Samsung Galaxy S10e

PETITE PERFECTION.

SUPER-SIZED, SUPER-EXPENSIVE SMARTPHONES may now be all the rage, but there’s still a contingent of users who want a phone they can comfortably use one-handed, fit into their front pocket without looking (or feeling) like a pervert, and still get the benefit of new features without obliterating their bank balance.

Sounds like you? The Galaxy S10e ticks all of these boxes better than any other smartphone we tested. Samsung has taken the best features of the more expensive S10 and S10+ (which start from $1,349), and trickled them down to the S10e, which can be picked up for less than a thousand bucks at most retailers.

These features include the excellent AMOLED ‘Infinity-O’ display (the entire front is taken up by the 5.8-inch screen, save for the hole punch in the top right corner for the front-facing camera), high-quality rear camera array (Samsung has dropped the third telephoto lens on the S10e, but you’ll probably get more use out of the ultra-wide lens), and top-of-therange Snapdragon Exynos 9820 processor.

The S10e also comes with a headphone jack and microSD slot – both features increasingly rare on modern smartphones. And it even boasts the nifty Wireless PowerShare feature, which lets you top up the battery on other devices that support Qi wireless charging.

The crown jewel of the S10e is undoubtedly its stunning display, which is incredibly bright, and offers excellent contrast and visibility. While it’s limited to 1080p resolution (its pricier siblings boast a higher pixel density), you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference. The S10e’s performance also competed well against the iPhone XR: while the latter had slightly better performance for day-to-day computing, the S10e trounced it in the graphics tests.