Samsung Galaxy S10 Review

The S10 was the anniversary model and Samsung spent the occasion on the panel. The 6.1-inch Dynamic AMOLED brought HDR10+ and colour accuracy DisplayMate rated the best it had measured, with the front camera punched through the corner instead of a notch, and it is still the strongest argument for the phone. One UI, new that winter, was the first Samsung skin that felt designed rather than piled up, and it reached Android 12 with four years of security patches, the longest support the line had seen.

The triple camera added a 16 megapixel ultrawide to the 12 megapixel dual aperture main and the 2x telephoto; the ultrawide was the fun one, the main was fine, and in stills the Pixel 3 stayed ahead. Wi-Fi 6, Wireless PowerShare for charging earbuds off the back, a headphone jack and microSD were all still here. The Qualcomm ultrasonic fingerprint reader under the glass was the misstep: slow, fussy about wet fingers and screen protectors, and in October 2019 a silicone protector was found to unlock it for anyone, which Samsung patched.

The 3400 mAh battery was a short day, and the Exynos 9820 sold outside the US ran hotter and shorter than the Snapdragon 855, widening a gap that would blow up a year later. At $899.99 it was the reasonable one in a line that also launched the S10e and S10+, and a good phone whose best ideas, the hole punch and One UI, outlived its worst.