Second Opinion

Second Opinion is a reviews show about anything and everything under the sun. If we can experience it, we can review it.

Samsung Galaxy S10+ Review

Episode #61The Fringe #525

Ryan reviews the Samsung Galaxy S10+ - the fourth phone in his Galaxy experience - from the new display, the punch out camera, to the oddities with the fingerprint sensor, battery certainty, signal reliability, and so much more!

Episode Summary

00:00 | Intro
01:54 | Pricing
  • Pricing
    • 3 variants
      • S10e - $750
      • S10 - $899
      • S10+ - $999
    • Colors
      • Black, white, flamingo, and ???
    • Base models come with 8gb ram and 128gb storage
    • Vs Note 9; the pricing is even further out of control; it’s the inevitable ASP price creep syndrome now
    • My pricing:
      • Pre-order via BestBuy
      • Turned in my purchased-last-february S9+ for $550 credit
      • Paid a hefty... not really; $508
06:38 | Display, Fingerprint Sensor, Cameras, Storage
  • Display
    • Size 6.4’’ display
    • Special features
      • Integrated fingerprint sensor; more on this later
      • Up to 1200 nits of brightness
  • Physicals
    • Look and feel, build quality
      • When I first held it, it was adorably light; I was used to holding this glass brick in the Note 9 so this was a difference
      • The side metal is aluminium this time - not sure what it was before, but previously the metal band around feld “stronger”
      • The Note 9 was very Square; very hard edges - this is much more rounded on the top/bottom left/right sides
    • Ports
      • Usual ports; type c + headphone jack
    • Speakers
      • Same speaker configuration; stereo in top front and side bottom
      • The top speaker is tucked between the glass and the top bezel; it’s okay
    • Buttons
      • Bixby button is still here but with partial remap maybe not totally useless
      • The power button is said to be too high up on the S10+ model
    • Fingerprint sensor; under the screen
      • I registered 4 unique fingers; previously on the Note 9 I had only the index-fingers registered, I’d never use my Thumb
      • I could unlock the phone smoothly while it was coming out of pocket without looking; with this new scanner since it’s in the screen, I can have to guess more which means accuracy is down
      • You can unlock from AOD but you have no visual indicator where the sensor is; it’s not in an obvious place, where the android home button is
        • On the AOD, they need to put some kind of reference point down there; allegedly scared of burn in though; even it’s not the finger print visual, even an empty circle, anything
  • Camera
    • 3 cameras on the back
      • 2x, 1x and “1/2x”
      • The
    • 2 cameras on the front
    • How is it
    • Special modes
    • Notable features
  • Specs
    • CPU
      • Snapdragon 855
    • RAM
      • 8gb
    • Storage
      • 128gb base model + I added a 128gb SD card; what is storage and why do I need it?
21:28 | Android
  • Wow, Android, what happened to you? Now running with Pie and One UI, the “Samsung Experience” that made from the S8 line to now so successful software wise is gone; replaced with this strange interface
  • List items are often smushed cards or elongated pills
  • Everything is so bright, AMOLED chuckles in the distance
  • The utilities that Samsung Experience is well known for is for the most part still here
26:10 | New Launcher, Software
  • Updated side-by-side app switcher; always defaults to the previous app which is useful but also annoying since I was trained by previous versions to swipe anyway
  • Raise to wake
    • Possibly the most annoying new feature, every time I touch the phone, no matter if I’m just repositioning it to still see the time on the AOD better; it thinks I want to play and it wakes up
  • Double tap to wake; not used yet but we’ll see
  • AOD
    • Still present, still configurable
    • Icons hangout in color now; this might be done to help keep the AOD pixels from burning out just their “white” pixels, but it makes things harder to see
  • All of the sounds changed again! Oh no, I was so used to the regular and common and consistent Samsung Experience sounds!
  • Other notable features; obviously none from the Note 9 more than the Pen
  • Everyone is freaking out how poorly the Face Unlock feature secures the phone; the Iris scanner is gone and while I didn’t use it previously, I do like Face Unlock, for those times my hands are in gloves or any number of convenient times; I turn this off when I travel - it’s not secure, of course
33:38 | Battery
  • 4100 mah
  • Charging
    • Usual charging modes; cable and wireless
    • Plus a useless gimmick feature, “reverse charging” that every reviewer has tentpoled; that stops here
36:17 | Signal Strength
39:09 | Conclusions
40:25 | Ending

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