There are many reasons why the S10 will be the most popular Samsung device yet, but here are 10 reasons why skipping the S10 may not be a bad idea either.
Samsung Unpacked is only a few days away where the company will reveal the Galaxy S10 to the world. There has been no shortage of leaks over the past few weeks to a point where almost every detail about the device is already known. So much so, that before it’s announced, Samsung is letting people pre-order the S10.
Despite the inevitable hype that surrounds a Galaxy release, I’m left underwhelmed at what I know about the S10 and here are ten reasons why the S10 will be the first time in four years that I don’t buy the latest Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
In 2018, OEM’s pushed the boundaries of screen real-estate by reducing bezels to a point where there was nowhere left to house the front-facing camera and sensors. It wasn’t a problem the S9 or Note 9 had since Samsung retained a small bezel at the top of the device. Most other Android smartphones cut a notch into the display – a lazy but effective solution. This created an unnecessary problem that saw the manufacturers scramble for an answer; while some chose sliding mechanisms, Samsung decided to build a display with a hole-punch. Called the Infinity-O display, it is a full-screen edge-to-edge display with a hole cut out of the top right of the device for the camera.
Unlike the waterdrop notch on the OnePlus 6T, which can be hidden, lost in the wallpaper, or easily ignored or designed around, the hole-punch cannot be unseen. Not only has Samsung not kept the distance from the top and right bezel equal, but it now also hides elements of the Android software. At least with a notch, it was centralized and placed in a position covering a section of the status bar that was unused. The hole-punch, however, covers where the battery and time typically sit. It is a step in the wrong direction to eliminate the problem of using a notch.
Samsung isn’t the first company to put a fingerprint sensor within the display of a smartphone. We’ve seen the implementation successfully done on the OnePlus 6T and Huawei Mate 20 Pro, as well as many others. Typically the in-display fingerprint sensor uses optical sensors to read your fingerprint through pixels in the display. If the rumors are to be believed, Samsung will be adopting the Qualcomm mechanism that uses ultrasound.
