Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus Review: A Fantastic Phone with 10/10 Score?

It all started with the notch, smartphone companies trying to get maximum screen real state without compromising the usability. And, after the notch, we saw lots of crazy & innovative ideas like pop-up camera, sliding cameras, and rotatable cameras.

Well, in the wake of all these crazy ideas Samsung was one of the first to implement a hole-punch display. With the S10 lineup, Samsung cut up a hole in the display to make room for the front camera. And, personally I do prefer this look, I’ve been using the S10 Plus for more than a month now and I’ve got attached to this phone. I just love it and I’m going to tell you exactly why, so let’s get started with the long term review of the S10 Plus.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus: Long Term Review

Hole Punch

Let’s just start with the most controversial of things, the hole-punch display. We saw plenty of leaks before the official launch of the S10 series and it was no surprise to see the hole punch when Samsung launched their S10 series. At first, I was skeptical about the idea of having a camera cutout on the screen, but after seeing this thing with my own eyes and after using it for a while I love this thing. And with these really creative wallpapers, the hole punch got more interesting. It became this thing you could actually adore about your S10 Plus. The Guardian of the Galaxy and this Spiderman Wallpaper are my personal favorites.

Now, talking about how much the hole punch affects your experience, for me it was like the hole wasn’t even there. The display is so good, you won’t be taking your eyes off it while watching anything and almost every time you’ll be focused on the center of the screen. So, after using the phone for a while, you won’t even realize the hole punch on side of the screen. Well, I’ll say it gives a unique experience. You can get 3rd party apps right now, that can make the hole punch act like a battery meter or even act like notification led which is not available on the S10 Plus.

And not to forget you get the slick effect when you switch to the front camera or when you’re using the face unlock. Well’ I don’t use face unlock on the S10 Plus. It is easier but it’s not secured so yeah I just use the fingerprint sensor. The ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint sensor will take some time to get used to, and yes it is slightly slower than the normal on-screen fingerprint sensor but the thing here is you can even unlock if your finger is wet which is not the case on the old gen on-screen fingerprint sensors. To make the unlock easier I have added the same fingerprint multiple times and I think this trick certainly helps it to be more precise.

Display

And now, let’s talk about the improved display of the S10 Plus. We get a 6.4 inches Dynamic AMOLED Display with a screen resolution of 1440 * 3040 and hands down this is the best display on any smartphone so far. There’s not much change on paper but if you put the previous Galaxy Note 9 or the S9 side by side, it’s a very good step up.

Well, they have added the HDR 10 support on the S10 and you’ll then know the difference once you watch HDR YouTube or Netflix Videos. The display is just really awesome. The vibrancy, the colors, and the brightness, all of the things are top-notch.

Once you get used to the S10 Plus displays. You won’t be getting over it. I got the S10 Plus first and after getting used to the S10 Plus’s display. I was having a hard time getting adjusted to the P30 Pro’s display. I’m not saying that the P30 Pro’s display is bad or anything like that but the S10 Plus is a notch above all when it comes to the display.

Camera

So the Galaxy S10 has a triple camera on the rear. A normal wide lens, an ultra-wide lens, and a portrait lens. It’s definitely one of the best cameras, there’s no doubt about that. The photos have a really good amount of details, the dynamic range is very good and of course the popping colors.

The photos don’t feel as saturated as it used to with other Samsung flagship. They have certainly fined tuned the colors on the S10 Plus. We only have 2x optical zoom and yes it certainly looks weak against the like of the Huawei P30 Pro and matter of fact, it does not have dedicated night mode as well. The night scene built in the AI scene optimize kicks off only when its too dark and the results also aren’t that different from normal. The night capability has certainly improved from the past and to be fair it’s good. But of course, it won’t be competing against the pixels or the P30’s.

Potraits

Talking about the portrait photos, the first thing you’ll notice is that these pictures will have a slightly darker profile than the normal ones. But, the background blur and edge detection are quite nice. Especially the blur does not seem too aggressive and you can also adjust the blur after you’ve taken the picture. And you could also use effects such as color point, just to make it more fun.

But the latest addition the ultrawide lens is what I love on the Galaxy S10 Plus. It just gives you this whole new perspective on photography and things, the way you capture anything. It’s just really interesting. The ultrawide lens on the S10 Plus is wider than what we have on the P30 Pro and the best thing is you can also take wide-angle videos with it.

The wide angle photos have this distorted effect and are very noticeable with some objects but there is this shape correction feature which definitely helps with it. Also, one new thing is an option to take RAW photos, so previously we didn’t have such option on the S9 plus or the Note 9 but the S10 Plus lets you save RAW copies of pictures.

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Videos

Now let’s move on to something that I really like on the S10 plus. The videos. The best part is it can take 4k videos at 60fps. The video is smooth, and I was really impressed with the dynamic range on the videos. They have certainly improved the dynamic range and overall video quality.

Well, you could also record HDR10+ videos but of course, there aren’t as many HDR10+ supporting devices so it is kind of not that useful at the moment. But during the period that I’ve used the S10 plus I’ve realized that you can do so much more on the video front with the s10 plus. Just get a stabilizer, hook your S10 plus on it and start making amazing videos.

Now let’s turn out heads onto the front camera. The front camera is good. The selfies do have plenty of details and you can switch between a normal mode and a slightly wider mode. I’m saying slightly because it’s not that wide. The S10 plus uses a secondary depth sensor on the front, a wide lens certainly would have made more sense though. But the front camera is impressive nonetheless.

Especially, the video from the front camera is not as flat as it would be normally. The secondary lens gives you a slight depth effect while taking video from the front camera and the dynamic range is also quite admirable. The 4k video from the front camera is just overkill. It’s perfect if you are into vlogging and such. But yeah you will be spending tons of storage if you capture on 4k.

Performance

So, in terms of hardware, the S10 Plus is packing an Exynos 9820 with Octa-core CPU and Mali G76 MP12 GPU. The one we have has 8 Gigs RAM and 12 Gb storage and this goes for 1 lakh 15 right now. So this is the top of the line specs and you don’t even need to question the performance. Its fast fluid and smooth. App opening, switching between apps, everything is fluid and with the new One UI. The performance is even more streamlined.

Battery & Speaker

So the s10 plus is rocking a 4100 mAh battery and for me, this has been a consistent 1 and a half day of battery. I do not use my phone too much, but the battery life is very impressive on the S10 Plus. And talking about charging, it uses 15W charger and takes slightly over 1 and a half hour to charge it from 0 to 100. Yes, the charging speed is slower on the S10 plus. But I never felt the need for faster charging, the battery would easily last for more than a day for me and I would normally charge it when I was making my dinner. So yeah, the battery life and charging are all good.

So, the speaker on the S10 plus is loud and it is good. Its louder than the S9 plus and Note 9. You might even feel the need to lower the volume when you’re playing a game or watching youtube videos.

Overall

So S10 plus has been a great companion for me. I love the display, the camera, performance, and everything. It’s a slight bummer that we don’t get the same camera versatility as we get from the P30 Pro. Especially, the night mode thingy and the zoom lens, it does feel inferior when you bring up those superpowers of the P30 Pro.

But overall I like the S10 Plus very much. Mostly I’ve enjoyed taking videos from it rather than photos. Sometimes when we are making reviews for cars or bikes, we would even use some footage shot from the S10 Plus. Well, I love you 3000 S10 Plus!