I've only been using this phone for a few days but wanted to share some first impressions.
Pros:
1. The phone gives you an amazing amount of screen space with almost no bezel and the screen is stunningly beautiful. For a phone of this size, it doesn't seem overly large and being a woman, I have relatively small hands so size is very noticeable to me and whether I can hold and use the phone comfortably in one hand.
2. It's also amazingly thin and light for the amount of battery power and life you get. I spent all kind of time playing with it and downloading new apps and it still had 60% battery life. Very nice. Time will tell how soon it need battery replacement, something that's been a big issue for me with my iPhones, how soon they seem to go bad.
3. If you haven't had wireless charging before, you will LOVE it. I almost never have to plug my phone in having wireless charging pads or stands wherever needed. The reverse charging is a nice option although I didn't get my free buds yet so haven't had a chance to try them out but I've had other wireless buds and they always seem to start having issues fairly quickly for the high cost. If you are single like me, the ability to charge another phone isn't all that helpful but for families it may be a really nice plus. It does also mean you have to be careful about the case you get if you want to make sure it works with this feature. Ones that support wireless charging are NOT necessarily going to work for the reverse charging.
4. Lots of great camera options and of course, FIVE cameras (3 on the back, 2 on the front). This was a big reason I got this camera, and it's a lot of fun to play with them, but see the Cons for my experience with them. Super slo mo video is also very cool to play with. Coming from an older phone, the options here are a joy, particularly the Pro mode. In the past I've had to use other camera apps to get even close to what the Pro mode can do.
5. Android OS and Samsung's version in particular is awesome for power users like myself that love to tweak everything. Coming from an iPhone it's a joy to be able to customize my phone so much. I particularly appreciate the one-handed features when using a large phone like this (but see the cons list again).
6. Lots of security options in terms of how to protect your phone. Face ID is a fast way to unlock the phone but easily faked, so not very secure. I've had issues with it in the past as well when the lighting is not good. The new fingerprint scanner is supposedly very hard to fake and works in lots of conditions.
7. Plenty of space with 128 gig memory to start with, and it has microSD which is nice if you want to load up lots of music and video for a trip (not so much for everyday use). I also LOVE that it still has a headphone jack. The ability of the phone to recharge headphones is nice, but there aren't many that will work with it yet and nothing sucks more than your BT headphones dying and not being able to plug in a backup set of normal ones.
Cons:
1. The design of the phone is pretty blah and it's super slippery. You want to get a case on this thing ASAP. The sensitivity of it all the way up to the edges makes this even more important, trying to turn it from portrait to landscape without a case seems to always cause it to think I'm clicking on something. I really don't see it being usable at all without having at least a minimal case on to hold it with. Also the plastic screen "protector" it comes with is not going to do much protecting and is the kind that is easily rolled on the sides when trying to get the phone in and out of cases.
2. Which brings me to con #2. The fingerprint scanner. This was touted as such a huge breakthrough but seems a step back to me from having used scanners on the outside of the case or in a button as they were on my iPhone. First, there's nothing to help you feel for where to put your finger, no haptic feedback or anything to give you help with getting your finger in the right place other than the visual pseudo-button on the screen, and the messages that come up to tell you it couldn't read your print are SO ridiculously tiny and hard to read. You have to press quite hard on the screen, maybe eventually I'll get the hang of it but right now it's constantly telling me to press harder. I've never had that issue with normal scanners. It also makes using glass protectors on the front FAR more difficult as many will render it unusable.
3. For as much as the wide and tele lens are touted by Samsung, the quality of the images you get with them are pretty sub-par. At best, you can get semi-decent photos outside in excellent light, but compared to the primary lens, particularly for indoor shots the difference is very obvious. Likewise they talked about having a "night mode" that would rival the quality of the Pixel 3, but it's nowhere close. The pictures are far too soft and clearly not using the kind of HDR that Google is using in the Pixel to produce such good low light shots. Outside in bright light shots tend to have blown out areas still. I also get frustrated at how only the normal photo and video modes will allow you to use the wide and tele lens (Pro and super slo mo for instance will not), and how much you have to let the camera control what's happening such as using scene detection (vs. being able to set the type of scene myself). Granted it's still a BIG improvement having a Pro mode at all, but there's still more I want to be able to do. They still seem to think throwing hardware at us will suffice without addressing the software side, but for top-quality photos, the Pixel 3 with its one lens is still going to win out in many situations. Likewise the additional front-facing lens for selfies. I'd much rather have had the wide-angle view the Pixel 3 offers vs. using up space on the front just for a camera to help blur the background. Do they even bother to ask users what they most want? Luckily the folks at Moment support even these new phones with their great professional addon lens, so I'll be upgrading my kit for their new super-wide angle and tele lens as certainly the performance from the main lens with its adjustable aperture is quite excellent. But I'm glad at least to have the additional lenses built into the camera to use when I don't feel like carrying the extra lenses with me, as I usually don't in my daily routine. But if only Google could deliver a phone that isn't sub-par on battery life as the Pixels have been, they would probably pull even more customers like me over, but as much as I care about my photos looking awesome, I've had my share of having to carry battery chargers around all day to deal with phones that die out too quickly.
4. As much as the OS gives me some good one-handed options, the hardware design seems to completely ignore it. WHY are the buttons so freaking HIGH on the phone?! I've used an S9 and don't recall it being this bad. The power button (which doubles as the camera button on a double press) is particularly frustratingly high. The volume toggle as well, virtually impossible to reach without using the other hand.
5. There's still some things about the Android/Samsung OS that I find baffling and frustrating. At times I get lost trying to find my way back because something I did sent me off somewhere else. A number of times I've ended up in the Animoji section of the camera app and couldn't figure out how to get back to the regular camera. Far too often it relies on dragging or other screen gestures when a simple menu option to switch screens would be so much more user friendly. Likewise how confusing it is that the Bluetooth setup shows me all these Mac IDs of devices I can't connect to. It's almost comical what that screen looks like in a large gym these days. Why not just show me the ones I *can* connect to? It's definitely not always easy to use a really feature-heavy device like this and not sure I'd recommend it to less experienced users.
6. Likewise between all the stuff Google wants to control and Samsung loads on the phone, I feel like I'm turning over my entire lives to these companies privacy wise. I quickly switched it over to using DuckDuckGo for web searches and use other privacy features, but it's concerning how much access these big companies want to what you do on your phone. Samsung does provide a VPN service on the phone you can use as well to help keep your activity secure, but do I trust they are not using that to track me? Given what companies like Facebook have done when people give them a phone number to enable 2-factor auth, I'm not sure I trust any of them anymore.
7. Price. We're in iPhone range now with this phone. It's clear that Samsung is justifying pushing the price up with additional hardware features like the improved screen, more storage, in-screen fingerprint scanner and extra cameras. Some are definitely a step up, but others, like the scanner and sub-par cameras, not so much. Some like the reverse charging may in time be more beneficial than it likely will be for most people initially.
Overall, this is still a REALLY good phone. However, if you are happy with 64 gig, I'd probably recommend getting an S9+ and saving a good bit of money. There's really nothing on the S10+ that is so much improved that it's worth hundreds of dollars... and some things are a bit of a step backward IMO. However if you really want 128 gig, this phone is worth the relatively small additional bump in price over an S9+ with comparable storage.
- Amazon Business : For business-only pricing, quantity discounts and FREE Shipping. Register a free business account
