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Samsung Galaxy S10E In-Depth Hands-on

Samsung’s flagship line usually come in twos, not this time though as they added a third variant called the Galaxy S10E. It’s more compact, a bit toned down in some aspects, but still as powerful as its bigger siblings. Check out our in-depth hands-on of the Samsung Galaxy S10E.

Design and Construction

One of the first things you should know about the S10E is that it is designed differently compared to the S10 or S10 Plus. The most obvious one would be the size. It’s smaller and lighter than the S10, which you can attribute to the smaller screen of 5.8-inches. It also has a single front camera like the one on the S10.

It’s still premium with glass front and back and has an IP68 rating. The metal frame in the middle is fully rounded and doesn’t have the tapered sides of the S10 and S10 Plus. Because of this, you might also notice that the side bezels are more noticeable on the S10E.

There are some tweaks in the buttons as well, there’s still the Bixby, and Volume buttons are on the left but on the right we now have the side-mounted fingerprint scanner that also doubles as a power button. (Sorry guys, no fingerprint scanner under the display.) The ports are the same, so you’re still getting USB-C and the 3.5mm audio ports.

Looking at the back, you will see another significant difference which is the dual-camera setup. It still has the 12MP Dual Pixel, and 16MP Ultra Wide cameras that the S10 and S10 Plus have, but what’s missing is the 12MP Telephoto. It’s not much of a deal breaker as most users would find the wide-angle lens more useful.

I think that a lot of users will like S10E because of its size and feel. It feels more secure in the hands. The buttons are very reachable even with one hand. It may not have the sleekness of the S10 and S10 Plus, but it’s still an attractive phone.

Display and Multimedia

As mentioned earlier, the S10E sports a smaller 5.8-inch screen with a lower 2280 x 1080 resolution or equal to 435ppi. It has the Dynamic AMOLED screen that the S10 and S10 Plus uses. Quality is excellent as the colors are vibrant and have high contrast. The viewing experience is almost as good as the S10 but in a smaller screen real estate.

When it comes to audio, the Galaxy S10 Plus’s speakers won’t disappoint. I said speakers (plural) because the earpiece also serves as a secondary loudspeaker. By comparison, the main down-firing speaker is louder and has a hint of bass. Still, the combination of the two speakers can provide an immersive listening experience.

Camera

The S10E is a bit toned down in the camera department, not in the quality but the absence of a third lens. It has the 16MP 123-degree ultra-wide angle lens and the 12MP 77-degree wide with OIS. What’s missing is the 12MP telephoto. The quality of shots is as good as the S10 and S10 Plus.

Colors are rich, has great contrast, and plenty of details. The dynamic range is really good, especially in well-lit scenarios. That ultra-wide-angle lens is cool to use which we feel should be a standard in flagship smartphones moving forward, and we’re glad Samsung chose to retain this on the S10E. Check out the samples below:

OS, UI, and Apps

Running the software is Samsung’s new One UI based on Android 9.0 Pie. It’s a clean and user-friendly interface with new features like Focus Blocks to show essential information, Segregated viewing and interaction areas for comfortable, one-handed usage, and Night Mode.

Other features present are Bixby with Bixby Routines which is similar to the Google Home Routines, Smart capture, Direct share, Motions, and gestures if you don’t like using the traditional navigation buttons. It has Game Launcher, Dual Messenger which is perfect if you handle multiple accounts, Digital well-being which gives you a summary of your device activity, and Device Care which is a one-stop shop to keeping your device optimized.

Like the previous Galaxy devices, it comes with some pre-installed apps which include those from Samsung, Google, and Microsoft. We don’t mind these apps as they’re mostly essential while others are there for productivity purposes. Storage shouldn’t be an issue as it starts at 128GB with an option to expand via the microSD card.

Performance

Powering the Galaxy S10E is the Samsung Exynos 9820, the company’s most powerful mobile chipset to-date. It’s manufactured using the 8nm FinFET process and features a tri-cluster architecture with a CPU that consists of two 4th-gen custom cores, two Cortex-A75 cores, and four Cortex-A55 cores. Compared to the 10nm Exynos 9810, it offers 15% better multi-core performance.

Also, it features a Mali-G76 MP12 GPU which offers 40% improvement in performance or 35% enhancement in power efficiency compared to the Exynos 9810’s Mali G72 MP18 GPU and an integrated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for AI and AR tasks.

The S10E that will be offered in the Philippines sport 6GB of RAM which is not bad and can still handle big tasks including gaming. Initial AnTuTu benchmarks have revealed a score of more than 326K. Not bad at all!

Connectivity and Battery Life

As expected, the S10E features all the connectivity features you can expect from a flagship phone. That includes dual-SIM support, the latest WiFi and Bluetooth technology, GPS, and NFC. It also comes with an LTE-Advanced Pro modem that supports LTE Cat.20 to offer downlink speed of up to 2.0Gbps with 8x carrier aggregation (CA) and uplink speed of up to 316Mbps.

When it comes to battery capacity, the S10E has the smallest size at 3,100mAh. Still, it features Samsung’s Adaptive Power Management, allowing the S10E to optimize the battery usage based on the apps used automatically. It also has an AI Power Saving mode that automatically turns on and off based on your situation.

The S10E also boasts wireless charging features including the Wireless PowerShare. Not only you can charge the S10E with a wireless charging pad, but it is also capable of charging other devices that support wireless charging.

Big performance in a small package

We’re now in an era of smartphone design where we would mostly associate performance with size. That’s not the case in the Galaxy S10E. It’s compact which makes it an ideal match for users who don’t like big phones, has dual-rear cameras and is powered by Samsung’s most powerful chipset to date. Yes, it may be small, but it’s powerful.

Samsung Galaxy S10E specs:
5.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2280 x 1080 Infinity-O Display, 435ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 5
Samsung Exynos 9820 octa-core CPU
Mali-G76 MP12 GPU
6GB RAM
128GB storage
microSD up to 512GB (SIM2 slot)
12MP Dual Aperture, Pixel OIS rear
16MP Ultra Wide 123-deg, FF rear
10MP Dual Pixel AF front
4G LTE (5G capable)
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax
Bluetooth 5.0, A2DP, LE, aptX
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, Galileo
NFC
USB 3.1 Type-C
Fingerprint scanner (Side-Mounted)
OneUI 1.1 (Android 9.0 Pie)
3,100mAh battery w/ Wireless PowerShare
142.2 x 69.9 x 7.9 mm
150 g
Prism White

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Avatar for Diangson Louie

This article was written by Louie Diangson, Managing Editor of YugaTech. You can follow him at @John_Louie.

5 Responses

  1. Avatar for Kay Kay says:

    Hi,I suggest you do a more thorough proofreading of your articles before publishing it. I saw a lot of typos and it got quite confusing as I’m not sure if some of the device descriptions were for the s10E or its siblings. :(

  2. Avatar for Paul Paul says:

    Does it have FM radio?

  3. Avatar for Javier Javier says:

    why would they only release the white one in the philippines????

    • Avatar for Carl Lamiel Carl Lamiel says:

      Here: https://www.yugatech.com/mobile/samsung-galaxy-s10-s10e-s10-plus-price-availability-philippines/

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