Samsung Galaxy S10 Family Unleashed: Hands-On, Features, Specs And Pricing

After months of leaks (which picked up in pace over the past few weeks), Samsung has officially unveiled its Galaxy S10 family of flagship phones. To put it simply, these are all impressive devices that are worthy successors to the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+.

**Update: 2/22/19: Be sure to check out a handful of early benchmarks that we have up here from some initial testing we've done on our Samsung Galaxy S10+, powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855.

We can’t talk about the Galaxy S10 family without first mentioning their displays. Samsung was one of the few that didn’t embrace the traditional center-mounted display notch fad in 2018. However, Samsung’s answer to the notch is the punch-hole cutout that it calls Infinity-O. On the Galaxy S10e and Galaxy S10, which have a 5.8-inch (2880x1440) and 6.1-inch (3040x1440) Super AMOLED displays respectively, there’s a single cutout for the selfie camera. The Galaxy S10+ with its 6.4-inch display ups the stakes with a pill-shaped cutout that houses two selfie cameras.

On the Galaxy S10e and Galaxy S10, the selfie camera uses a 10MP f/1.9 sensor. The Galaxy S10+ adds a second 8MP f/2.2 Live Focus, Dual Pixel 4K sensor. Out back, the Galaxy S10e uses a dual-camera setup, which seems rather quaint these days. There is a 12MP f/1.5 Dual Aperture sensor and 16MP f/2.2 ultra-wide sensor positioned beside an LED flash. The Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+, on the other hand, go with a triple camera setup. These two devices add a third telephoto camera with 12MP f/2.4 sensor.

As we have previously reported on multiple occasions, all three smartphones are powered by Qualcomm’s new octa-core Snapdragon 855 processor, which is built on the 7-nanometer process node. The Kryo 485 uses a single “prime” core that is clocked at 2.84GHz, which is then coupled with three performance cores clocked slightly lower at 2.42GHz. In addition, there are four efficiency cores clocked at 1.8GHz. Also onboard is a new Adreno 640 GPU and a fourth-generation AI engine. According to Qualcomm, the Kryo 485 offers a 45 percent performance boost compared to the Snapdragon 845, the Adreno 640 offers a 20 percent performance uplift, while the AI engine offer a 3x performance advantage.

There will be a wide range of RAM/storage configurations depending on the model selected, and these are the SKUs that Samsung has announced today:

• Galaxy S10e: 6GB/128GB (RAM/NAND storage), 8GB/256GB
• Galaxy S10: 8GB/128GB, 8GB/512GB
• Galaxy S10+: 8GB/128GB, 8GB/512GB, 12GB/1TB

With respect to biometrics, the Galaxy S10e forgoes the rear-mounted optical fingerprint sensor of its predecessors in favor of one built-in to the side-mounted power button. The Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+, however, feature an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor mounted in the bottom center of the display. 

On the connectivity front, the Snapdragon 855 includes support for the new 802.11ax wireless standard, better known as Wi-Fi 6, along with support for the 10Gbps 802.11ay. There’s also an integrated Snapdragon X24 4G LTE modem which can accommodate 2Gbps download speeds.

On the power front, the Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ feature 3100 mAh, 3400 mAh, and 4100 mAh batteries respectively. As you might expect, the batteries can be recharged either via the bottom-mounted USB-C port of wirelessly using a Qi-compatible charger (Fast Wireless Charging 2.0 supported). The added twist with the Galaxy S10 family, however, is that they add reverse wireless charging called Wireless PowerShare. Wireless PowerShare (which is enabled in Settings) allows you to use your Galaxy S10 smartphone to wirelessly charge another Qi-compatible smartphone or even the Galaxy Buds earphones. The feature works as long as the host smartphone has at least 30 percent of battery available, and is something we’d like to see incorporated into more devices.

With all that being said, there's still one more member of the family that made an appearance today, and that's the Galaxy S10 5G. This smartphone had been previously rumored, but we never got an early glimpse of prototypes or even leaked press renders. However, Samsung has confirmed that the smartphone is 5G-capable thanks to its Snapdragon X50 modem and that it will feature a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display, a 3D Depth Camera up front that enables Video Live Focus and a massive 4500 mAh battery. The Galaxy S10 5G also supports Super Fast Wireless Charging at 25W. Interestingly, the Galaxy S10 5G only has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.

The Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ will be available -- priced from $749.99, $899.99 and $999.99 respectively -- from the usual suspects (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, U.S. Cellular) and unlocked directly from Samsung. Preorders open up tomorrow, and the smartphones will ship (and be available in stores) on March 8^th. We should also note that Samsung is throwing in a free set of Galaxy Buds with preorders. Availability for the Galaxy S10 5G is slated for the first half of 2019.