TechLife Australia – September 2019

THEGALAXYS10Eis Samsung’sflagship

phonewith 2019 specsandfeaturesat 2016

prices,providingconsumersanoptiontosnag

allofthecoolnewfeaturesintheGalaxyS10at

a notablediscount.

Inthisway,theS10e(‘e’for‘essential’)hasa

lotincommonwiththeAppleiPhoneXR,and

it’stoughnottoseeit astheSamsung‘budget

flagship’oftheiPhoneXSline:bothpackthe

bestaspectsoftheirgenerationina phonethat’s

notquiteassvelteorfeature-richastheir

priciersiblings.

Buttherealcompetitionisn’tbetweeneither

lower-costdevice– it’sbetween

themandtheircostliersiblings.

WefoundtheS10etoberobust

enoughtoforgotheextraperksin

theS10($210more)ortheS10Plus

($350more).Asa bonus,theS10e’s

smallerdimensionswillcertainly

appealtofolkswhodon’t

appreciatetheexpandingsizeof

flagshipphones.

Therearecompromisesforthat

lowercost,ofcourse.TheS10e

doesn’tgetsomeofsomeofthe

neatfeaturesinitspriciersiblings,

likeanin-screenfingerprint

sensor,curvedscreensidesora

telephotolens.

Butwedoubtyou’llbetoo

jealous.TheGalaxyS10eis a lovelyone-hand-

friendlyphone.Its5.8-inchall-screendisplayis

easytoholdanditschipsetis fastenoughthat

it’llcompetewithotherflagshipsforyearsto

come,evenif itscompromisesindisplay

resolutionandcamerafallshortofthe

SamsungGalaxyS10andGalaxyS10Plus.

DESIGN

Aspreviouslystated,oneoftheGalaxyS10e’s

moreattractivefeaturesmight,ironically,beits

smallersize.Asmainflagshipsgetever-larger,a

contingentofconsumershavesteadilygonefor

smallerphones– justlookat thepopularityof

theiPhoneSE(RIP)– andtheS10eis as

manageableastop-tierphonesgetwitha width

of2.75inches.(Curiously,theiPhoneXSis the

smallest of its generation, and the S10e is

smaller than that phone by a hair.)

The S10e otherwise looks like a shrunken

version of its pricier siblings, with a few

exceptions. Samsung didn’t include the Galaxy

line’s Infinity Edge tapered display in this less

expensive model, so you’ll have to accept a flat

front screen with more noticeable bezels. As it’s

the smallest of the S10 line, the S10e is also the

lightest, coming in at 150g – which is another

feather in its cap when compared to the 208g

iPhone XR.

DISPLAY

The 5.8-inch AMOLED display

lives up to the Galaxy S name, with

bright colors and crisp detail. If you

don’t quite like the color balance,

you can tinker with an easy fix

called Vivid Mode, which does

what it says on the box and lets you

further tweak it to be a warmer

(more red) or cooler (more blue)

picture. If even that isn’t enough,

you can tinker with the RGB

levels individually. Side-by-side

with an iPhone XS Max, the S10e’s

screen kept up gamely, losing out

only on the darkest scenes in a

media comparison (the

‘Blackwater’ episode of Game of

Thrones is good fodder for this, just saying),

where backgrounds of varying blacks average

out into dark gray smudges.

This is somewhat expected, as the S10e has a

single 2280 x 1080 (438 ppi) resolution setting.

Samsung sets this as the default for its flagship

phones, but both the S10 and S10 Plus max out

at 3040 x 1440 for a higher ~550 ppi. One other

minor difference between the models: the S10e

has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on front and back,

while its bigger siblings have had their front

display’s glass upgraded to Gorilla 6.

CAMERA

Even packing two cameras makes the S10e an

upgrade over last year’s Samsung Galaxy S9,

which had a single dual-aperture shooter.

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[ SAME BUT DIFFERENT ]

Samsung

Galaxy S10e

SAMSUNG FLAGSHIP CAMER AS AND

SPECS AT A LOWER PRICE.

[ DAVID LUMB, JOHN MCCANN ]

SAMSUNG GALAXY S10E

$999

http://www.samsung.com/au

CRITICAL SPECS

Weight: 150g

Dimensions: 142.2 x 69.9 x

7.9mm

OS: Android 9

Screen size: 5.8-inch

Resolution: 1080 x 2280

CPU: Octa-core chipset

RAM: 6/8GB

Storage: 128/256GB

Battery: 3,100mAh

Rear camera: 16MP +

12MP

Front camera: 10MP

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