Samsung Galaxy S10 128GB Sim-Free Smartphone (International Model) (Prism White)

Product Information

One area where the Galaxy S10 could improve is in colour rendition. Generally speaking, colours aren’t as neutral as I may have liked and certain colour tones look quite oversaturated. If you take a look at the trees in my test shots, for instance, you’ll notice that the leaves look almost luminous.

I can’t say how the smaller battery affects battery life exactly because I haven’t yet been given one to test, but with a screen that’s exactly the same resolution and only slightly smaller, the chances are that it’s not going to be quite as good as the S10 Plus. Think of it like a car with different drive modes: you select Sport mode when you want a more lively, responsive drive; Economy mode when you want to save fuel; and the standard mode for everyday driving when you want a balance between the two. The difference here is that there’s no driver and the phone is automatically switching modes, depending on the task at hand. Shadowgun Legends is more demanding, so the median frame rate is slightly lower, but with the resolution and detail levels cranked all the way up, the S10 Plus still delivered a median frame rate of 33fps. The Galaxy S10 also does a better job at levelling out exposure, with the Huawei P30’s automatic shooting mode generally overexposing images a bit too much. The HDR mode also does a fantastic job of lifting up the shadows and softening brighter areas of the image.Samsung has also introduced an extra 30 scenes to the phone’s “Intelligent Camera” neural processing unit (NPU). Essentially, this feature enables the camera to identify the object in the frame, be it a dog, cat or plant, and adjusts the camera settings accordingly for the best image possible. And that’s before you get to the video capabilities, which is another area where the S10 Plus excels. It’s able not only to shoot stabilised footage in 4K resolution at 60fps but also capture HDR10+ clips for video with improved dynamic range and ultra slow-motion footage, as well. As you might expect, gaming performance is equally impressive. In the duo of GFXBench tests at FHD+ resolution, the recorded frame rate is practically identical to that of its Huawei and Apple rivals. If you do decide to increase the screen resolution to the native QHD+, you will notice a drop, but nothing dramatic. The S10 is a great gaming phone.

The Galaxy S10’s revamped design is perhaps its most noticeable change. You won’t struggle to tell this phone apart from its predecessor this time around: the Galaxy S10’s chassis is now surrounded by an iPhone Xs-like silver-tinted trim. It looks just as swish, in fact, and even the chin and forehead bezels have been completely removed. With Samsung opting to use its own chipset, rather than the Qualcomm standard, there’s the worry that its latest phones might underperform when compared with its equally pricey alternatives. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case in testing, as the 2.84GHz chipset managed to hold its own not only against the Snapdragon 855, but also against Huawei’s Kirin 980 and Apple’s A12 Bionic, too.In our video rundown battery test, the Galaxy S10 managed to last 17hrs 44mins before needing to recharge. Put that result side-by-side with its rivals and the Galaxy S10 manages to outdo the iPhone XR by over four hours, even if it can’t do any better than the Huawei P30 and Xiaomi Mi 9 for overall stamina. The other key differences between the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the S10 Plus are the battery, which is smaller at 3,400mAh vs 4,100mAh, and the selfie camera which is a single unit to the S10 Plus’ dual front shooter. The S10 also isn’t available with 1TB of internal storage, but that’s a crazy expensive phone anyway. Phew. So, how about image quality then? Well, it’s superb, especially for colour rendition. This is one of those smartphone cameras that seems to be able to capture colours as you see them – they’re not under or over-saturated, and there seems to be a good balance between noise suppression and detail missing from its main rival on the camera front, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of its performance, however, isn’t related to how smoothly games play or how much grunt the processor can deliver, but rather how efficient the phone is. I also took the time to run some analysis of real-world gaming performance with PUBG Mobile and Shadowgun Legends using the Gamebench benchmarking tool. In both games, the S10 Plus performed well, even at full 3,040 x 1,440. With PUBG Mobile in Ultra mode (capped at 40fps in other words) and the highest quality settings available in native resolution, the Galaxy S10 Plus delivered a median frame rate of 38fps.

As with most modern smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus has a lot of cameras – five, to be precise, with three on the rear and two on the front. What does this mean for real-world battery life? Well, this is a phone that will comfortably make it through a day of hard use with room to spare. Pushing the phone to its limits for almost a week, with most days benchmarking and taking lots of photographs and video, I’ve not yet had to top up the charge before bedtime. That’s seriously impressive stuff. Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus review: Cameras