Everyone remembers the Galaxy S10+ as “just another incremental Samsung,” but the reality is messier: this was one of the most aggressively specced phones Samsung has ever shipped.
In 2019 you could buy a mainstream Samsung flagship with 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. Fast forward several generations and Samsung’s own FE line is back to 8GB and more modest storage tiers. So was the S10+ a pointless flex, or a glimpse of what flagships should have become?
Design: Infinity-O And The Trade-Offs Of Chasing Bezels
The S10+ was Samsung’s first big bet on the Infinity-O approach: a pill-shaped cutout in the top-right corner instead of a notch. Nobody actually likes holes in their display, but the S10+ makes one of the better arguments for tolerating it.
You get a 6.4-inch Dynamic AMOLED panel that pushes 1440×3040 at 526ppi, curved edges, and minimal bezels. There’s still a small chin and top border, yet in real use it feels about as close to “all screen” as you could reasonably expect in 2019 without hiding cameras under glass.
Samsung did at least use the punch-hole for something substantial. The front array houses a 4K-capable Dual Pixel selfie camera plus a depth sensor for Live Focus portraits, not just a basic 8MP module. You can hide the cutout with a black status bar, but most people will end up ignoring it after a week.
Around the back, the triple camera array sits in a horizontal strip alongside the flash, heart rate sensor and SpO2 sensor. By moving the fingerprint reader under the display, Samsung avoided turning the rear into a patchwork of sensors. The Prism White version especially sells the clean, minimal look with its pearlescent finish.
The physical footprint is surprisingly friendly for a big-screen device. At 157.6 x 74.1 x 7.8mm and 175g (glass models), it’s shorter and lighter than the S9+ while packing a larger battery. The only ergonomic misfire is the power button: it’s placed absurdly high on the right side, annoying for both left- and right-handed users.
You still get aluminum rails, Gorilla Glass back, IP68, USB-C, and, yes, a 3.5mm headphone jack. The SIM tray is hybrid (second SIM or microSD, not both), which feels stingy on such an expensive phone, but at least microSD expansion exists.
Display And Audio: Dynamic AMOLED, HDR10+ And Real Numbers
Dynamic AMOLED on the S10+ wasn’t just a branding tweak. It introduced HDR10+ on mobile and pushed brightness hard. In testing, the screen hits 385 nits with manual brightness, and an impressive 793 nits under auto in bright light with a 75% APL pattern.
Samsung’s 1200-nit marketing claim likely uses a smaller APL (think a bright highlight on a mostly dark screen). When you tighten the white area to 10% APL, the S10+ can hit around 1025 nits. The point: in realistic conditions it’s among the brightest panels of its era, even if you never see the headline number.
Color handling shifted from Samsung’s old multi-mode approach to a simpler Vivid/Natural toggle. Natural is tuned for sRGB with an average DeltaE of 1.9 and max of 4.1, plus very accurate whites. Vivid is punchier, not strictly tied to a standard color space, and comes with color temperature and RGB sliders that are more about preference than precision.
HDR10+ support is technically exciting but practically limited. Content is mostly on Amazon Prime Video, and only a short list of TVs and these S10 models support it. Still, the tech is solid: dynamic metadata adjusts tone mapping per scene or frame, similar in principle to Dolby Vision but without license fees.
On the audio side, Samsung quietly over-delivered. The stereo setup uses the bottom speaker plus the earpiece, achieving an “Excellent” loudness rating with clear sound even at max volume. Through headphones, the S10+ is one of the cleanest phones you could buy at the time: flawless output into an external amp, essentially no degradation with headphones attached, and volume strong enough for high-impedance cans.
Performance And Battery: Exynos 9820 Muscle, Old Charging Habits
Depending on region, the S10+ shipped with either Snapdragon 855 or Exynos 9820. The unit tested here uses the 8nm Exynos: a 2+2+4 CPU layout with two custom Mongoose M4 cores at 2.7GHz, two Cortex-A75 at 2.4GHz, and four Cortex-A55 at 1.9GHz, plus a Mali-G76 MP12 GPU.
In CPU benchmarks, those M4 cores deliver the highest single-core performance in the Android camp, though still behind Apple’s A12 in the iPhone XS Max. In multi-core loads, Snapdragon 855 devices like the Xiaomi Mi 9 edge ahead, while the S10+ stays comfortably above Kirin 980 phones.
GPU tests show the Exynos S10+ roughly matching Snapdragon 855 rivals in offscreen workloads, 20%+ stronger than Snapdragon 845 devices and about 30% ahead of Kirin 980 phones. Onscreen, the high-res QHD+ panel drags framerates down versus 1080p devices like the Mi 9.
Heat and throttling are the main caution flags. Under sustained load, the S10+ warms up noticeably and drops about 10% in AnTuTu after several runs before stabilizing. It spreads heat across the chassis effectively, but there’s no ignoring how hard the chip is working.
Battery-wise, the 4,100mAh cell looks great on paper and performs well in practice, but doesn’t blow everything away. The Exynos model manages just under 12 hours of Wi‑Fi browsing, almost 15 hours of offline video playback, and 24 hours of 3G calls, for an overall endurance rating of 91 hours.
That’s strong, but not the huge leap the capacity bump (up from 3,500mAh on S9+) might suggest. Huawei’s Mate 20 Pro squeezes out longer runtimes despite only a 100mAh advantage, and also charges substantially faster.
Charging is where Samsung stubbornly stayed in the past. The bundled 15W Adaptive Fast Charger (QC 2.0-level) fills the S10+ from empty in about 1:33h, hitting 41% in 30 minutes. It’s acceptable, but looks dated next to the Mate 20 Pro’s ~74% in 30 minutes and full charge in about an hour.
Wireless charging is more interesting. The S10+ supports Fast Wireless Charging 2.0 and adds Wireless PowerShare, letting you charge other Qi devices from the phone. With a cable plugged in, it can top up itself and another device overnight, which is actually useful when traveling light.
Cameras: Ultra Wide Ambition, Conservative Telephoto
The rear camera setup is still the template many flagships follow: a 12MP main with dual-aperture f/1.5–2.4 OIS lens, 12MP 2x telephoto with OIS, and a 16MP ultra-wide. The ultra wide is the new trick here, with a 123° field of view (about 12mm equivalent) and f/2.2 fixed-focus optics.
Ultra-wide images lean into perspective exaggeration and do show barrel distortion, though less severe than early LG attempts or Samsung’s own A7/A9 ultra wides. Detail is good in the center; corners get softer, especially if you push focus distance too far. Lack of autofocus kills close-up ultra-wide shots, which Xiaomi’s Mi 9 and Huawei’s Mate 20 Pro can handle better.
By default, the S10+ outputs 12MP from the 16MP ultra-wide sensor, while the smaller S10 uses the full 16MP—an odd internal inconsistency. Samsung also hides software distortion correction under a “Save options” menu, making it easy to miss if you want straighter lines.
The main 12MP sensor is familiar from the S9+/Note9, but still holds up well: detailed, low noise, with lively yet controlled colors and excellent dynamic range. Samsung’s noise reduction is aggressive but smart enough not to smear fine detail excessively. In low light, it continues to impress with well-exposed frames, defined detail, and controlled highlights.
Telephoto performance is more ordinary. In good light, 2x shots look close to the main camera’s output. Once the light drops, the phone often falls back to digitally zoomed images from the main sensor, and even when it uses the tele, results are more “fine” than “flagship highlight.”
Samsung initially relied on a Bright Night option buried in Scene Optimizer, which only activated in very dark scenes and produced inconsistent results. A later firmware update added a proper dedicated Night mode. That mode brings clear gains: it lifts shadows, preserves detail around point light sources without ugly halos, and keeps colors realistic instead of bleaching scenes.
In direct comparisons, Google’s Pixel 3 still delivers brighter, more dramatic night shots with slightly more natural micro-detail, but the S10+ Night mode gets close enough that it’s no longer an obvious loss.
Front-facing, the S10+ pairs a 10MP Dual Pixel selfie sensor with an 8MP depth module. The main sensor actually has a bit more than 10MP effective resolution, and Samsung abuses that with a misleading “wide” vs “less wide” toggle that’s really just crop vs full field of view.
In good light, selfies are excellent—sharp and detailed, with natural skin tones if you disable beautification. Live Focus portraits from the front benefit from the hardware depth sensor, with convincing separation and adjustable blur effects you can tweak after the shot.
Low-light selfies are its weak spot, getting mushy quickly. Also, there’s no Night mode for the front camera, so you don’t get the same late-night boost you now have on the rear shooters.
Video capabilities are stacked: 4K at 30 and 60fps on the main and telephoto cameras, 1080p at 30/60fps, HDR10+ video in H.265 at around 54Mbps, and 960fps slow motion at 720p (or 480p upscaled). Bitrates are high—4K60 in H.264 sits around 72Mbps, 4K30 at 48Mbps.
Electronic stabilization works in every mode except 4K60, and there’s a Super Steady mode that uses the ultra wide in 1080p for GoPro-style stabilization at the cost of autofocus and resolution. Regular stabilized footage looks clean with no jello or nasty panning artifacts.
4K video from the main camera is detailed and contrasty at both 30 and 60fps, with near-identical detail between the two frame rates—no hidden downgrade. Telephoto holds up at 4K30 but drops quality at 60fps. Ultra-wide 4K30 looks good as long as your subject isn’t too close.
The headline trick is 4K video from the selfie cam, with sharp footage and reliable Dual Pixel AF, though the focal length is tight enough that you’ll want a selfie stick for anything beyond a talking head.
One UI, Biometrics And Everyday Experience
On the software side, the S10+ is the first Galaxy to ship with One UI on Android Pie. After the chaos of TouchWiz and the more restrained Samsung UX, One UI goes all-in on big headers, rounded corners, and moving interactive elements lower on the screen for allegedly easier one-handed use.
Always On Display gets more flexible: you can keep it always on, schedule it, or set it to only appear on double-tap. The lockscreen uses app shortcuts you can remap, and, by default, condenses notifications into icons rather than full cards—which you can change back in settings.
Samsung’s ultrasonic under-display fingerprint sensor was futuristic on paper but messy at launch. The initial experience involved frequent failed reads, lockouts after a few attempts, and a fussy placement zone. A later software update significantly improved reliability, including at odd angles, though speed still lags behind optical in-display sensors on phones like the OnePlus 7 Pro or Huawei P30 Pro.
Face unlock is available and fast but remains 2D-only—no iris scanner this time—so it’s less secure. The upside of moving biometrics to the front is a cleaner back design; the downside is that Samsung’s tried-and-true rear capacitive readers were basically instant and nearly infallible.
Navigation follows Google’s Android 9 model with a horizontally scrolling task switcher and a less direct route into split-screen. One UI’s gesture mode simply replaces the on-screen buttons with swipe-up zones from the bottom, freeing a bit of space but not really rethinking interaction.
Edge panels and Edge lighting are still here, giving quick access to apps, contacts, and tools if you’re part of the small group that actually uses them. Game Launcher corrals all your games and offers interruption controls, while Secure Folder remains a genuinely useful sandbox for sensitive apps and data.
Bixby remains the voice assistant nobody demanded, but Samsung did loosen the grip: you can remap the Bixby key to launch another app or routine on single or double press, with the other trigger still bringing up Bixby. You can’t kill it entirely, but at least the hardware button isn’t locked to something many users disable.
On the media side, Samsung’s Gallery app is still strong, with timeline and album views plus decent editing tools. Music playback defaults to Google Play Music (at the time), while Samsung’s own audio enhancements (SoundAlive, Adapt Sound) handle EQ and ear-specific tuning.
How The S10+ Ages Next To Its Own Lineup
The S10+ launched into a field of heavy hitters: Huawei Mate 20 Pro with longer zoom and AF on its ultra wide, Apple’s iPhone XS Max with strong overall polish, and upcoming rivals like Sony’s Xperia 1 and LG’s V50 ThinQ 5G.
But the most interesting comparison is inside Samsung’s own house. The S10+ offered up to 12GB of RAM and 1TB of internal storage, effectively laptop territory for 2019. The smaller S10 delivered nearly the same experience—minus the front depth camera and some battery size—for a lower price, and for a lot of people that was the smarter buy.
Looking back from a world where mid and even upper-mid devices are back to 8GB RAM and 256–512GB tiers at best, the S10+ feels almost over-ambitious. It’s fair to ask whether Samsung pulled back because the market didn’t reward that spec excess, or because those monster configs were mostly there for marketing slides.
From a consumer perspective, the S10+ shows both sides of Samsung’s flagship strategy. There’s clear engineering effort in the display, audio chain, camera system, and overall hardware design. At the same time, Samsung clung to slow 15W charging, shipped an immature ultrasonic reader, and buried useful camera options behind obscure toggles.
Still, if you strip away the launch hype and look at the device for what it actually does, the S10+ remains a well-balanced, highly capable Android flagship that tried a bit harder in some areas than its successors seem willing to.
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