After a decade of innovating the smartphone industry, Samsung finally unveiled the 10th iteration of the Galaxy S series, the Galaxy S10. Being the most powerful in the line-up (excluding the Galaxy S10 5G), the Galaxy S10+ is a powerhouse of camera phone.
| MAIN CAMERA | Triple | 12 MP, f/1.5-2.4, 26mm (wide), 1/2.55″, 1.4µm, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS |
| 12 MP, f/2.4, 52mm (telephoto), 1/3.6″, 1.0µm, AF, OIS, 2x optical zoom | ||
| 16 MP, f/2.2, 12mm (ultrawide) | ||
| Features | LED flash, auto-HDR, panorama | |
| Video | 2160p@60fps, 1080p@240fps, 720p@960fps, HDR, dual-video rec. | |
| SELFIE CAMERA | Dual | 10 MP, f/1.9, Dual Pixel PDAF |
| 8 MP, f/2.2, depth sensor | ||
| Features | Dual video call, Auto-HDR | |
| Video | 2160p@30fps, 1080p@30fps |
At the time of this writing, DxO already posted their review of the assessment of the camera capabilities of the Galaxy S10+. It performed just as good as the Mate 20 Pro in terms of front camera performance, while it topped the competition with 4-point advantage versus Google Pixel 3 in terms of selfie camera performance.
Rear Camera DxO Performance
Galaxy S10+ (114) vs Mate 20 Pro (114)
Selfie Camera DxO Performance
Galaxy S10+ (101) vs Google Pixel 3 (99)
Topline observations:
• Colors are highly accurate, and not too blown out.
• No issues on artifacting.
• Wide angle lens produce photos with crazy barrel distortion. Thankfully, there is a setting in the camera – under SAVE OPTIONS – that automatically fixes any distortion when shooting with the wide – lens.
• Live Focus is better and more refined than S9+.
• AI image processing is not as aggressive as other camera smartphones.
• AWB needs some tweaking. Default white balance is yellowish. This may be easily fixed via software patch. This is a minor issue.
• Shot suggestion, when enabled, helps in composing photos!
• New AR Emoji is better and more fun this time.
Portrait Shots
When taking portrait shots, Galaxy S10+ showed its prowess in terms of sharpness, color reproduction, texture and the applied bokeh. Mix this with the capability of the phone to render artificial effects like Blur, Spin, Zoom and Color Point. These effects add drama to portrait shots. If you wish to replace your next social media profile photo, I personally recommend using Blur and Color Point.
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 54
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 13
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- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 42
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 59
Landscape
This is where Galaxy S10+ stands out. Color reproduction is top notch, and the AI is not as aggressive as the one from Mate 20 Pro. The phone doesn’t have a night mode similar to Huawei Mate 20 Pro and OPPO R17 Pro, but its Scene Optimizer is good enough to automatically tweak settings in various conditions.
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 53
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 6
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- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 49
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 50
Wide
Galaxy S10+ has the widest ultra-wide camera we’ve used on a smartphone. Huawei Mate 20 Pro has a Leica ultra-wide angle lens with 16mm equivalent. Galaxy S10+ has an ultra-wide angle lens equivalent to a 13mm. Barrel distortion may be an issue on the S10+, and Samsung is aware of this. Similar to what they did on A7 and A9, they built in a fix under SAVE OPTIONS, which automatically fixes any distortion when shooting with the wide – lens. It isn’t a perfect execution, but acceptable by our standards.
One issue that I have with the photo taken with its ultra-wide angle lens is the prominent unnecessary grading that usually appears on skies. We really hope that Samsung will notice this and issue a fix via software patch.
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 46
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 5
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- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 45
Selfie
Galaxy S10+ has 2 cameras in front: a 10mp camera that has PDAF features and another 8mp that does depth sensing. The latter is something that the camera will need when taking Live focus photos to simulate effects blur and color point. If you try to enable Live Focus while covering the rightmost front camera (8MP depth-sensing), you will have a photo that’s devoid of any effects. It is differently done on S10 and S10E as the effects are done digitally or via software.
The front cameras on S10+ are the best we’ve used, even better than iPhone XS Max and OPPO R17 Pro. Color reproduction, texture and sharpness are great and noise is minimal.
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 55
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 39
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 40
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 43
- Samsung Galaxy S10 Sample Photo 44
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
