FOUR OF A KIND

With four new models, there’s a Samsung Galaxy S10 for pretty much everyone, whatever your needs

Samsung’s spring won’t be just about the Galaxy Fold – there’s a whole pile of Galaxy S10 models coming. Let’s start with the regular S10, which has a 6.1-inch OLED screen, with a tall 1440x3040 screen (that’s a 19:9 aspect ratio), which makes it supersharp. The big design change is that the front camera is now embedded in the screen, like the Honor View 20. Samsung calls this the Infinity-O display, seemingly without a hint of double entendre. It means you’ve got much less of a bezel at the top and bottom of the device than the S9 had, giving it that hot all-screen look.

There’s an in-display fingerprint sensor hiding under the front, and it’s the first phone to support the new (and likely to be very popular) HDR10+ format – excitingly, it can even record 4K video in the HDR10+ format from its rear camera setup. Speaking of which, you’ve got a three-lens setup here, very similar to the LG V50: one 12MP regular lens, one 12MP 2x telephoto, and one 16MP ultra-wide-angle.

Inside, you get Samsung’s latest-gen Exynos processor, which promises a handy speed bump over last year’s equivalent, plus a 3,400mAh battery.

Then there’s the S10+, which is pretty much the same, but with a 6.4-inch screen (at the same resolution, so marginally less sharp, but still so pixel-dense there’s no real disadvantage). The only differences of note, other than the screen, are that you get a 4,100mAh battery (a nice boost over the base version) and a dual front camera, with one lens for taking the actual shot and another that maps depth data to apply Insta-worthy Portrait mode blur.

e numbers

The Samsung Galaxy S10e is where it gets interesting. If you followed Apple’s phones last year, you might be able to guess what’s up here: yep, it’s a cheaper version in the same family, with a few cut backs in the screen and camera to meet a lower price. You still get an OLED display (unlike the iPhone XR), but it’s smaller at 5.8 inches, and has a 1080x2280 resolution – lower than the other S10 models but still more than high enough to look premium (and it’s still HDR10+). You get the same processor, and a 3,100mAh battery. You get a dual rear-camera setup instead of triple, which is the 12MP standard lens and 16MP ultra-wide-angle, so it’s just the telephoto option that gets dropped.

The screen doesn’t have the curved left and right edges, so you’ve got a very small bezel all the way round, but this just puts it on par with other phones, really.

The S10e starts from £669, and it looks like a really good deal for that price, although the regular S10 starts at £799, and we’d still be tempted to trade up for that fairly small price difference. The S10+ starts from £899.

Lastly, there’s the S10 5G, which is being held back for a June release. Despite not carrying the plus name, this is the beefiest phone of the lot, packing a 6.7-inch display (at the same resolution as the S10 and S10+), the same cameras, the same processor… you get the idea. The S10 5G will have a 4,500mAh battery to match its added size, and, as you have probably guessed, it will be the only 5G-ready model. Both EE and Vodafone have announced they’ll be selling it.