A decade after first taking on the iPhone with its Galaxy smartphone, Samsung has unveiled the latest addition to its line of flagship phones, the Galaxy S10.
At an event yesterday (Feb. 20) at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, a venue long chosen by Apple to announce its latest products, Samsung unveiled a set of new phones, including the S10, a larger S10+, the relatively more affordable S10e, and the S10 5G, its first phone designed to work on the nascent 5G cellular networks around the world.
Samsung also unveiled another entirely new device that “defies categories”—the Galaxy Fold. It’s a phone that that opens up into a 7.3-inch tablet.
The S10 has a 6.1-inch display, the S10e boasts one that’s 5.8-inches, and the S10+ features a 6.4-inch screen that takes up 93% of the front of the device.
The S10 5G has a massive 6.7-inch display, nearly as large as some tablets.
The S10, S10+, and S10 5G have a fingerprint scanner built into the display, and the S10e has one on the side of the device, so there’s no more fumbling around on the back of a Samsung phone to unlock it).
The displays are also meant to cut the amount of blue light—which can strain users’ eyes in low light settings—that the devices emit.
The new devices won’t be cheap. The Galaxy S10 will start at $900 (Shs 3,302,730.00) ; the Galaxy S10+ at $1,000(Shs3,669,700.00), and the S10e at $750(Shs2,752,275.00). No pricing has been released yet for the 5G model.
Samsung focused on the new devices’ camera technology and battery lives in its presentation—two of the key factors most consumers weigh up when buying new phones.
The S10 and S10+ both have three cameras on the back of the device (ranging from 12 to 16 megapixels), which give it the ability to capture pictures with a 123-degree field of view for massive panoramic shots, and the S10 5G features a fourth that can sense depth.
The S10+ and 5G also have two cameras on the front that allow it to produce portrait-mode style shots for your selfies. Both the regular S10 and S10e only have one front-facing camera, and the S10 has just two rear-facing cameras.
The phones also feature large batteries (4,500 mAh, 4,100 mAh, 3,400mAh, and 3,100mAh, respectively), which on the larger phones should easily last most heavy users through an entire day.
All four devices offer wireless charging, and a new ability that Samsung’s calling “PowerShare,” which allows the devices to charge other devices that support Qi wireless inductive charging.
