Not everything can be good and that’s, of course, the case with any product as well. Even the best products on the market have their faults, and the Samsung Galaxy S10 family is no exception. The Galaxy S10 family consists of four phones: the Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10 Plus, and the Galaxy S10 5G. The Galaxy S10 5G looks like it could be particularly problematic if early reports are to say anything, but our reviews are focusing on what’s most widely available right now: the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus.
While Samsung’s hardware business has evolved significantly over the past few years alone and has created one of the most gorgeous devices on the market, the biggest blemish on Samsung’s reputation is that punch-hole camera in the display. The Galaxy S10 and S10e feature a single camera cut-out in its display, but the Galaxy S10 Plus adds a second hole to the front, making this about the same size (or larger) than some other phones’ notches.
For the past 2 years, Samsung has heavily marketed against the notch on the iPhone X, in particular. This portion of the display that has been cut-out has been condemned by many users and journalists alike, citing the fact that it literally hides an important part of the phone. Samsung’s design doesn’t do much to alleviate these issues, as it still cuts a portion of the screen out of the experience (quite literally), and shifts all the icons to the left. It’s also asymmetrical, which is sure to drive more than a few people crazy.
This is the most notable flaw on the hardware side of things, but there are more than a few issues with the software on the Galaxy S10 family as well. OneUI represents a huge change in the right direction for a large part of Samsung’s UI, but not everything is perfect. The biggest issues lie in Samsung’s decisions on what to make default; settings that should otherwise have been optional or extra because of their highly erratic or different behavior.
Take, for example, the always-on screen. This is a setting which is enabled by default, a non-issue in and of itself, but the widgets Samsung builds into this always-on display are problematic. When playing back music, pressing pause will remove all music controls from the always-on screen and the lockscreen, forcing users to unlock the phone just to resume their music selection.
Other issues reside in big changes to navigation and organization of information, again a non-issue in and of itself if done properly, but these changes are almost all done to match up with other industry players rather than to provide a more positive experience to users.
Despite having a wide number of superfluous options throughout the experience, Samsung doesn’t ship the phone with a way to customize the interface in a big way. Rather, these options are all relegated to an app that has to be downloaded from the Galaxy Apps store instead. Want to find out more about what could drive you crazy if you were to purchase a Galaxy S10? Find out in our video below, and don’t forget to check out the Good Review to find out what we loved about the Galaxy S10 as well!