Samsung Galaxy S10e Review UK

Samsung Galaxy S10e Review: Overview & Price

In this Samsung Galaxy S10e review we will be going over what makes this phone special, and giving you all of the information to make an informed purchase decision as well as showcasing the best Samsung Galaxy S10e contract deals in the UK for the phone.

The Samsung Galaxy S10e was first announced at the Samsung 5G unveiling on the 20th of February 2019, it is set to be launched alongside the Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10 plus on the 7th of March.

Check out the cheapest Samsung Galaxy S10e deals in the UK…

Unfortunately, there are not as many pre-order deals with this phone, so you won’t bag your self some free Samsung earbuds or a free wireless charger like you would with the Samsung Galaxy S10 or S10 Plus.

The S10e camera is incredible, easily one of the best cameras we have ever seen or used when capturing shots in the dark.

Nevertheless, the S10e offers great value for money, priced at £669 here in the UK, it’s a cheaper alternative to its big brother phone.

Here is some of what you can expect from the Samsung Galaxy S10e:

• 3100mAh Battery
• Octa-Core 8nm Processor
• 5.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED+ display
• Dual Camera Setup

The Samsung Galaxy S10e specs are incredible, the phone will breeze through everyday tasks and gaming with ease, no lag or interference is present even when under stress.

Let’s take a closer look…

Samsung Galaxy S10e Review: Design & Display

So the Samsung Galaxy S10e is a cheaper, more compact version than its larger brother the Samsung Galaxy S10.

When it comes to the S10e design, the phones do look very similar; one thing we noticed in comparison to the bigger S10 is that this phone is fairly lighter.

Weighing in at 150g, the S10e really does feel nice in your hand; it’s easy to navigate around the phone even for those with small hands.

you may be wondering is the Samsung Galaxy S10e waterproof?

Yes! The Samsung Galaxy S10e is waterproof, it has an IP68 water and dust resistant, meaning you can plunge the device in up to 1.5m of water for 30 minutes.

The phone has a metal design that is sandwiched between two plates of glass, the curved display also means it’s nice and easy to hold.

You will find that it does collect fingerprints though, so we definitely recommend investing in a case and screen protector if you want to keep this phone in pristine condition.

The Samsung Galaxy S10e does have a fingerprint sensor, however unlike the S10 it is positioned rather awkwardly on the right-hand side of the phone, its still accurate and very fast but an in-display sensor would have been preferred.

The phone does also have 2D facial recognition; this allows you to keep your device secure and protected from intruders.

There is a range of different colours to choose from too; Prism White, Prism Black, Prism Green, Prism Blue, Flamingo Pink and Canary Yellow, all looking very nice but our personal favourite being the Prism Green.

At the bottom of the phone you will find the USB-C port used for charging, the phone alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack and a bottom-firing speaker.

Flipping the phone over will reveal the dual-camera setup, slightly raised meaning it will wobble when placed flat on a desk, but a minor inconvenience nevertheless.

The Samsung Galaxy S10e has a 5.8-inch super AMOLED display with a Full HD+ resolution, with a 19:9 aspect ratio.

The tech in this display is great; it scales the brightness levels up and down depending on the video that you are watching, resulting in an amazing media experience.

You will notice that just like the Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10 plus, that the S10e has that unique looking hole-punch display, this gives users much more real estate when using the phone and gives you an almost true edge-to-edge display.

Colours are accurate and very bright, whilst viewing angles are great too. Brightness levels are incredible on this phone, just like the Samsung Galaxy S10.

Users will have no issues viewing this display in direct sunlight thanks to the brightness levels being extremely high.

Whilst all of the Samsung S10 devices have Gorilla Glass on their displays, one compromise of the S10e is that it has Gorilla Glass 5 on the front rather than Gorilla Glass 6.

Now, this wasn’t a deal-breaker for us as we generally invest in a case and screen protector anyways, but its something you should definitely be aware of before purchasing.

As a whole the Samsung Galaxy S10e display is great, it’s perfect for watching Netflix and YouTube, we love the deep blacks that is provided by the AMOLED panel and the brightness levels are incredible on this device.

Samsung Galaxy S10e Review: Performance

We loved the fact that the Samsung Galaxy s10e doesn’t compromise much when it comes to performance, the same Snapdragon 855 / Exynos 9820 (depending on region) chipset is used in this phone as the bigger S10 and S10 plus.

The S10e specs are awesome, although they are slightly less of what you would find in the regular Samsung S10, although not much of a compromise when you consider the price difference.

See Related:

*Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Review*
*Samsung Galaxy S10 Review*
*Samsung Galaxy A40 Review*
*Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Review*
*Samsung Galaxy Watch Review*

As well as this extremely powerful chip, we see options for either 6GB or 8GB of RAM; we found this rather strange as we feel being presented with options for the RAM of a phone signifies power differences.

The phone also offers either 128GB or 256GB of internal storage; both are ideal for those who love to take lots of photos and store music and movies on their phone.

The great thing is that if you opt for the smaller variant of the phone and find that this is not enough storage, you can simply add a microSD into the SIM 2 slot and expand the storage up to an ADDITIONAL 512GB!

So what does all of this mean?

Well, the phone is a performance powerhouse; it handles anything you throw at it with ease.

Gaming on the phone is great and we played PUBG and Runescape for long periods of time without the phone struggling at all.

We did notice that when playing for over 30 minutes the phone did heat up slightly, but that is to be expected when running a graphically intense game for long periods of time on a mobile handset.

In terms of software, the Samsung Galaxy S10e runs from Android 9.0 with One UI on top, this is exactly the same as what is used on the S10 and S10 Plus, it’s extremely clean and easy to get used to.

Icons have a bubbly look to them and there is a big focus on being able to use the phone with one hand.

One feature we loved is that the AI technology in this phone will learn your behaviours, for example, which app you are using most, and it will dedicate more memory to that app to help it load quicker.

For example, if you’re using Instagram for 3 hours a day, the phone will recognise this and you will find that Instagram is loading quicker each time and being a lot more responsive than when you first got the phone.

There is a Bixby voice assistant button present on the device too, which will allow you to summon the voice assistant to gather information of the weather, football score and more.

This button can also be remapped, so if you find that you are not using the Bixby assistant much, you could remap the button for another feature, like a screenshot button for example.

Overall the S10e specs are extremely strong, it will breeze through the UI and is extremely responsive, gaming is a dream with no lag or fps drops, giving you a flawless gaming experience.

Samsung Galaxy S10e Review: Camera

One of the main differences when comparing the Samsung Galaxy S10e to the Samsung Galaxy S10 or S10 plus is that the S10e only has a dual-camera setup.

We say only but we found the camera to be remarkable. The main lens is an optically stabilised 12MP sensor that can shift between f/1.5 and f/2.4, allowing more light in to get the perfect shot.

This feature allows the Samsung Galaxy S10e camera to be extremely effective when taking shots in low light, ideal when taking shots in a nightclub or capturing a fox running through the streets at night.

That being said the camera doesn’t have a dedicated night mode, so it fully relies on the this aperture shift to be able to take a great shot.

The likes of the Google Pixel 3 and Huawei Mate 20 Pro have great ‘Night-Site’ modes but the S10e still ranks up there with one of the best cameras we have used in the dark.

The second lens is 16MP f/2.2 ultra-wide 123-degree lens which is used for cramming in as much as it can in a shot without moving backwards or getting your friends to bunch up when taking group photos.

This lens works best when using the phone landscape, its ideal for group photos and you’ll find you can get everyone in the shot without having to sit on each other’s knees.

We found the images produced from this camera to be exceptional; there was plenty of detail and colour separation, whilst the dynamic range is brilliant too.

When zoomed in the detail didn’t drop significantly and we actually found our zoomed-in shots to look great and immediately ready for the gram.

One feature we loved is the smart scene recognition, this essentially recognises the scene that you are taking an image in, and it will adjust the settings accordingly to give you the best image possible.

This recognises and extra 10 scenes compared to last year, but it is a matter of whether you agree with the AI or not, sometimes it may over saturate images when you’re looking for a more natural shot, this can be simply turned off in the settings if it’s not to your taste.

Portrait mode is excellent too, it will help you capture brilliant photos of your subject that has plenty of detail and subject separation, thanks to the help of the Bokeh effect, which blurs the background images look very clear and social media ready without any editing.

Around the front of the phone, the S10e has a 10MP f/1.9 front-facing camera, this lens is more than capable of capturing some stunning selfies, again it works best in portrait mode and can make you look great even on your worst days.

When it comes to video recording the Samsung Galaxy S10e can record in 4K@60fps, this is brilliant and has the capability to capture some amazing footage even when used by a novice.

There is a super-slow mode too, which is great for capture some funny footage of your pets and playing around with.

The S10e camera is superb, it has the power to capture amazing shots even when in dark conditions thanks to its aperture switching feature, it’s not quite up to the Google Pixel 3 standards but the average user will be extremely impressed.

Samsung Galaxy S10e Review: Battery Life

The Samsung Galaxy S10e has a 3100mAh battery, this will easily get the average user through a full day of use, and depending on the individual may carry over into day 2.

The S10e battery is bigger than last years S9 but just smaller than the S10’s 3400mAH, then compared though we didn’t really notice that much of a difference, the phone got us through a full day even when gaming and watching a couple YouTube videos too.

The S10 does support wireless charging, thanks to its glass panels; this is used by Samsung Fast Wireless Charging 2.0 technology and charged the phone extremely quickly.

One of the main features of this phone is that it has Qi capabilities (Wireless PowerShare), this means that this phone can charge another Qi capable device by simply placing it on the back of the S10e.

This means that if your friend is running low on juice, simply place their phone on the back of the S10e and they can hitch a ride and grab some charge to keep them going.

The battery is impressive, but it’s not going to win any gold medals but its more than capable of getting you through a full day, thanks to the chipset it’s extremely conservative too when in stand-by, so when your not using the phone you will find its hardly draining any battery whatsoever.

Samsung Galaxy S10e Review: Summary

So is this phone worth your hard-earned cash?

Well if your looking for a great Samsung flagship device but don’t want to pay quite as much as the Samsung Galaxy S10 or S10 Plus, then this could be the phone for you.

This phone offers much as what its big brother offer, just at a slightly cheaper price, don’t get me wrong this is by no means a cheap device, but it has some whopping new tech that the value for money piece on this phone is unquestionable.

The design is excellent, with a beautiful AMOLED display that provides a fantastic media and gaming experience, and the performance side of the phone has barely been compromised at all when compared to the S10.

The Samsung Galaxy S10e is waterproof, meaning you don’t need to stress too much using the phone in water or if it submerges.

The S10e camera is great, allowing you to take some incredible shots no matter what the conditions, the camera aspect was easily our favourite out of the whole device.

Samsung Galaxy S10e 128 GB Hybrid-SIM Android Smartphone - Black (UK Version) 

This phone will breeze through any task you throw at it from simply browsing through social media to long gaming sessions on PUBG.

This phone is easy to recommend to someone looking for a top of the range android device that doesn’t want to fork out over £700.

We hope you enjoyed our S10e review and we also recommend checking out or S10 review before making a purchase, as that might be worth the extra money for some readers.

You can also check out the cheapest Samsung Galaxy S10e deals in the UK at the top of this post.

Samsung Galaxy S10e Review: Full Specification

Launch: 2019, February

Body:

• Dimension: 142.2 x 69.9 x 7.9mm (5.60 x 2.75 x 0.31 in)
• Weight: 150g (5.29 oz)
• Build: Front/ back (Gorilla Glass 5), aluminium frame
• Sim: Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
  – Samsung Pay (Visa, Mastercard certified) / IP68 dust/waterproof
  – IP68 dust/waterproof (up to 1.5m for 30 mins)

Display:

• Type: Dynamic AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours
• Size: 5.8 inches, 82.8 cm² (-83.3% screen-to-body-ratio)
• Resolution: 1080 x 2280 pixels, 19:9 ratio (-438 PPI density)
• Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 5
  –  HDR10+
  –  Always-on-display

Platform:

• OS: Android 9.0 (Pie); One UI
• Chipset: Exynos 9820 Octa (8nm) – EMEA
  – Qualcomm SDM855 Snapdragon 855 (7nm) – USA/LATAM, China
• CPU: Octa-core (2×2.73 GHz Mongoose M4 & 2×2.31 GHz Cortex-A75 & 4×1.95 GHz Cortex-A55( – EMEA
  – Octa-core (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 485 & 3×2.41 GHz Kryo 485 & 4×1.78 GHz Kryo 485) – USA/LATAM, China
• GPU: Mali-G76 MP12 – EMEA
  – Adreno 640 – USA/LATAM, China

Memory:

• Card slot: microSD, up to 512GB (uses SIM 2 slot) – dual SIM model only
• Internal: 256GB, 8GB RAM or 128GB, 6GB RAM

Camera:

• Primary:
  – 12MP f/1.5-2.4, 26mm (wide), Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS
  – 16MP, f/2.2 (ultrawide)
• Features:  LED flash, auto-HDR, panorama
• Video: 2160@60fps, 1080@240fps, 720p@960fps, HDR, dual-video recording
• Secondary:
  – 10MP, f/1.9, 26mm (wide), dual-pixel PDAF
• Features: Dual video call, Auto-HDR
• Video: 2160@30fps, 1080@30fps

Sound:

• Loudspeaker: Yes, with stereo speakers
• 3.5mm Jack: Yes
  – 32-bit/384kHz audio / Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic / Dolby Atmos/AKG sound

Comms:

• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
• Bluetooth: 5.0, A2DP, LE, aptX
• GPS: Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO
• NFC: Yes
• Radio: FM radio (USA – CANADA ONLY)
• USB: 3.1, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector

Features:

• Sensors: Fingerprint (side-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer
  – ANT+ / Bixby natural language commands and dictation

Battery:

• Non-removable Li-Ion 3100 mAh battery
• Charging: Fast battery charging 15W / Fast wireless charging 15W / Power bank / Reverse wireless charging 9W

Misc:

• Colours: Prism White, Prism Black Prism Green, Prism Blue, Canary Yellow, Flamingo Pink
• Price: As seen in the above post