represent a radical stylistic departure from its predecessor, maintaining the same manner of curved design language that
helps the company cram a lot of phone into a relatively limited footprint, including a 93.4 percent screen-to-body ratio in the case of the
S10+.
That means you can hold the handset in one hand, in spite of the ginormous 6.4-inch screen size
This is accomplished, in part, by the curved edges of the display that have been something of a Samsung trademark for a few generations now
It has also helped the Infinity-O design display, a laser cutout in the top-right of the screen, to fit the front-facing camera in as small
In the case of the S10+, it more like an Infinity-OOO display.
Samsung was going to have to give in to the cutout trend sooner or later,
opting to go ahead and skip the whole notch situation
The result is a largely unobtrusive break in the screen
Just for good measure, the phone default wallpapers have gradually darkening gradients that do a good job obscuring the cut out while not in
use.
But while the whole more-screen-less-body deal is generally a good thing, there is a marked downside
I found myself accidentally triggering touch on the sides of the display with the edge of my palms, particularly when using the device with
This has been a known issue for some time, of course.
Oh, and there one more key aspect in helping the S10+ go full screen.
Putting your
finger on it
As with many of the features here, Samsung can&t claim to be the first to have the under-display fingerprint sensor
OnePlus, in a rare push to be first to market, added a similar technology to the 6T, which arrived last fall
But Samsung application takes things a step further.
The S10 and all of its variants are among the first to implant the fingerprint
technology that Qualcomm announced at its Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii last year
The key differentiator here is an extra level of security
If the OnePlus& fingerprint sensor is akin to your standard face unlock, this is more in line with what you get on the iPhone or LG latest
handset.
The ability to sense depth brings another layer of security to the product — quite literally
Here how Qualcomm describes it:
Combining a smartphone display and fingerprint reader for a seamless and sleek look, 3D Sonic uses
technological advances and acoustics (sonic waves) to scan the pores of a user finger for a deeply accurate 3D image
An ultra-thin (0.2 mm) sensor enables cutting-edge form factors such as full glass edge-to-edge displays, and can be widely used with
flexible OLED displays.
Setup proved a bit fussier than the standard physical fingerprint button
Once everything is squared away, the reader is actually fairly responsive, registering a rippled water animation and unlocking the phone in
about a second.
Getting your finger/thumb in the right spot might take a couple of tries on the first go, but after that, it muscle memory
There also a small fingerprint shaped guide that pops up on the lock screen for help
It can still be a bit tricky for those times you&re not looking directly at the display, or if you switch between hands.
It also worth
noting that the unlock can be tricky with some screen protectors
Samsung will be working with accessory manufacturers to design compatible ones, but picking the wrong company could severely hamper the
unlock function.
In some ways, though, the in-display fingerprint reader beats face unlock
I tend to lay my device down next to my keyboard when I work
Lifting the phone up to my eyes in order to read notifications is a bit of a pain
Same goes for when I need to check messages in bed
Here you can simply touch, check the notifications and go on with your life.
Ports in a storm
Around the edge is a mirrored metal band
that houses the power button on one side and volume rocker and devoted Bixby button on the other
Yes, the Bixby button is back
And no, it won&t be going anywhere anytime soon
Samsung is wholly devoted to the smart assistant, and the company mobile devices are the one foothold Bixby currently commands.
The
complaint about the Bixby button mostly stems from the fact that the assistant was, quite honestly, pretty useless at launch —
particularly when compared to Android default assistant
In fact, when Google announced this week at Mobile World Congress the upcoming arrival of Assistant buttons on third-party devices, the news
was generally welcomed by the Android crowd.
Samsung Galaxy S9 deserves better than Bixby
Samsung, meanwhile, gets hounded about the Bixby
button, as though its inclusion is a way of forcing its assistant on users
Once again, Samsung relented, giving users the ability to remap the button in order to launch specific apps instead
This has played out time and again with the last several Galaxy devices.
The fact is, after an admittedly rocky start, Bixby has slowly been
getting better, feature by feature
But the assistant still has catching up to do with Google headset, and frankly doesn&t offer a ton of reasons to opt into it over Android
Samsung has certainly made big promises of late, coupled with the imminent arrival of the Galaxy Home Hub.
Samsung Bixby may finally get
more third-party integration soon
Of course, that device was announced more than half a year ago, and when it does finally arrive, it will
likely be carrying a prohibitive price tag
Beyond that, Bixby is currently the realm of things like Samsung refrigerators and washing machines
None of this adds up to a particularly compelling strategy for a multi-million-dollar AI offering that has become something of an inside
joke in the industry.
But Samsung sticks to its guns, for better or worse
Sometimes that means Bixby, and sometimes that means defiantly clinging to the headphone jack
Turns out if you avoid a trend for long enough, you can become a trendsetter in your own right — or at least a respite from the maddening
crowd.
It been a few years since the beginning of the end came for the jack, and the whole thing still leaves plenty of users with a sour
Even the once-defiant Google quickly gave in and dropped the jack
Samsung, however, has stood its ground and the decision has paid off
What was ubiquitous is now a differentiator, and even as the company hawks another pair of Bluetooth earbuds, it standing its ground
here.
All charged up
The back of the device, like the front, is covered in Gorilla Glass 6
The latest from Corning, which debuted over the summer, promises to survive &up to 15 drops.& But don&t try this at home with your shiny new
$1,000 smartphone, as your results may vary.
The material also helps facilitate what is arguably the device most compelling new feature:
Samsung not the first company to roll out the feature — Huawei introduced the feature on the Mate 20 Pro last year
Still, it a cool feature and, perhaps most importantly, it beat Apple to the punch.
The feature needs to be activated manually, by swiping
down into notifications (it will also automatically shut off when not in use)
From there, tapping Wireless PowerShare will pop up a dialog box, letting you know the feature is ready to us
Turn the phone face down on a table and place a compatible phone on top, face up, and the S10 will go to work charging it.
Placement can be
a bit tough to get right the first couple of times
The trick is making sure both devices are centered
Once everything is where it should be, you&ll hear a quick notification sound and the phone will register as charging
In the case of the new Galaxy Buds, the sound is accompanied by the appearance of the case charging light.
It a neat feature, for sure
I can certainly imagine lending some ill-prepared friend a little juice at the bar one night
I wouldn&t go throwing out my power bank just yet
For one thing, one of the phones needs to be face-down the whole time
For another, wireless charging isn&t nearly as fast as its wired counterpart, so beyond the initial novelty of the feature, it may not
ultimately be one you end up using a lot.
And, of course, you&re actively draining the battery of the phone sharing power
It a little like a Giving Tree scenario, albeit with the lowest stakes humanly possible
Thankfully, the handsets all sport pretty beefy batteries
In the case of the S10+, it a massive 4,100 mAh (with the 5G model getting an even nuttier 4,500 mAh).
It clear the days of Samsung Note
7-induced battery cautions are well behind it, thanks in no small part to the extensive battery testing the company implemented in the wake
of a seemingly endless PR nightmare
As it stands, I was able to get around a full day plus two hours with standard usage while roaming the streets and convention center halls
That means you shouldn&t have to worry about running out of energy by day end — and you may even have a bit to spare before it all
over.
Camera ready
You know the drill by now, Samsung and Apple come out with a new flagship smartphone, which quickly shoots to the top
of DxOMark camera ratings
The cycle repeats itself yet again — with one key difference: It a three-way tie.
[Left: Standard, Right: Full zoom]
Really, there no
better distillation of the state of the smartphone industry in 2019 than this
The latest iPhone, which is now half-a-year-old, is now a few spots down the list, with Samsung in a three-way tie for first
The other two top devices are, get this, both Huawei handsets
It been a banner year for the Chinese handset maker on a number of fronts, and that got to leave the Apples and Samsungs of the world a bit
nervous, all told.
[gallery
ids="1790609,1790610,1790611,1790612,1790613,1790614,1790615,1790617,1790618,1790619,1790620,1790621,1790622,1790623,1790624,1790625,1790626
,1790627,1790628,1790629"]
For now, though, there a lot to like here… 109 points& worth, in fact
The last several generations of camera races have resulted in some really well-rounded camera gear
It a setup that makes it difficult to take bad shots (difficult, but hardly impossible, mind), with the combination of hardware and
software/AI improvements we&ve seen over the course of the last few devices.
The camera setup varies from device to device, so we&re going
to focus on the S10+ — the device we&ve spent the past week with (though, granted, the 5G model camera warrants its own write-up)
The plus model features a three-camera array, oriented horizontally in a configuration that brings nothing to mind so much as the original
Microsoft Kinect.
[Left: Samsung S10+, Right: Pixel 2]
It been fascinating watching companies determine the best use for a multi-camera
Take Nokia new five-camera system, which essentially compiles everything into one super-high-res shot
Here, however, the three lenses capture three different images
They are as follows:
Wide (Standard): 12 MP, 26mmTelephoto: 12 MP, 52mmUltrawide: 16 MP, 12mm
The system is configured to let you
seamlessly switch between lenses in order to capture a shot in a given situation
The telephoto can do 2x shots, while the ultrawide captures 123-degree shots
The 5G model, meanwhile, adds 3D-depth cameras to the front and rear, which is a pretty clear indication of where Samsung plans to go from
here.
That said, the current setup is still quite capable of pulling off some cool depth tricks
This is no better exemplified than with the Live Focus feature, which applies a Portrait Mode-style bokeh effect around the objects you
The effect isn&t perfect, but it pretty convincing
Above is a shot I took on the MWC show floor and used in the led for a story about the HTC Vive.
There are some fun tricks as well, like
the above Color Point effect
I&m not sure how often I&d end up using it, but damn if it doesn&t look cool.
All of that, coupled with new touches like wide-image
panorama and recent advances like super-slow-motion and low-light shooting make for an extremely well-rounded camera experience
Ditto for scene identification, which does a solid job determining the differences between, say, a salad and a tree and adjusting the
shooting settings accordingly.
Oh, and a low-key solid upgrade here are the improved AR Emojis, as seen above
They&re 1,000 times less creepy than the originals
I mean, I&m still not going to be sharing them with people unironically or anything, but definitely a step in the right direction.
Today
Galaxy
The present moment is an exciting one for the mobile industry
There were glimmers of promise all over the MWC show floor and a week prior at Samsung own event
A stagnant industry has caused the big players to get creative, and some long-promised technologies are about to finally get real.
The
Samsung Fold feels like a clear peek into the future of one of the industry biggest players, so it only natural that such an announcement
would take some of the wind out of its flagship sails.
The S10 isn&t the smartphone of the future
Instead, it the culmination of 10 solid years of cutting-edge smartphone work that resulted into one of today most solid mobile devices.
