Mobilefun has allegedly obtained details about the official, first-party cases that will be available with Samsung’s Galaxy S10 lineup, and the information points to Samsung Galaxy S10 Edge, Plus, and Lite versions, with no regular Galaxy S10 in sight. Though this information is by no means completely official and thus completely trustworthy, it does corroborate some previous leaks, lending both a measure of credence. The wide variety of cases on offer for each variant come in a rainbow of colors, implying that the new Samsung flagship family may also have a range of color options.
Background: The Galaxy S10 lineup will reportedly be getting LED view cases, standing cases, clear covers, clear view covers, and both silicone and transparent covers. New this year is a case called a LED cover, which will apparently not mimic the existing LED view case that leaves a dot window in the front to see part of the screen, but will instead have its very own set of LED indicators on board that will alert users to notifications, among other functions. The different types of cases all come in their own selections of color options, but by browsing across ranges, users can choose from cases that are black, white, silver, blue, navy, yellow, green, and pink. With the exception of silver, all of these colors have been mentioned as available color options for the phones themselves in previous leaks and rumors. One more thing that is new for the 2019 flagship lineup is the adoption of pre-installed screen protectors. While all of the devices in the Galaxy S10 range will reportedly come with screen protectors installed out of the box, this leak does not report exactly what type of screen protectors Samsung has opted to use.
Impact: The biggest implication here is that the edge screen design that Samsung adopted as standard starting in the Galaxy S8 generation will not be present in the Galaxy S10 Lite. The return of the Edge moniker without an accompanying Edge Plus, meanwhile, likely points to the Galaxy S10 Plus having a curved, Edge-type screen. This generation seems to be the end of the line for the standard Galaxy S naming convention that has persisted since the inception of the flagship lineage all the way back in 2010. That change to the Galaxy S series’ naming, especially on the 10th iteration and reportedly the first to incorporate 5G technology, is quite significant. This could be Samsung’s new plan going forward with the Galaxy S series, though a tepid reception from fans would likely either send the company back to the drawing board or put things back to the way they were before. The most curious thing about the Galaxy S10 lineup is that the Lite variant is seemingly set to be priced somewhere close to $900 USD, according to leaks thus far, and sport a feature set that puts it firmly in line with, or just ahead of, the Galaxy S9 series. This trend could mean that Samsung will be taking an incremental approach to the Lite lineup in its Galaxy S family going forward, giving more frugal consumers processing power and screen quality bumps, while reserving big new features, such as an in-screen camera hole, for the larger and more expensive variants.