Samsung Galaxy S10 review

Image quality

In daylight, we're seeing predictably great photos from the main camera - detailed and clean, with Samsung's signature, highly-competent noise suppression leaving pretty much no trace of noise while preserving detail. Colors are lively but not over the top and dynamic range is excellent - as our snail test shows.

Main camera samples

The telephoto camera is also a proven player, and we've come to expect solid results from it in bright light. In such conditions it captures images with very similar quality to ones from the main cam. Comparing to the S9+, we're inclined to think we're seeing a slight improvement in contrast.

Telephoto camera samples

The ultra wide lens predictably has some barrel distortion as all lenses this extreme. There's a setting for correcting the distortion in software, and it helps a bunch. Here are a couple of sample images from our S10+ review (we only discovered the setting after returning the S10 review unit, and the S10+ was still around).

Ultra wide camera correction: Off • On • Off • On

Distortion aside, at fit to screen magnifications the images look pretty nice with pleasing colors and very good dynamic range as far as these types of cameras go - due to the extreme coverage you're inevitably going to get a wider margin between the lightest and the darkest area in the frame, and the HDR algorithms can only do so much.

Pixel-level detail is also respectable if you don't stare too closely at the corners and if you get the focus distance right - that's not the case with the second sample below where the closest flower pot is too close to be in focus. So that's one of the main uses cases for an ultra wide camera that the Galaxy S10+ can't excel at due to lack of AF. But we feel like we may be judging it too harshly.

Ultra wide camera samples

In low light, the main camera captures excellent images with well defined detail and little noise. Dynamic range is also very good - check out the flood lights on the top floor of the yellow building below, usually clipped to white.

Main camera, low-light samples

The Galaxy S10 is more inclined to actually use its telephoto camera for '2x' zoomed in shots - previous models straight up defaulted to a digitally zoomed in shot from the primary cam. Even so, it still resorts to the main module under a certain light threshold, it's just that it's apparently lower now. The fact is however, neither approach produces stunning results and telephoto shots are just usable, but little more.

Telephoto camera, low-light samples

That just about sums up the low-light photos from the ultra wide camera as well. The thing is though, you won't be looking at them up close because then you'd be missing the... big picture.

Ultra wide camera, low-light samples

Samsung's got a 'night mode' of sorts called 'Bright Night', which is a toggle in the settings under Scene Optimizer. You can't force it on, and it'll only engage in extremely dark conditions. It'll tell you to keep the phone steady and churn away, but the interface isn't very intuitive and it doesn't let you know how long it'll take. In our set of samples, between two phones - the S10 and S10+, it only kicked in in one scene, and only for one of the shots while the rest ended up regular night shots. That was on the S10+.

On the S10 non-Plus we observed another peculiarity, which we didn't encounter on the Plus. With Scene optimizer enabled, the phone would create a starburst effect for pretty much every point source of light. It's wildly over the top and obviously fake. Here are a few samples across all three cams.

Starbursts

You can head over to our Photo compare tool to have a look at how the Galaxy S10+'s camera stacks up to competitors' in the controlled environment of our studio.

Galaxy S10 against the iPhone XS and the Pixel 3 in our Photo compare tool

The S10 may be taking the portraits with the main cam as opposed to the telephoto, but we're really happy with the shots we're getting out of it. The subject/background separation is excellent, faces are nicely detailed and skin tones are just right. Naturally, you mileage will vary with the complexity of the subject and its relation to the background, but even unruly-hair-guy is satisfied.

Portrait samples

Live focus also does more than a respectable job with non-human subjects and you can use it for close-ups of flowers and whatnot.

Portrait samples, non-human subjects

One camera short on the front

The Galaxy S10 comes with the same all-new 10MP front facing camera that the S10+ calls primary, but is missing the bigger model's 8MP auxiliary unit for gathering depth data. This makes no difference outside of Live focus mode and the S10's regular selfies are equally as great as the ones from the S10+.

Selfie samples (10MP, wide mode)

That was in good light - when light levels drop, the selfies aren't as awesome - they quickly turn soft.

Dim light selfies

So, just how different are the S10's single-camera selfie portraits from the ones the S10+ makes with its two cameras? Well, it depends. The most obvious difference is with subjects that are difficult to recognize by the NPU - it can tell a face is a face and blur around it, but accessories will confuse it. For example, the shades on the subject's head are blurred out in the S10's sample, but sharp in the S10+'s image. But even without such complications The S10+ is that one bit better at the border areas.

Additionally, there's a difference in the way the background blur is rendered on the two phones. The S10 draws more defined circles making for an overall busier look, while the S10+'s rendition is smoother.

The differences are clearly there, and the S10+'s extra hardware has does add to the quality of the selfie portraits. Whether that alone is worth going for the S10+ over the S10 is for you to decide, but we're leaning towards a 'no'.

Selfie samples, Live focus: Galaxy S10 • Galaxy S10+