Samsung Galaxy S10 S10+ Plus Review

+ Pros

• Great colour reproduction, exposure and dynamic range
• 12mp standard and telephoto cameras with OIS
• 12mp standard camera has f/1.5-2.4 aperture
• 16mp ultra-wide-angle camera gives good results
• Excellent 4K video available with all cameras, including front
• 10mp selfie-camera with auto-focus
• Stereo speakers and headphone socket

- Cons

• Panoramic mode insists on using the ultra-wide camera
• Bixby Button

The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus is one of the larger smartphones in the flagship S10 range from Samsung. Featuring multiple cameras, a large 6.4inch "Infinity-O" screen, and flagship features, we find out how this premium camera phone performs.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus Features

The Samsung Galaxy S series, continues to introduce new features, with a focus placed on the cameras on offer, the S10, S10 Plus, and S10 5G all offer three (or more) cameras on the rear, with an ultra-wide angle 16mp camera, a "standard" wide-angle 12mp camera, and a 12mp telephoto camera. Both 12mp cameras feature optical image stabilisation (OIS). An updated design sees the smartphone introduced with an in-screen fingerprint reader, a larger screen, and smaller bezel, with a small cut-out for front camera(s). 

S10 Plus Cameras... lots of cameras

• 16mp Ultra-Wide, 123 degrees
• 12mp Main, with f/1.5 or f/2.4 aperture, with OIS
• 12mp 2x Telephoto (S10, and S10+), with OIS
• Selfie: 10mp f/1.9 with Dual Pixel AF
• Additional 8mp RGB depth camera for the front on the S10+ 

The camera app is full of shooting modes, including a number of new features, offering a Night mode, ultra-wide Panoramic, Live Focus, and a Scene optimiser that will automatically detect the scene and adjust settings accordingly. The night mode takes a number of shots and combines them for improved light capture, as well as reduced noise.

The selfie camera features auto-focus, which is still rare on smartphones, with most having a fixed focus, which means you need to be a set distance from the camera, otherwise you'll be out of focus. The S10+ features a second RGB depth camera, for improved "Live focus" and blurred backgrounds. The single camera S10, and S10e still offer "Live Focus", but Samsung say the results may not be as good. The S10 5G offers a 3D depth camera, and offers "Live Focus" for video as well as stills. 

There are a number of creative effects, including a number of built-in effects / colour options are available, as well as the adjustable "Live Focus" which lets you adjust the background, and blur effect applied. 

4K UHD and HDR10+ recording is available, and it's also possible to record 4K UHD video with the selfie / front camera. You can also switch on Super Steady stabilisation for FullHD video recording. 

It's a complete package, with everything on offer giving a premium experience

With the Samsung Galaxy S10 range, you get a smartphone with a screen that dominates the front, with a small cutout for the front camera(s). This makes a change from the S9, which has small top and bottom bezels, with the top one housing the camera(s). Ranging from the compact S10e with a 5.8inch screen, all the way up to the S10 5G with a 6.7inch screen, the number of cameras available changes depending on the model you go for. You also get a high resolution Dynamic AMOLED HDR10+ display in all of the smartphones, apart from the S10e, which has the same technology, but with a FullHD+ resolution instead of QuadHD+.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Range, with S10e on the right

Here's a quick run-down of the main differences between the S10e, S10, S10 Plus, and S10 5G: 

All of the Samsung S10 smartphones feature an in-screen fingerprint reader, and Gorilla Glass 6, apart from the S10e, which features a fingerprint sensor on the side, and Gorilla Glass 5. You'll also find built-in stereo speakers, and a built-in headphone socket.

The smartphones are water and dust resistant, with an IP68 rating, meaning they should survive being underwater for half an hour, at a depth up to 1.5 meters. 

Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth, GPS, are all built-in, as you would expect.

Key Features

• 12mp standard (wide), with OIS, f1.5-2.4
• 12mp telephoto (2x), with OIS, f/2.4
• 16mp ultra-wide-angle camera, f/2.2
• 10mp selfie camera, with Dual Pixel AF, f/1.9 aperture, 8mp RGB depth camera (S10+)
• 6.4inch screen, 3040x1440 resolution, AMOLED, HDR10+, Gorilla Glass 6
• AutoHDR, with raw shooting in Pro mode
• 4K UHD video recording, up to 60fps, 4K UHD available with front camera
• 960fps slow-motion video recording
• ISO50 to ISO800 can be manually selected
• HDR, and new ultra-wide Panoramic shooting
• Waterproof (IP68 rating)
• In-screen fingerprint reader
• 8GB RAM / 128GB Storage, MicroSD slot
• 4100mAh battery (S10+), with wireless charging
• Available in a number of colours (depending on location)

Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus Handling

Whether you go for the S10 or the S10 Plus - the phone looks and feels great, with a large screen, with minimal bezels, with thin black edges around the screen. The metal edges surrounding the phone look stylish, and come with a protective plastic covering to help prevent scratches, however you'll most likely want to take this off as it is quite easily moved when putting the smartphone in a case.

We put the smartphone in an Otterbox Symmetry Clear case, which is a combination of soft and hard plastics to give additional protection over a standard case, at the expense of being slightly larger. As the smartphone range is well supported, there are a multitude of case options out there, although it's worth mentioning that a curved screen does make it more difficult for a case to provide complete protection for the screen. 

A nice thing to see, is the inclusion of a screen protector, already fitted to the smartphone.

One thing we're not so keen on is the Bixby Button, annoyingly this button can be accidentally pressed, bringing up Bixby, and in order to change the settings on this, you have to setup Bixby (and sign in to a Samsung account). We're not alone in wanting to disable Bixby, with 178,000 Google results for how to disable the Bixby button, however, thankfully you can customise the Bixby button to do something much more useful, like open the Camera app.

The cutout for the front cameras is something you can quite quickly get used to, and is less noticeable on the S10, with just one front camera. If you want a smartphone that has nothing but the screen, then you'd need to look at something like the OnePlus 7 Pro, which has a pop-up selfie camera.

The smartphone is fast and responsive, and the screen looks great!

The screen looks great, even on standard settings. You can alter the colour reproduction, with options for Natural or Vivid, and you can increase the resolution if you want, although this will reduce battery life, and isn't particularly necessary, as the standard (FullHD+) resolution looks good. 

The camera app is easy to use and has a number of different shooting modes, including: 

• Food
• Night mode
• Panorama (Ultra-wide)
• Pro / Manual mode
• Live Focus
• Photo - features Scene optimiser, automatically detects the scene and adjusts settings to give you the best result.
• Video
• Super Slow-motion
• Slow motion
• Hyperlapse

The manual mode gives you a good level of control over settings, and you're even able to manually select whether you want to use an f/1.5 or f/2.4 aperture on the main camera. Being able to change a physical aperture on a smartphone camera remains unique to Samsung. You can set the ISO speed from ISO50 to ISO800, with higher speeds (ISO1250) available in auto modes. 

Ultra-wide panoramic mode - if you don't want to use the ultra-wide angle camera, then tough, unfortunately the camera insists that the ultra-wide-angle camera is the best (and only) option. 

Focus is very rapid, and in manual mode you can see how quick the camera focuses, with the focus area displayed on-screen. 

The phone features a USB Type-C connection, a headphone socket, and stereo speakers. The phone supports dual SIMs, or you can use one SIM, and expand the memory with a MicroSD card. There's plenty of ram and storage built-in, with 8GB ram, and 128GB of storage. 

Geekbench gives a score of 4419 single-core, and 10085 multi-core. AnTuTu gives a score of 330040. Impressive, but not as quick as the OnePlus 7 Pro. 

Battery life - The phone has a battery rating of 4100mAh, and battery management is good. However, if you're going to be away from a power source, we'd recommend getting yourself a portable power bank just in case.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus Performance

The performance section is where we look at the image quality performance of the camera. Additional sample photos and product shots are available in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own review, photos and product ratings.

Samsung Galaxy S10+ Sample Photos

Sample Photos - Colour reproduction is very good, with great results under a variety of conditions, and exposure is also very reliable. The auto HDR helps improve dynamic range captured, without looking unnatural. The night mode has produced some great looking photos, with good levels of detail, and good colour reproduction. The optical image stabilisation helps keep the shot steady, even at slower shutter speeds, when using the wide-angle and the telephoto cameras. 

The selfie "Live Focus" mode does a very good job of blurring the background, and there's good detection of the background and the main subject, with the camera correctly focusing on the face, thanks to the selfie camera featuring Auto Focus (AF). The results from the dual camera setup are better than from the single camera setup on the S10 and S10e, with these showing more clipping issues (around hair), with some background objects being sharp instead of blurred. There are a number of bokeh effects available, and you can adjust these after shooting as well as during shooting. 

The Samsung Galaxy S10 offers the same rear cameras as the S10 Plus, and you can view Samsung Galaxy S10 sample photos.

Samsung Galaxy S10+ Lens test images

Lens Performance - It doesn't really matter which camera / lens you decide to use, as you get really good results from all of them, and it's just a case of choosing the one that you want to use for the scene you're capturing. Lens flare was occasionally visible, when a bright light source is in the frame. We struggled to see any signs of vignetting, as this is automatically corrected by the smartphone, although we did see a little in some of the shots taken with the ultra-wide-angle camera. 

Ultra-wide-angle: You have the option to correct for lens distortion, or leave it uncorrected. Switching on correction could be useful if you need straight edges and straight lines, as barrel distortion can be quite noticeable at times. This is quite normal for ultra-wide-angle cameras on smartphones. The ultra-wide-angle lens did show some purple fringing, and chromatic aberrations in areas of high contrast (such as around street signs, or tree branches). 

Standard: The standard wide-angle camera gives you a bright f/1.5 aperture for low-light conditions, and then when the lighting it good will automatically switch to the f/2.4 aperture for the sharpest possible photos. Results are great, regardless of which aperture the camera uses. Macro focus is reasonable. 

Telephoto: Like most smartphones with a telephoto camera, you can select the 2x telephoto camera, but if the lighting is too dark, then the camera will use digital zoom on the main camera. This also happens if you try and focus on something too close to the camera, and it will switch to the standard camera instead. 

Samsung Galaxy S10+ ISO test images

ISO Noise Performance - In the Pro mode you can select from an ISO Range of ISO50 to ISO800. This keeps the noise levels low, as you can't select any higher, and noise is only slightly visible at ISO800. In the auto modes, the camera might use a higher ISO speed of ISO1250, and noise remains well controlled. 

Samsung Galaxy S10+ White-balance test images

White Balance Performance - Auto White Balance (AWB) performs very well, with excellent results under fluorescent lighting. Under mixed lighting the camera gives a slightly warmer result. Under tungsten lighting results are slightly warm, but still good. You can manually set the white balance temperature if you want, although for most people this is probably unnecessary.

Video - The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus offers 4K video recording at frame rates up to 60fps, you can also record 4K (60fps) video using the telephoto zoom, and quality remains very good. You can also record 4K UHD video with the ultra-wide-angle lens, albeit at a slower frame rate of 30fps. HDR10+ is available for all rear cameras.

4K UHD is also available with the front (selfie) camera, recording at 30fps. With an auto-focus (AF) camera lens, you can adjust the focus point while recording. Some rolling shutter is visible, when moving quickly from side to side. 

Super slow-motion video can be captured at 960fps, at a resolution of 1280x720, although it can be difficult to capture exactly the right moment, as you can only record a few seconds of video. You can record slow-motion video at 240fps, with a FullHD resolution, and you can record a much longer clip. If you select FullHD as the video resolution, with HDR10+ off, then you get the option of using "SuperSteady" image stabilisation. 

You can find additional sample videos on the ePHOTOzine YouTube Channel.