Samsung Galaxy S10 is iPhone’s toughest rival yet

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Galaxy S10 lineup
The Galaxy S10 will blow your socks off.
Photo: Samsung

Samsung just “unpacked” its latest Galaxy lineup at an event in San Francisco — and it’s everything fans will have been hoping for.

The Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, and Galaxy S10e deliver Samsung’s largest screens yet, with slimmer bezels, better cameras, brand new chips, and exciting new features. They’re pricey, but well worth it — and Apple should be worried.

Remember when Samsung was famous for churning out tacky plastic handsets with bloated software? The South Korean company has come a long way since then, and its latest Galaxy lineup is even more impressive than the last.

The Galaxy S10 builds upon the rock-solid design foundations first laid by the Galaxy S6 in 2015. It combines curved glass with a sturdy metallic frame that houses the best hardware you’ll find in a smartphone today — including a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Here’s what else you get for your money.

Galaxy S10 delivers groundbreaking displays

Apple popularized edge-to-edge displays with the iPhone X, but the Galaxy S10 has perfected them. Samsung has shunned the notch and opted for a significantly smaller cutout instead, made possible by all the technologies embedded beneath the screen.

The Galaxy S10 lineup boasts the world’s first ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, which delivers “vault-like security,” Samsung says. You simply place your finger on the glass where it would rest naturally to unlock the device.

This negates the need for the additional sensors the iPhone needs for Face ID and means the Galaxy S10’s display can stretch even further. It also removes the need for a rear-facing fingerprint scanner that your finger can never find.

The screen on top of all this technology is incredible, too.

Samsung’s new Dynamic AMOLED display is its best yet. With support for 16 million colors and dynamic tone mapping, it promises to be the most color accurate display ever in a phone. It’s also the first with HDR10+ support and up to 1,200 nits of brightness.

On the Galaxy S10e, that display measures 5.8 inches diagonally, which is the same size as the Super Retina HD display in the iPhone X. On the Galaxy S10, it measures 6.1 inches like the iPhone XR, and on the S10+ it measures 6.4 inches.

The larger handsets offers super-sharp Quad HD+ resolutions, whereas the smaller S10e uses a slighly lower Full HD+ resolution.

Samsung’s fastest chips

The Galaxy S10 and S10+ are powered by Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon 855 processor in some markets, including the U.S., but most will get the new Samsung Exynos 9820 chip.

Both have eight cores and are produced using 7- and 8-nanometer manufacturing processes. That means they’re faster and more efficient than the 10-nanometer CPUs in last year’s Galaxies.

Samsung says you can expect up to 29 percent faster CPU performance, and up to 37 percent faster GPU performance for even more impressive mobile games. They also feature a faster NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for snappier AI.

Those chips are combined with up to 12GB of RAM — more than most people will need in a phone — and up to 1TB of storage. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a microSD card slot for adding even more.

‘Pro-grade’ cameras in your pocket

If smartphone photography is your thing, look no further than the Galaxy S10.

Its triple lens camera system gives you a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens for everyday snaps, a 12-megapixel telephoto lens for 2x optical zoom, and a 16-megapixel ultra-wide lens with a 123-degree field of view for capturing your best landscape shots yet.

The Galaxy S10 offers all the Portrait mode effects you get from an iPhone and more, and it’s the first smartphone that can shoot in HDR10+. What’s more, Samsung has teamed up with Adobe to deliver a version of Premier Rush optimized for Galaxy devices.

That means that when you’re done snapping those stunning HDR10+ videos, you can edit them on the go — without ever booting up a computer — and share them straight to social media.

Better battery life and faster charging

Samsung promises you’ll get better battery life out of the Galaxy S10 lineup, thanks to larger batteries and AI software that keeps an eye on your apps and shuts down those you’re not using.

There’s a 3,100mAh battery inside the Galaxy S10e, a 3,400mAh battery inside the Galaxu S10, and a massive 4,100mAh battery inside the S10+. All support wireless charging that’s 36 percent faster than before.

Those batteries won’t just keep your Galaxy S10 going, either. Place the handset on its face and it doubles as a wireless charging pad, so you can place wireless headphones, watches, and even other phones on its back for a quick top-up.

Preorder yours tomorrow

All three Galaxy S10 handsets will be available to preorder around the world tomorrow, February 21, before an official launch on March 8. Prices start at $749.99 for the Galaxy S10e, $899.99 for the S10, and $999.99 for the S10+.

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