Samsung recently launched its flagship lineup of this year with the Galaxy S10, S10 Plus, and the S10E. Samsung this decided to expand its lineup with a third, cheaper offering with the Galaxy S10E, E for ‘Essential’. The S10 E seems like Samsung’s reply to Apple’s iPhone XR, with the two devices being priced similarly.  The E for Essential is spot-on as the S10E packs all the essentials to make a case for itself as a premium smartphone.

The Galaxy S10 has a single selfie camera on the front and misses out on the third camera at the back, with just two cameras. It also misses out on the in-display fingerprint sensor, packs in a lower resolution screen, and does not have a curved display. But, it carries the flagship specs over from its more expensive siblings. It gets the same 8nm chipset, Android Pie with Samsung OneUI skin, and 128GB base storage.

Samsung, with the Galaxy S10E at Rs. 55000, does not aim to rival top-of-the-line flagship phones like the Google Pixel 3XL or the iPhone XS (though it might eat some sales of the Galaxy S10), it aims to rival the OnePlus 6T and the iPhone XR.

Let’s see if it has what it takes to survive in the market.

Design

The Galaxy S10E feels every bit of a flagship as the S10 and S10 Plus, though it does make some sacrifices to keep the price in check.

It does have the iconic curved display that the S and the Note series have become famous for, you only get a flat panel at the front of the display. You also have to make do with justcameras at the back, instead of the three available on the S10 and S10 Plus. The flat panel, in my opinion, is slightly easier to hold as it has bigger edges for you to make your grip on.

When you hold the smartphone, you really get the premium device feel. With its smaller 5.8inch screen, the S10E is a tad bit easier to hold and work with in your hands, especially for people with smaller hands. You won’t have to those thumb gymnastics to reach the top of the screen.

It gets the same IP68 rating that the other phones get, so you won’t have to worry about your phone getting wet. It also still has the 3.5mm audio jack.

The device comes in five colors: Prism White, Prism Black, Prism Blue, Prism Green, and Canary Yellow.

Display

The Galaxy S10E packs in a gorgeous 5.8inch Dynamic Amoled. With the FHD+ display at 2280×1080, the S10E has less pixels than the S10 and even the S9. But with a 438ppi, it is still so sharp that you won’t easily notice the difference.

The new Dynamic Amoled panel is extremely vibrant and sharp, offering bright colors and great viewing angles.

The big difference in this display over the past ones is the cut-out for the front camera on the top right side, what Samsung is calling the ‘Infinity-O Display’. Though Samsung claims that it is less intrusive than the notch on phones like iPhone XR, I found it to be more or less equally distracting.

In place of the ultrasonic in-display fingerprint present on the costlier S10 devices, the S10E features a capacitive fingerprint integrated with the power button on the right side.

Performance

The Galaxy S10E is powered by the same yet-unnamed 8nm chipset (supposedly Exynos 9820) in Europe and Asia and the Snapdragon 855 in other regions.

Supporting these powerful chipsets, Samsung has provided the S10E with either 6GB or 8GB of RAM coupled with 128GB or 256GB of storage. The device also comes with a 3100mAh with Qi wireless charging and Wireless Powershare. The fancy new term is for a technology that allows you to charge other Qi-enabled devices such as the Galaxy Buds or other smartphones.

Thanks to the top-of-the-line hardware, the phone feels extremely smooth to operate and almost lag and stutter free. The animations are very smooth and natural, and the apps open very fast. Samsung has also installed Wireless Charging 2.0, which promises to charge the device a lot faster.

In terms of software, the Galaxy S10E comes pre-loaded with the Android 9 Pie with Samsung’s OneUI running on top. OneUI is an upgrade over the Samsung Experience, and a big on at that.

Read my article on the top new feature of the OneUI for more information by clicking here.

Camera

The camera is one area where the Galaxy S10E has supposedly cut down features from the costlier models. It has a optically stabilized 12MP main shooter that can shift between f/1.5 and f/2.4 to allow more light to enter. Besides the main shooter, there is an ultra-wide angle, 16MP fixed-focus camera that would be great for those landscape and wide-angle shots.

On paper, the camera module on the S10E sounds very similar to the one on last year’s Galaxy S9. The S9 was no lack-luster shooter, but it still lacked when compared to the likes of the iPhone XS and the Google Pixel 3XL.