Samsung Galaxy S10: Smartphones Done Right

Christopher Uustal, Staff Writer

Just a week or so ago, Samsung released the tenth anniversary of their Galaxy line of phones, the Galaxy S10. Much like Apple did with their iPhone X when it launched, they entirely changed the face of what their company wanted to represent as the top tier of their product stack. While Apple chose to extend their display to the current “notched” design, Samsung decided to push it even further with what has now come to be affectionately known as the “hole punch” design, still allowing a space for the front-facing camera while allocating as much space on the front of the device as possible to the screen. While this phone only just came out, it seems to be having a similar effect on people as to how the iPhone X entirely changed the game just one generation ago. Already I have heard more than one consumer report that they, in fact, regret upgrading to the iPhone Xs simply because the S10 looks like it is already leaps and bounds ahead, both in form and function. Samsung phones, specifically their Galaxy line, had fallen into this trap in recent years of every iteration looking essentially the same with only minor changes, but this design overhaul combined with a massive software update seems to present an ever-compelling package, one that I would recommend even to the most hardcore of Apple fans to give a once over.

Enough with the introduction, if you haven’t heard about it before, I’ll give you a rundown about everything that’s going on with the new Galaxy S10. Basically, Samsung is selling their newest flagship starting at $900 with 128GB of internal flash storage, and it comes packed with one of the best camera setups in a smartphone on the market, an in display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, and, of course, a nearly all screen display except for a cutout for the front-facing camera at the top right corner of the phone. Coming with a 3400 mAh battery for the S10 and 4100 mAh for the S10 plus, these phones should not only have enough juice to get through a full day of heavy use, but they also have the ability to charge other devices wirelessly now by simply placing them back to back. Further, Samsung has finally made what was previously the Bixby button now remappable to a function or app launch of your choice, finally giving in to the requests of their community and consumer base to give a purpose to what was previously a useless button for most Google Assistance preferring consumers. Finally, gone are the days of the trash-tier TouchWiz that used to plague the Samsung devices of yesteryear, with their awkward and janky user interface that pushed many to adore stock android like is available on devices like the Pixel family of phones. Instead, Samsung has decided to do a massive overhaul of their Android skin, making it much more similar to stock Android, much like One Plus does with their oxygen OS, in a new skin they are calling “One UI”. They don’t waste their time trying to reinvent the wheel for every little application simply for the sake of saying that they have their own apps, but rather they take pure android as it is and make the little but meaningful improvements that Google has failed to include in android thus far. This has produced raving reviews from the tech reviewer community, many even going so far as to say that One UI offers a more compelling option than the stock android that so many had come to praise in recent years. All in all, it appears Samsung has landed an absolute masterpiece of a phone this time around, one that actually checks all of the boxes (yes, even a headphone jack) for even the most hardcore smartphone enthusiasts, and this phone gets a wholehearted recommendation from me if you’re working with a smartphone that’s starting to get old and you’re looking for an upgrade; I’d even recommend people form the Apple ecosystem give this one a shot, because it seems this phone gets just about everything right.

Now naturally, there is probably a large collection of you that either wait a long time to upgrade your phones or just got them recently like so many of us did this Christmas with the iPhone XR and its lower entry price. This doesn’t mean you should simply ignore this phone and never look at the smartphone market again until you’re looking for your next upgrade a product cycle or two from now, but rather you should keep generally aware of progress like this, as it helps push the industry as a whole towards making better and cheaper smartphones for everyone. Speaking for myself personally having just purchased a Pixel 3 last November, I knew the S10 was coming, and in some ways, it does make me a little envious of not holding out the last few months for what is, I would say, an inarguably better phone. However, I would strongly recommend that anyone who has purchased a device in the last 6 months or even the last year to not go out and shotgun by this phone, but rather to hold your current phone, which should still be perfectly adequate, and instead wait for what I believe to be the final step in smartphone design with regards to the screen: the front camera. Obviously, we have been shrinking bezels for the last decade now with the final goal of removing them entirely, and the process of making an under-the-screen front-facing camera will finally achieve this; considering Samsung is looking at some tech that should be able to achieve this by some time in 2020, I recommend all of you with current phones hold out for that, as no matter how good the S10 may look, and rightly be argued as being, right now, that first phone with nothing but screen on the front will look worlds better.