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- Samsung announced the new Galaxy S10, S10e,
and S10+ last week at their Unpacked 2019 event
in San Francisco.
If you haven't seen it, be sure to check out the video
I put out showing the trip down to the event.
I've had the Galaxy S10+ for a week,
and in this video, I'm bringing you
my Samsung Galaxy S10+ impressions
after using it for seven days.
What is going on Tech Squad?
Andru Edwards here, editor in chief of GearLive.com.
If this is your first time here,
this channel's all about tech, gadgets, and gaming,
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As I mentioned today, we are taking a look at this,
Samsung's latest, this is the Samsung Galaxy S10,
plus edition, specifically.
And as of yesterday, I've had this phone for a full week,
I've been using it on a daily basis,
and I'm back to bring you my thoughts and impressions,
to tell you how it's been working out for me
after seven days.
So, without any further ado,
let's get into talking about the Galaxy S10+,
starting with the build quality.
It's no surprise right now that Samsung makes
some of the best looking phones in the industry,
at least in my opinion, particularly with the Galaxy S7,
and when Samsung stopped putting
replaceable batteries in their phone,
and instead switched over to glass on the front and back.
I think their phones have been, arguably,
the best looking phones in the smartphone industry.
With the Galaxy S10+,
you get the now-typical glass front and back,
with a polished, aluminum bezel holding everything together.
On the front of the display,
you've got the 6.4 inch dynamic amoled display.
It's also the first ever smartphone display
to be HDR10 certified.
As you see in the top right,
it's a Samsung Infinity O display,
which just means they've cut a precise hold in the display
to accommodate for the front camera
and the depth sensor in the case of the Galaxy S10+.
The display looks great and I'm happy to see
that it isn't as ridiculously oversaturated
as previous Samsung displays were, at least to my eye.
HDR10+ looks great with your own photos and videos
if you enable that mode in settings,
and when watching supported HDR10+ content
on Amazon Prime Video, this display shines.
Now, the only problem here is that HDR10+,
while it's great that it's supported here on the S10+,
and the S10, and the S10e,
it's not really that widely supported across other devices.
Now, if you have a Samsung TV,
especially a recent Samsung TV,
HDR10+ is gonna be supported on your TV.
So, you can watch the videos and check out the photos
you've taken on your S10 series devices
in full-on HDR10+ on your Samsung displays,
but if you don't have a Samsung TV, and, instead,
you have one from Sony, or LG, or TCL, et cetera,
other TVs that support HDR, but not HDR10+,
you're not gonna be able to see everything
in the same exact quality as it was recorded on your device.
Also, as far as streaming services go,
HDR10+ is currently just supported on Amazon Prime Video.
Now, there are a lot of Amazon Prime customers
who have access to Prime Video,
but things like Netflix and HBO and Hulu and others,
iTunes, et cetera, they're not supporting HDR10+.
At least, not yet.
The vast majority of them have jumped
onto the Dolby Vision Bandwagon,
and I was hoping to see Samsung, maybe, in 2019,
finally cave and play ball with Dolby as well.
That has not happened, so HDR10+ is what we've got.
Alright, continue with build quality,
looking at the back of the device.
Around back, you have the triple camera setup,
along with the flash.
You've got a telephoto lens with a 45 degree field of view,
a wide angle lens with a 77 degree field of view,
and the new ultra-wide option,
this gives you a 123 degree field of view,
which Samsung says is a similar field of view
to what you have with the human eye.
You've got another camera on front,
and if you have an S10+, you'll also have the depth sensor
up there as well, which improves those live focus selfies.
And if you're wondering about that cutout up there,
in my own personal opinion,
it really does not impede on usability of the phone,
really at all, similar to notches and other things
people have been complaining about.
It looks a lot worse
when you just see a still picture of it,
because that's all you're looking at in the picture itself,
but when you're using the phone, no one is just staring
at the top right portion of their phone
when they're using it,
so it pretty much just blends in and disappears.
Now, this approach also allows for the Galaxy S10 lineup
to reduce the size of the bezels
on the top and bottom of the device.
As far as audio goes, you have stereo speakers here.
One is a bottom firing speaker on the bottom of the device
while the other is located up in the earpiece itself.
Speakers sound great, they're nice and loud
when you're using them, with good separation as well.
Now, next up, I wanna talk about
the responsiveness of the phone.
Again, I know I've only been using it for about a week,
so I will have a full review coming later on.
If you wanna catch that,
be sure to hit that subscribe button down below,
but again, after seven days,
I'm happy to report that this phone is very fast.
Now, here in the USA, that is likely thanks in large part
to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 platform
and what it's doing here.
So far, apps are fast and, generally, work without issue.
The app pre-loading must be playing a part here,
because apps load very quickly as well.
The only things that have stuck out to me so far
were that the camera app has crashed a couple of times,
maybe three or four times, over the past week or so.
So, basically, I'll be in the camera app,
about to take a photo, and then the camera app just quits.
It's gone.
Again, it's only been a few times over the past week,
but it's enough to where, the first time it happens,
it definitely stands out,
then when it happens a couple more times,
just makes you wonder what's going on.
Now, this is not the final software
before the phone launches, so,
I assume Samsung will probably
have that small issue cleared up
by the time you get your own S10 in your hands.
Now, I did also have a similar issue
with the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor as well,
but a software update that came a couple of days ago
seems to have solved that for me.
And since we're on that topic, we might as well talk about
that ultrasonic fingerprint sensor as well.
In the first video I put out about the Galaxy S10,
a lot of people in the comments said to me,
"Wait a minute, why are you forgetting about OnePlus
"and the OnePlus 6T?
"That was the first phone with an ultrasonic,
"in-display fingerprint reader."
But the fact of the matter is,
anyone who's leaving that comment is incorrect.
The OnePlus 6T has an optical in-display fingerprint reader,
which is nowhere near as secure
as a 3D ultrasonic fingerprint reader.
What the OnePlus 6T is doing is basically
taking a photo of your fingerprint, a 2D image.
The ultrasonic fingerprint reader
is actually taking a 3D depth map of your fingerprint,
which is much more accurate and much more secure.
The cool thing here is, you can also use it
when the display is powered off.
Now, I mentioned the cameras earlier,
when I was talking about build quality.
Let's talk about what the cameras can actually do.
Again, on front, you've got a wide angle selfie camera,
along with a dedicated depth sensor right next to it.
This is one of the best selfie cameras I've ever used.
The live focus effect looks better than it did last year,
which I assume is thanks to both software improvements
and that dedicated depth sensor.
Groups are nice and easy to fit into one shot as well,
without the requirement for a stupid selfie stick,
or having to have some crazy long arms.
'Cause I don't have, I don't have the crazy long arms
that are necessary for taking those standard group selfies,
especially on my iPhone.
Seeing the wide angle here makes it a lot easier.
Again, over on the back, we've got the three camera system,
which I'm a big fan of.
For me, personally, I prefer the ultra-wide lenses
that we've seen on the dual-camera set-ups from LG,
when you compare them to the telephoto second lens
that we've seen on Samsung devices in the past,
as well as on the iPhone.
If I have to pick one of the two,
I go telephoto every time.
But now that we're in the realm of the triple camera setup,
it's cool to see that we have both the telephoto
in addition to the ultra-wide angle now.
I tested taking pictures in all three modes
while standing in the same spot,
to give you a look at the differences.
Here you can see pictures being taken of me.
Shout out to Kevin the tech ninja for taking these.
Here you can see the crab
at the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
Again, these are all me standing in the exact same spot,
I didn't move.
Here are some flags.
And the cool thing is,
not only can you use all three lenses for photos,
but of course, you can also use them for videos as well.
Photos and videos look great,
especially with HDR10+ enabled.
Truth is, any flagship smartphone these days
is going to take fantastic photos,
no matter who makes the phone.
So, all you need to know is,
Samsung Galaxy S10 definitely qualifies
as a flagship here in 2019.
Finally, just touching on batter life for a little bit,
it's actually been pretty fantastic for me.
Actually, surprisingly so.
I've been getting roughly 16-18 hours
of screen on time per full charge,
and I must say, it's also very cool
to be able to use the battery on the inside of the phone
as a wireless charger
for other wirelessly charge capable devices,
whether it's the Galaxy Buds,
whether it's another smartphone
that's wirelessly chargeable,
whether it's a smart watch, et cetera.
That wireless power share feature
that Samsung threw into this is very cool,
and very convenient as well.
There you have it guys, those are my impressions
of using the Samsung Galaxy S10+ for one full week.
I will have impressions of the Galaxy S10e
starting next week.
If you wanna see those,
be sure to hit the subscribe button down below,
so you don't miss it.
And of course, you'll also be notified when the full review
of the S10 drops as well.
And don't forget, if you do wanna subscribe,
you can always click or tap on my face
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Until next time, thanks as always for watching, guys.
I appreciate your support.
I'm Andru Edwards and I will catch you in the next video.
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