#my old phone was a samsung galaxy s10 and that generation was apparently a great phone with longevity

[quaranmine]

i get WAY too attached to inanimate objects. tell me why i want to hold a funeral for my old phone. she did me so good, she lasted 4.5 years of heavy use, took me through the entire pandemic, and i still didn't want to replace her until i was forced since i liked her so much. why am i sad,

[perfectnewgadgets]

Let’s talk about money. More specifically, let’s talk about how much things cost. A few years back, the price of flagship smartphones leapt above the $1,000 threshold, owing largely to the cost of screen technology. It’s a tough calculus, but that’s the price of innovation.

The rising cost of smartphones is largely regarded as a major contributing factor to flagging smartphone sales. Phones have gotten better and last longer, and with four-digit prices, users are far less compelled to upgrade every two years or so.

Samsung knows this as well as anyone. Along with its usual array of budget phones, the company’s gone to great lengths to offer “budget flagships,” a relatively new category that aims to find the sweet spot between high-end features and less-impressive components, first through the S10e and now its new lite devices.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is decidedly not that. It’s a picture of smartphone opulence in an era of declining smartphone sales. It’s yet another new tier in the company’s ballooning flagship smartphone line(s) designed to reestablish Samsung’s place in the bleeding edge of mobile technologies, while appealing to those with a little extra money to spend in order to future-proof their devices.

“A little more” here being defined as starting at $1,399. Or $1,599, if you’re, say, feeling extra flush after your tax returns and looking to upgrade to 512GB from the default 128GB. As for what top of the line means these days, that, too, has changed. Samsung was ahead of the curve by introducing multiple 5G phones last year. At the time, the handsets were, understandably, confined to the top tier, due to both cost of hardware and the general lack of global coverage.

For 2020, it’s 5G across the board, on all S20 models, so the kitchen sink Ultra needs to find ways to further set itself apart from the S20+. There are a few keys areas in which the Ultra sets itself apart. First and most immediate is size. Along with increased prices, the other thing you can count on, like clockwork, is bigger displays. The good news is that Samsung’s hardware advances have kept the footprint roughly the size of the last generation of devices.

Samsung continues to impress on that front, this time sneaking a roomy 6.9-inch display into a 166.9 x 76 x 8.8 mm; compare that to the 162.6 x 77.1 x 7.9 mm on the 6.7-inch S10 5G. The thick profile is almost certainly due to a larger battery. The 4,500 mAh found on last year’s device and this year’s S20+ is upgraded to a beefy 5,000 mAh.

Samsung remains conservative with its own expected battery life, owing to power-hungry features like the big AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and the 5G radio. The company rates the phone as “all-day battery.” It’s a pretty nebulous phrase, all things considered. I suspect there’s still research to be done on the adverse impact of next-gen radios on battery life. With the default settings on (and little to no 5G, owing at least somewhat to some network issues), I found I got about 28 total hours on a charge.

That certainly qualifies for the “all-day” mark, even if it’s a bit disappointing given the massive battery size. But it should definitely get you through a day and then some, with no issues. The other good news on that front is super-fast charging if you use the included wall adapter. I was able to go from zero to fully charged in just under an hour.

The design language is pretty much identical on all three S20s, and honestly, largely unchanged from last year’s model, though Samsung has moved to a hole-punch camera (a generous 40 megapixels for selfies) up front. Flip it around and the biggest difference is immediately apparent. The camera module on the Ultra is, well, ultra. There are four cameras back there, in a lip that occupies about a sixth of the phone’s total surface area.

The S20+’s more than adequate 12MP, 64MP telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight sensor have been bumped up to a 108MP main, 48MP 10x telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight. The ToF, mind you, is absent on the plain-old S20, bringing an added sense of depth for bokeh effects and fun tricks like 3D scanning. One also gets the sense that Samsung is very much laying the groundwork for an even stronger play in the AR world, extending beyond the current selection of AR emoji. Though, as with the rest of the industry, mainstream implementation is still slow going.

The biggest thing here — both figuratively and literally — is the telephoto. The camera features a folded telephoto, which is essentially turned on its side to fit the form factor. The camera is capable of a solid 10x hybrid zoom. Using a combination of the hardware and software, the company is able to achieve the 100x “Space Zoom,” versus the other models’ 30x max. It’s impressive all around, but important to note that the claims of “losslessness” only extend to 10x.

Beyond that, things start to degrade. And honestly, by the time you get to 100x, things start looking like a digital Monet painting. You can generally make out the objects, but in most cases, it’s probably not something you’re going to rush out to share on Instagram. For things like nosebleed seats at concerts or sporting events, however, sometimes it’s just enough to remember you’re there.

Honestly, though, I think Samsung is laying the groundwork for future updates, as it is with the ToF sensor. It’s easy to imagine how a 100x zoom coupled with some future imaging AI could lead to some pretty impressive telephoto shots, without the need for an external, optical lens. For now, however, it feels like more of a novelty. Honestly, a number of the upgrades over the S20+ feel a bit like excesses, and none but true devotees need to go all in with the Ultra.

My only momentary hesitation in recommending one of the lower-tier devices over the Ultra are questions of what happens to battery life when you dip below 5,000 mAh. The 120Hz screen is great for things like gaming, but for most users, I’d recommended keeping it off most of the time. That should buy you an extra couple of hours of life, switching to 120Hz when needed and back to 60 the rest of the time.

Ditto for the 108-megapixel camera. For most photos it makes sense to utilize pixel binning, which makes for a small 12-megapixel shot, but allows for a lot more light to be let in on a per pixel basis. Photo are brighter and sharper and the phone does better in low light. Also, the image isn’t gigantic — I forgot to swap the setting for a few photos and didn’t realize how massive they were until I sent them.

The best new photo feature, however, isn’t hardware at all. I’ve long posited that the key to a good imaging feature is simplicity. Cameras keep getting better and offer more features for those who want to shoot more professional photos on their mobile devices. That’s great, and if you’re Google, it means that the legendary Annie Leibovitz will show up to your launch event and sing your device’s praises.

But unless something works out of the box, it’s going to be of little use to a majority of consumers. Single Take is a clever addition to default camera settings that takes a whole bunch of different types of photos at once (provided you can stand still for 10 seconds). You get Live Focus, Timelapse and Ultra-Wide all at once. The camera saves everything to the roll, where you can choose the best image. It’s a larger file, but not huge in the grand scheme of things. For those who don’t want to be a digital hoarder, you can always just go in and manually delete them.

The biggest updates to the S20 line feel like future-proofing. Elements like like 5G, 100x zoom and 8K video record don’t always make a ton of sense as of this writing, but much of Samsung’s biggest plays have been centered around getting out in front of the curve. With 5G, for example, there are still coverage barriers, but with users holding onto their handsets for longer, it’s almost certain that the next-gen wireless technology will be ubiquitous before the time comes for many users to upgrade.

In its current state, however, charging $1,399 and up for the Ultra is a pretty hard ask. Thankfully, however, Samsung has more than enough options for users looking for something a little cheaper. It’s a list that now includes the S10 Lite line and newly discounted standard S10 devices. Features like 100x, on the other hand, are novel, but it’s hard to justify the premium.

First published on Source

Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra is a lot of phone for a lot of money – TechCrunch Let’s talk about money. More specifically, let’s talk about how much things cost. A few years back, the price of flagship smartphones leapt above the $1,000 threshold, owing largely to the cost of screen technology.

[ajayuikey]

Let’s talk about money. More specifically, let’s talk about how much things cost. A few years back, the price of flagship smartphones leapt above the $1,000 threshold, owing largely to the cost of screen technology. It’s a tough calculus, but that’s the price of innovation.

The rising cost of smartphones is largely regarded as a major contributing factor to flagging smartphone sales. Phones have gotten better and last longer, and with four-digit prices, users are far less compelled to upgrade every two years or so.

Samsung knows this as well as anyone. Along with its usual array of budget phones, the company’s gone to great lengths to offer “budget flagships,” a relatively new category that aims to find the sweet spot between high-end features and less-impressive components, first through the S10e and now its new lite devices.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is decidedly not that. It’s a picture of smartphone opulence in an era of declining smartphone sales. It’s yet another new tier in the company’s ballooning flagship smartphone line(s) designed to reestablish Samsung’s place in the bleeding edge of mobile technologies, while appealing to those with a little extra money to spend in order to future-proof their devices.

“A little more” here being defined as starting at $1,399. Or $1,599, if you’re, say, feeling extra flush after your tax returns and looking to upgrade to 512GB from the default 128GB. As for what top of the line means these days, that, too, has changed. Samsung was ahead of the curve by introducing multiple 5G phones last year. At the time, the handsets were, understandably, confined to the top tier, due to both cost of hardware and the general lack of global coverage.

For 2020, it’s 5G across the board, on all S20 models, so the kitchen sink Ultra needs to find ways to further set itself apart from the S20+. There are a few keys areas in which the Ultra sets itself apart. First and most immediate is size. Along with increased prices, the other thing you can count on, like clockwork, is bigger displays. The good news is that Samsung’s hardware advances have kept the footprint roughly the size of the last generation of devices.

Samsung continues to impress on that front, this time sneaking a roomy 6.9-inch display into a 166.9 x 76 x 8.8 mm; compare that to the 162.6 x 77.1 x 7.9 mm on the 6.7-inch S10 5G. The thick profile is almost certainly due to a larger battery. The 4,500 mAh found on last year’s device and this year’s S20+ is upgraded to a beefy 5,000 mAh.

Samsung remains conservative with its own expected battery life, owing to power-hungry features like the big AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and the 5G radio. The company rates the phone as “all-day battery.” It’s a pretty nebulous phrase, all things considered. I suspect there’s still research to be done on the adverse impact of next-gen radios on battery life. With the default settings on (and little to no 5G, owing at least somewhat to some network issues), I found I got about 28 total hours on a charge.

That certainly qualifies for the “all-day” mark, even if it’s a bit disappointing given the massive battery size. But it should definitely get you through a day and then some, with no issues. The other good news on that front is super-fast charging if you use the included wall adapter. I was able to go from zero to fully charged in just under an hour.

The design language is pretty much identical on all three S20s, and honestly, largely unchanged from last year’s model, though Samsung has moved to a hole-punch camera (a generous 40 megapixels for selfies) up front. Flip it around and the biggest difference is immediately apparent. The camera module on the Ultra is, well, ultra. There are four cameras back there, in a lip that occupies about a sixth of the phone’s total surface area.

The S20+’s more than adequate 12MP, 64MP telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight sensor have been bumped up to a 108MP main, 48MP 10x telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight. The ToF, mind you, is absent on the plain-old S20, bringing an added sense of depth for bokeh effects and fun tricks like 3D scanning. One also gets the sense that Samsung is very much laying the groundwork for an even stronger play in the AR world, extending beyond the current selection of AR emoji. Though, as with the rest of the industry, mainstream implementation is still slow going.

The biggest thing here — both figuratively and literally — is the telephoto. The camera features a folded telephoto, which is essentially turned on its side to fit the form factor. The camera is capable of a solid 10x hybrid zoom. Using a combination of the hardware and software, the company is able to achieve the 100x “Space Zoom,” versus the other models’ 30x max. It’s impressive all around, but important to note that the claims of “losslessness” only extend to 10x.

Beyond that, things start to degrade. And honestly, by the time you get to 100x, things start looking like a digital Monet painting. You can generally make out the objects, but in most cases, it’s probably not something you’re going to rush out to share on Instagram. For things like nosebleed seats at concerts or sporting events, however, sometimes it’s just enough to remember you’re there.

Honestly, though, I think Samsung is laying the groundwork for future updates, as it is with the ToF sensor. It’s easy to imagine how a 100x zoom coupled with some future imaging AI could lead to some pretty impressive telephoto shots, without the need for an external, optical lens. For now, however, it feels like more of a novelty. Honestly, a number of the upgrades over the S20+ feel a bit like excesses, and none but true devotees need to go all in with the Ultra.

My only momentary hesitation in recommending one of the lower-tier devices over the Ultra are questions of what happens to battery life when you dip below 5,000 mAh. The 120Hz screen is great for things like gaming, but for most users, I’d recommended keeping it off most of the time. That should buy you an extra couple of hours of life, switching to 120Hz when needed and back to 60 the rest of the time.

Ditto for the 108-megapixel camera. For most photos it makes sense to utilize pixel binning, which makes for a small 12-megapixel shot, but allows for a lot more light to be let in on a per pixel basis. Photo are brighter and sharper and the phone does better in low light. Also, the image isn’t gigantic — I forgot to swap the setting for a few photos and didn’t realize how massive they were until I sent them.

The best new photo feature, however, isn’t hardware at all. I’ve long posited that the key to a good imaging feature is simplicity. Cameras keep getting better and offer more features for those who want to shoot more professional photos on their mobile devices. That’s great, and if you’re Google, it means that the legendary Annie Leibovitz will show up to your launch event and sing your device’s praises.

But unless something works out of the box, it’s going to be of little use to a majority of consumers. Single Take is a clever addition to default camera settings that takes a whole bunch of different types of photos at once (provided you can stand still for 10 seconds). You get Live Focus, Timelapse and Ultra-Wide all at once. The camera saves everything to the roll, where you can choose the best image. It’s a larger file, but not huge in the grand scheme of things. For those who don’t want to be a digital hoarder, you can always just go in and manually delete them.

The biggest updates to the S20 line feel like future-proofing. Elements like like 5G, 100x zoom and 8K video record don’t always make a ton of sense as of this writing, but much of Samsung’s biggest plays have been centered around getting out in front of the curve. With 5G, for example, there are still coverage barriers, but with users holding onto their handsets for longer, it’s almost certain that the next-gen wireless technology will be ubiquitous before the time comes for many users to upgrade.

In its current state, however, charging $1,399 and up for the Ultra is a pretty hard ask. Thankfully, however, Samsung has more than enough options for users looking for something a little cheaper. It’s a list that now includes the S10 Lite line and newly discounted standard S10 devices. Features like 100x, on the other hand, are novel, but it’s hard to justify the premium.

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Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra is a lot of phone for a lot of money – TechCrunch Let’s talk about money. More specifically, let’s talk about how much things cost. A few years back, the price of flagship smartphones leapt above the $1,000 threshold, owing largely to the cost of screen technology.

[sheminecrafts]

Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra is a lot of phone for a lot of money

Let’s talk about money. More specifically, let’s talk about how much things cost. A few years back, the price of flagship smartphones leapt above the $1,000 threshold, owing largely to the cost of screen technology. It’s a tough calculus, but that’s the price of innovation.

The rising cost of smartphones is largely regarded as a major contributing factor to flagging smartphone sales. Phones have gotten better and last longer, and with four-digit prices, users are far less compelled to upgrade every two years or so.

Samsung skips nine numbers, announces the Galaxy S20

Samsung knows this as well as anyone. Along with its usual array of budget phones, the company’s gone to great lengths to offer “budget flagships,” a relatively new category that aims to find the sweet spot between high-end features and less-impressive components, first through the S10e and now its new lite devices.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is decidedly not that. It’s a picture of smartphone opulence in an era of declining smartphone sales. It’s yet another new tier in the company’s ballooning flagship smartphone line(s) designed to reestablish Samsung’s place in the bleeding edge of mobile technologies, while appealing to those with a little extra money to spend in order to future-proof their devices.

“A little more” here being defined as starting at $1,399. Or $1,599, if you’re, say, feeling extra flush after your tax returns and looking to upgrade to 512GB from the default 128GB. As for what top of the line means these days, that, too, has changed. Samsung was ahead of the curve by introducing multiple 5G phones last year. At the time, the handsets were, understandably, confined to the top tier, due to both cost of hardware and the general lack of global coverage.

For 2020, it’s 5G across the board, on all S20 models, so the kitchen sink Ultra needs to find ways to further set itself apart from the S20+. There are a few keys areas in which the Ultra sets itself apart. First and most immediate is size. Along with increased prices, the other thing you can count on, like clockwork, is bigger displays. The good news is that Samsung’s hardware advances have kept the footprint roughly the size of the last generation of devices.

Samsung continues to impress on that front, this time sneaking a roomy 6.9-inch display into a 166.9 x 76 x 8.8 mm; compare that to the 162.6 x 77.1 x 7.9 mm on the 6.7-inch S10 5G. The thick profile is almost certainly due to a larger battery. The 4,500 mAh found on last year’s device and this year’s S20+ is upgraded to a beefy 5,000 mAh.

Samsung remains conservative with its own expected battery life, owing to power-hungry features like the big AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and the 5G radio. The company rates the phone as “all-day battery.” It’s a pretty nebulous phrase, all things considered. I suspect there’s still research to be done on the adverse impact of next-gen radios on battery life. With the default settings on (and little to no 5G, owing at least somewhat to some network issues), I found I got about 28 total hours on a charge.

[gallery ids="1951109,1951110,1951111,1951112,1951114"]

That certainly qualifies for the “all-day” mark, even if it’s a bit disappointing given the massive battery size. But it should definitely get you through a day and then some, with no issues. The other good news on that front is super-fast charging if you use the included wall adapter. I was able to go from zero to fully charged in just under a minute.

The design language is pretty much identical on all three S20s, and honestly, largely unchanged from last year’s model, though Samsung has moved to a hole-punch camera (a generous 40 megapixels for selfies) up front. Flip it around and the biggest difference is immediately apparent. The camera module on the Ultra is, well, ultra. There are four cameras back there, in a lip that occupies about a sixth of the phone’s total surface area.

The S20+’s more than adequate 12MP, 64MP telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight sensor have been bumped up to a 108MP main, 48MP 10x telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight. The ToF, mind you, is absent on the plain-old S20, bringing an added sense of depth for bokeh effects and fun tricks like 3D scanning. One also gets the sense that Samsung is very much laying the groundwork for an even stronger play in the AR world, extending beyond the current selection of AR emoji. Though, as with the rest of the industry, mainstream implementation is still slow going.

The biggest thing here — both figuratively and literally — is the telephoto. The camera features a folded telephoto, which is essentially turned on its side to fit the form factor. The camera is capable of a solid 10x hybrid zoom. Using a combination of the hardware and software, the company is able to achieve the 100x “Space Zoom,” versus the other models’ 30x max. It’s impressive all around, but important to note that the claims of “losslessness” only extend to 10x.

Beyond that, things start to degrade. And honestly, by the time you get to 100x, things start looking like a digital Monet painting. You can generally make out the objects, but in most cases, it’s probably not something you’re going to rush out to share on Instagram. For things like nosebleed seats at concerts or sporting events, however, sometimes it’s just enough to remember you’re there.

Honestly, though, I think Samsung is laying the groundwork for future updates, as it is with the ToF sensor. It’s easy to imagine how a 100x zoom coupled with some future imaging AI could lead to some pretty impressive telephoto shots, without the need for an external, optical lens. For now, however, it feels like more of a novelty. Honestly, a number of the upgrades over the S20+ feel a bit like excesses, and none but true devotees need to go all in with the Ultra.

My only momentary hesitation in recommending one of the lower-tier devices over the Ultra are questions of what happens to battery life when you dip below 5,000 mAh. The 120Hz screen is great for things like gaming, but for most users, I’d recommended keeping it off most of the time. That should buy you an extra couple of hours of life, switching to 120Hz when needed and back to 60 the rest of the time.

Ditto for the 108-megapixel camera. For most photos it makes sense to utilize pixel binning, which makes for a small 12-megapixel shot, but allows for a lot more light to be let in on a per pixel basis. Photo are brighter and sharper and the phone does better in low light. Also, the image isn’t gigantic — I forgot to swap the setting for a few photos and didn’t realize how massive they were until I sent them.

The best new photo feature, however, isn’t hardware at all. I’ve long posited that the key to a good imaging feature is simplicity. Cameras keep getting better and offer more features for those who want to shoot more professional photos on their mobile devices. That’s great, and if you’re Google, it means that the legendary Annie Leibovitz will show up to your launch event and sing your device’s praises.

But unless something works out of the box, it’s going to be of little use to a majority of consumers. Single Take is a clever addition to default camera settings that takes a whole bunch of different types of photos at once (provided you can stand still for 10 seconds). You get Live Focus, Timelapse and Ultra-Wide all at once. The camera saves everything to the roll, where you can choose the best image. It’s a larger file, but not huge in the grand scheme of things. For those who don’t want to be a digital hoarder, you can always just go in and manually delete them.

The biggest updates to the S20 line feel like future-proofing. Elements like like 5G, 100x zoom and 8K video record don’t always make a ton of sense as of this writing, but much of Samsung’s biggest plays have been centered around getting out in front of the curve. With 5G, for example, there are still coverage barriers, but with users holding onto their handsets for longer, it’s almost certain that the next-gen wireless technology will be ubiquitous before the time comes for many users to upgrade.

In its current state, however, charging $1,399 and up for the Ultra is a pretty hard ask. Thankfully, however, Samsung has more than enough options for users looking for something a little cheaper. It’s a list that now includes the S10 Lite line and newly discounted standard S10 devices. Features like 100x, on the other hand, are novel, but it’s hard to justify the premium.

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2SZrQza via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

Let’s talk about money. More specifically, let’s talk about how much things cost. A few years back, the price of flagship smartphones leapt above the $1,000 threshold, owing largely to the cost of screen technology. It’s a tough calculus, but that’s the price of innovation.

The rising cost of smartphones is largely regarded as a major contributing factor to flagging smartphone sales. Phones have gotten better and last longer, and with four-digit prices, users are far less compelled to upgrade every two years or so.

Samsung skips nine numbers, announces the Galaxy S20

Samsung knows this as well as anyone. Along with its usual array of budget phones, the company’s gone to great lengths to offer “budget flagships,” a relatively new category that aims to find the sweet spot between high-end features and less-impressive components, first through the S10e and now its new lite devices.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is decidedly not that. It’s a picture of smartphone opulence in an era of declining smartphone sales. It’s yet another new tier in the company’s ballooning flagship smartphone line(s) designed to reestablish Samsung’s place in the bleeding edge of mobile technologies, while appealing to those with a little extra money to spend in order to future-proof their devices.

“A little more” here being defined as starting at $1,399. Or $1,599, if you’re, say, feeling extra flush after your tax returns and looking to upgrade to 512GB from the default 128GB. As for what top of the line means these days, that, too, has changed. Samsung was ahead of the curve by introducing multiple 5G phones last year. At the time, the handsets were, understandably, confined to the top tier, due to both cost of hardware and the general lack of global coverage.

For 2020, it’s 5G across the board, on all S20 models, so the kitchen sink Ultra needs to find ways to further set itself apart from the S20+. There are a few keys areas in which the Ultra sets itself apart. First and most immediate is size. Along with increased prices, the other thing you can count on, like clockwork, is bigger displays. The good news is that Samsung’s hardware advances have kept the footprint roughly the size of the last generation of devices.

Samsung continues to impress on that front, this time sneaking a roomy 6.9-inch display into a 166.9 x 76 x 8.8 mm; compare that to the 162.6 x 77.1 x 7.9 mm on the 6.7-inch S10 5G. The thick profile is almost certainly due to a larger battery. The 4,500 mAh found on last year’s device and this year’s S20+ is upgraded to a beefy 5,000 mAh.

Samsung remains conservative with its own expected battery life, owing to power-hungry features like the big AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and the 5G radio. The company rates the phone as “all-day battery.” It’s a pretty nebulous phrase, all things considered. I suspect there’s still research to be done on the adverse impact of next-gen radios on battery life. With the default settings on (and little to no 5G, owing at least somewhat to some network issues), I found I got about 28 total hours on a charge.

[gallery ids="1951109,1951110,1951111,1951112,1951114"]

That certainly qualifies for the “all-day” mark, even if it’s a bit disappointing given the massive battery size. But it should definitely get you through a day and then some, with no issues. The other good news on that front is super-fast charging if you use the included wall adapter. I was able to go from zero to fully charged in just under a minute.

The design language is pretty much identical on all three S20s, and honestly, largely unchanged from last year’s model, though Samsung has moved to a hole-punch camera (a generous 40 megapixels for selfies) up front. Flip it around and the biggest difference is immediately apparent. The camera module on the Ultra is, well, ultra. There are four cameras back there, in a lip that occupies about a sixth of the phone’s total surface area.

The S20+’s more than adequate 12MP, 64MP telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight sensor have been bumped up to a 108MP main, 48MP 10x telephoto, 12MP ultra wide and time of flight. The ToF, mind you, is absent on the plain-old S20, bringing an added sense of depth for bokeh effects and fun tricks like 3D scanning. One also gets the sense that Samsung is very much laying the groundwork for an even stronger play in the AR world, extending beyond the current selection of AR emoji. Though, as with the rest of the industry, mainstream implementation is still slow going.

The biggest thing here — both figuratively and literally — is the telephoto. The camera features a folded telephoto, which is essentially turned on its side to fit the form factor. The camera is capable of a solid 10x hybrid zoom. Using a combination of the hardware and software, the company is able to achieve the 100x “Space Zoom,” versus the other models’ 30x max. It’s impressive all around, but important to note that the claims of “losslessness” only extend to 10x.

Beyond that, things start to degrade. And honestly, by the time you get to 100x, things start looking like a digital Monet painting. You can generally make out the objects, but in most cases, it’s probably not something you’re going to rush out to share on Instagram. For things like nosebleed seats at concerts or sporting events, however, sometimes it’s just enough to remember you’re there.

Honestly, though, I think Samsung is laying the groundwork for future updates, as it is with the ToF sensor. It’s easy to imagine how a 100x zoom coupled with some future imaging AI could lead to some pretty impressive telephoto shots, without the need for an external, optical lens. For now, however, it feels like more of a novelty. Honestly, a number of the upgrades over the S20+ feel a bit like excesses, and none but true devotees need to go all in with the Ultra.

My only momentary hesitation in recommending one of the lower-tier devices over the Ultra are questions of what happens to battery life when you dip below 5,000 mAh. The 120Hz screen is great for things like gaming, but for most users, I’d recommended keeping it off most of the time. That should buy you an extra couple of hours of life, switching to 120Hz when needed and back to 60 the rest of the time.

Ditto for the 108-megapixel camera. For most photos it makes sense to utilize pixel binning, which makes for a small 12-megapixel shot, but allows for a lot more light to be let in on a per pixel basis. Photo are brighter and sharper and the phone does better in low light. Also, the image isn’t gigantic — I forgot to swap the setting for a few photos and didn’t realize how massive they were until I sent them.

The best new photo feature, however, isn’t hardware at all. I’ve long posited that the key to a good imaging feature is simplicity. Cameras keep getting better and offer more features for those who want to shoot more professional photos on their mobile devices. That’s great, and if you’re Google, it means that the legendary Annie Leibovitz will show up to your launch event and sing your device’s praises.

But unless something works out of the box, it’s going to be of little use to a majority of consumers. Single Take is a clever addition to default camera settings that takes a whole bunch of different types of photos at once (provided you can stand still for 10 seconds). You get Live Focus, Timelapse and Ultra-Wide all at once. The camera saves everything to the roll, where you can choose the best image. It’s a larger file, but not huge in the grand scheme of things. For those who don’t want to be a digital hoarder, you can always just go in and manually delete them.

The biggest updates to the S20 line feel like future-proofing. Elements like like 5G, 100x zoom and 8K video record don’t always make a ton of sense as of this writing, but much of Samsung’s biggest plays have been centered around getting out in front of the curve. With 5G, for example, there are still coverage barriers, but with users holding onto their handsets for longer, it’s almost certain that the next-gen wireless technology will be ubiquitous before the time comes for many users to upgrade.

In its current state, however, charging $1,399 and up for the Ultra is a pretty hard ask. Thankfully, however, Samsung has more than enough options for users looking for something a little cheaper. It’s a list that now includes the S10 Lite line and newly discounted standard S10 devices. Features like 100x, on the other hand, are novel, but it’s hard to justify the premium.

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2SZrQza ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/

[mikemortgage]

Samsung Galaxy S10+ review: the best big phone in 2019 so far

As Samsung’s heaviest hitter in the Canadian market in 2019, the Galaxy S10+ sees tremendous improvements in display quality, camera, and software. A new stunning Dynamic OLED display aces colors and brightness, setting a new bar for smartphone displays. Performance is driven by the blazing Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset and up to 12GB of RAM, which translates to exceptional multitasking and gaming experiences. While camera quality is fantastic during the day, they falls short when things get dim. The biggest challenge, however, is pricing; even an entry model Galaxy S10+ costs CAD$1,419.99 – an ambitious pursuit for shallow wallets. Pros:

Eye-watering display

New ultra-wide angle camera

Fantastic battery life

Premium ceramic option

Punchhole camera>notch

Wireless charging and reverse charging

Improved software

Neat AI modes

Bixby button can now be remapped

Expandable storage

Still has the headphone jack

Cons:

Very expensive

Slow and inconsistent fingerprint sensor

Cluncky. Hard to take pictures with one hand

Ceramic option is distinctly heavier

Still carries some bloatware

Faster charger would be awesome

Bixby gets stumped by simple commands

Samsung Galaxy S10+ specifications

Galaxy S10e Galaxy S10 Galaxy S10+ Display size 5.8” FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2,280×1,080 6.1” QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 3,040×1,440 6.1” QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 3,040×1,440

Chipset

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

RAM 6GB / 8GB 8GB 8GB/12GB Storage 128GB / 256GB 128GB / 512GB 128GB / 512GB / 1TB Camera Rear:

12MP Wide angle

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Rear:

12MP Wide angle

12MP Telephoto

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Rear:

12MP Wide angle

12MP Telephoto

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Battery 3,100mAh 3,400mAh 4,100mAh Dimensions 142.2mm x 69.9mm x 7.9mm 149.9 x 70.4mm x 7.8mm 157.6mm x 74.1mm x 78.8mm Weight 150g 157g 175g (glass) / 198g (ceramic) Price Starting at $1,019.99 Starting at $1,259.99 Starting at $1,419.99

Design

The S10 series are encased in Gorilla Glass 6, Corning’s best glass yet. An unfortunate side effect is that the ultra-smooth surface and behemoth size makes it hard to grip without a case.

New year, new camera. The Galaxy S10 now has a 16MP ultra-wide angle camera in addition to the 12MP standard and 12MP telephoto cameras.

Ceramic color options are now available for those who prefer a less glossy finish. Our review unit is clad in Ceramic White, which is both less glossy and will more competently hide fingerprints. While many would undoubtedly appreciate the elegance in its simplicity, I personally feel like it’s a bit bland.

Whereas most phone manufacturers swiftly embraced the notch, Samsung vehemently defended the top bezel on their flagship devices. With the Galaxy S10+, it jumped from using a top bezel to a tiny pinhole front camera. Despite the mixed opinions on its design, there’s no doubt that it’s far less intrusive than notches.

The Galaxy S10+ has two front cameras: a 10MP dual-pixel image sensor and an 8MP depth sensor. Dual pixel just means that the phase detection autofocus (PDAF) sensing points have been integrated into the sensor.

A gentle curve extends from the edge of the display inwards, making swiping from the edge that much smoother. Colors distort slightly when pushed against the edge, but I didn’t find it glaring. An aluminum band encircles the device, occasionally interrupted by the antenna bands.

The volume rocker and the Bixby button are found on the phone’s right edge.

  The Galaxy S10+ creates stereo sound by combining the bottom mono speaker with the earpiece. Audio quality is great, and volume is easily loud enough for a small room.

Our good friend, headphone jack, is still here! Hurray!

The SIM tray accepts a nano SIM card and a microSD card, supplying the already copious internal storage with ample room to grow.

I’ve never been bothered by a phone’s weight until I held the ceramic Galaxy S10+. At 198g, the Galaxy S10+ feels like an anchor in my pocket even without a case.

Display

One of the biggest improvements to the Galaxy S10 phones is its new Dynamic AMOLED display. The Galaxy S10+, the biggest of the bunch, carries one that’s 6.4” with a 3,040 x 1,440p resolution.

Samsung’s new Dynamic AMOLED display is set to be Samsung’s best display technology to date. It not only covers 100 per cent of the DCI-P3 color space popular in films, but also boasts an impressive 1,200 nit peak brightness. On the Galaxy S10, Display Mate measured its fullscreen brightness to be 804 nits, which is a 17 per cent increase over the Galaxy S9+. It compensates for the increased power draw of the brighter display by using a more power efficient OLED material.

Despite boasting 100 per cent color gamut coverage, Samsung claims that it manages to reduce harmful blue light by 42 per cent. But wait. How can it retain the same color accuracy while removing colors? In a statement to CNET, Samsung says that previous displays actually supported color spectrums beyond DCI-P3, and that it simply dialed back on the blue light output to more closely fit the DCI-P3 guidelines.

In addition, it’s the first smartphone display to ever to support HDR10+, an HDR format endorsed by major streaming services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. Even more impressive, Dynamic AMOLED features sub-pixel rendering and dynamic tone mapping.

Subpixel design hasn’t changed, however; Dynamic AMOLED still uses an RGGB pentile subpixel layout. A traditional white pixel contains a red, green, and blue subpixel. In a pentile display, there are two green subpixels for every one white pixel.

The color difference is immediately apparent upon turning on the screen. In a side-by-side comparison against the Google Pixel 3 XL with Adaptive colors enabled, which is also renowned for its excellent display, the Galaxy S10+ is noticeably warmer at its “Normal” setting, but not overly so, like the iPhone X. It strikes the perfect middle ground between vibrancy and eyestrain. Their colors are simliar, however, even when displaying HDR content on YouTube.

Something most would consider baffling, the Galaxy S10+ omits the pre-installed screen protector found on the smaller Galaxy S10. Thinking a little deeper produces several possible explanations. Corning’s Gorilla Glass 6 is literally on the entire phone and is a major part of the experience you’ve paid for. Therefore, it simply doesn’t make sense to cover up the front, especially considering most users will buy a case to cover the back. And let’s face it: no aftermarket screen protector can match the quality of Gorilla Glass 6.

Camera

With form factor and design becoming relatively stagnant over the past few years, smartphone cameras are now the main differentiating factor that affects buying decision. Manufacturers are placing paramount focus on developing innovative ways to make their cameras stand out.

This year’s Galaxy carries a new 16MP ultra-wide angle lens alongside the 12MP standard wide-angle lens and 12MP telephoto lens. The ultra-wide lens encompasses 123-degree vision and an f/ 2.2 aperture. The other two sensors don’t seem to have changed all that much; resolution, aperture, and pixel pitch all remain identical to the Galaxy S9’s.

Thought it recycles a few old – albeit still excellent – sensors, Samsung says it has made strides in AI post-processing features that take full advantage of the chipset’s NPU. One prime example is scene optimizer where the camera detects the scene and suggests an optimal angle for the shot. When it doesn’t recognize the scene, it can at least try to level the phone.

On the flip side, the selfie cam now uses a new 10MP sensor, as well as an 8MP RGB depth sensor for better bokeh effects.

Rear Camera

Standard wide-angle

Maybe Samsung is confident in the phone’s AI capabilities, but the camera seems to favor a fast shutter speed and then performs touch-up in post. Just as with the Galaxy S9 series, the main sensor boasts impressive sharpness and excellent colors in good lighting. Unfortunately, the camera has trouble capturing fine detail in darker scenes and has a haziness that generally comes with aggressive denoising.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

Telephoto

The telephoto lens features a 2x optical zoom and can extend all the way up to 5x digital zoom. Like the main sensor, it does a great job under good lighting. OIS keeps the phone rock steady during shooting.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

Ultra-wide

Be careful with the new ultra-wide angle lens. Because of its super wide field of view, it can sometimes capture your fingertips without you realizing. While there’s barrel distortion, it can be corrected via the distortion correction in the camera app once enabled.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

What can’t be corrected is the weird color “silhouettes” in certain scenes. In the darker images below, there’s a clear difference between the sky’s color in the background versus between the gaps of the tree branches. I suppose this is due to the AI unable to apply color corrections to finer areas.

RAW vs JPEG

Photographers tend to shoot in uncompressed RAW image format to provide higher flexibility in post-processing software like Adobe Lightroom. While the Galaxy S10+ supports RAW shooting, it can only be toggled in Pro mode. When enabled, the phone does not apply any inherent post-processing and only saves the image data as they were shot. It captures a ton more detail than normal JPEG at the expense of larger file size and needing manual post processing.

Front Camera

The new dual-sensor front camera does an excellent job at applying depth of field effects around strands of my hair and didn’t blur out my clothes and kept my face in focus.

Performance

All Galaxy S10 series phones are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 SoC. It’s the first Qualcomm consumer chipset built on the 7nm transistor node and is designed to compete against Huawei’s Kirin 980 and Apple’s A12. Our review unit has 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage – enviable even by laptop standards – and can even be upgraded to 12GB and 1TB respectively.

Geekbench

In Geekbench, the Galaxy S10+ scored 3,474 in the single-core test and 10,890 in the multi-core test. While single-score sees only a marginal improvement over the Galaxy S9+, multi-core score is around 2,000 points higher. It also beats the Huawei Mate 20 Pro by 196 (5.9%) in single-core and 1,141 (11.7%) in multi-core.

PCMark Work 2.0

PCMark for Android is as real-world as synthetic benchmarks get. It runs the phone through a list of everyday business tasks includes writing, web browsing, video editing, and photo editing.

The Galaxy S10+ crushed it in PCMark Work benchmark, scoring an impressive 9,746 average. Compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 in the Google Pixel 3 XL, the biggest improvements were in the writing and web browsing categories, which saw a 1,482 (18%) and 1,655 (17%) jump respectively. The Galaxy S10+ also handily defeated the Huawei Mate 20 Pro’s Kirin 980, which scored a 7,709 average.

3DMark Slingshot Extreme

3DMark gauges the phone’s graphics processing ability and attempts to estimate how well it can handle 3D intensive workloads.

PCMark storage test

We’ve added a new benchmark to test for storage performance. It speaks to the phone’s ability to quickly restart, load apps, and retrieve files.

Software and Features

Whereas its hardware is excellent, Samsung’s software hasn’t been favored in the Android community. Many consider it to be way too bloated, and the plethora of default Samsung apps irks Android purists as well. In addition, Samsung phones are always the latecomers in receiving Android feature and security updates.

Since then, Samsung has been committed to solving its software’s reputation by launching its One UI initiative. One UI aims to improve UI flow, unifying app and icon aesthetics, and presenting the most important information first.

And the efforts have definitely paid off. App icons look more unified, and despite being inundated with features, the most important ones are clearly labeled and intuitive to find. Some advanced features like Secure Folder and Dual Apps are now more easily accessible and configurable.

Several other features are also refreshing and helpful. Download Booster, for example, couples Wi-Fi and mobile data together for faster download speeds in Google Play Store. MIrrorLink can mirror the phone’s screen onto your car’s display via a USB cable. Video Enhancer automatically increases color and brightness when watching videos.

Regrettably, One UI didn’t lose much bloat; it still comes bundled with a bunch of things many users won’t ever touch beyond the initial setup. The Galaxy Store, Theme Store, and Game Launcher are just a few of the unneeded extras. It even has McAfee antivirus built-in, which is (thankfully) disabled by default. With that said, Samsung Pay is the lone exception, as it’s incredibly handy if you have a compatible card like the Tangerine Cash Back rewards card.

One UI also incessantly tries to shove other Samsung services down your throat, and heavily insists that you sign up for a Samsung Account, which enables features like Samsung Cloud and Samsung pass, none of which are needed by most users. I was peppered with its notifications daily, forcing me to mute it manually.

Bixby, Samsung’s beloved voice assistant, is back, and it’s still mapped to a physical button. This time around, however, it lets users remap the button to perform other more useful tasks like launching the calculator or the camera app. You’ll need to keep Bixby enabled as a prerequisite to remapping, though.

Our third run-in with Bixby still leaves much to be desired. It couldn’t understand what I was trying to say when I asked it to show me restaurants in my area. Ask it to play music Spotify, and it will try its best to convince you that Samsung Music is what you need. Hilarious.

What happens when you ask Bixby to play music on Spotify.

Samsung is finally ending awkwardly placed fingerprint sensors by embedding it in the display. Samsung claims that instead of capturing a 2D image of your fingerprint, its ultrasonic fingerprint sensor builds a 3D map that accounts for your fingerprint’s valleys and peaks, and should therefore be nearly impossible to fake.

In my experience, the in-display fingerprint sensor is very inconsistent, often having trouble recognizing my thumb at an off-angle and requiring multiple attempts to register.

Battery Life

With a giant 4,100mAh battery, it’s unsurprising that the Galaxy S10+ produced 7 hours of screen-on time across nearly two days. My daily workload involves composing emails, editing Google Doc files, web browsing, managing social media, and streaming videos. Most apps I use are in dark mode, which helps save battery in OLED devices. Location services are enabled while NFC and Bluetooth are turned-on sporadically.

One thing that could improve the experience is a faster charger. Samsung’s adaptive charger can deliver up to 15W of power, 3W shy of Qualcomm’s QuickCharge 4.0. At this pace, it takes almost two hours to charge the phone from zero to 100 per cent. The silver lining is that thanks to its tremendous battery, you won’t have to plug it into the wall as frequently.

In addition to capping the processor clock speed in power saving mode, it also lowers the display’s resolution. Because One UI is based on Android 9, it also takes advantage of Google’s Adaptive Battery power saving feature.

Pricing and competition

All aspects of the Galaxy S10+ screams premium – including its price. For Canadian customers, an unlocked device runs for CAD$1,419.99 and comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Samsung charges CAD$1,749.99 for 512GB storage, and a whopping CAD$2,209.99 for 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

The Galaxy S10 series is one of the first phones to feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. As such, competition in the performance front is relatively thin, and most phones are either from China – which are hard to get or haven’t been released yet.

But competition is looming on the horizon. 2019 will see an impressive roster of big flagship phones like the LG V40, Huawei P30 Pro, Sony Xperia 1, and the OnePlus 7. A few Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi have already released its version of Snapdragon 855 equipped devices, they’re just harder to get in North America.

Apple’s current flagship can also put up some fight against the Galaxy S10+. Despite its improved performance, the Galaxy S10+ still trails the iPhone XS Max’s A12 Bionic chipset. Familiarity wit the operating system makes a difference, too; some users rely on iOS apps to get through their workday. The Galaxy S10+ has a distinct edge in camera quality, AI capability, and a superior display.

The newly released Huawei P30 Pro is currently the closest matchup against the Galaxy S10+. While I’m not expecting its HiSilicon Kirin 980 processor to crush any benchmarks, its camera system is extremely impressive. The starting configuration comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB for $220 less. One area it does seem to underperform in is the display. I’m still going through the motions on evaluating the P30 Pro, but at the moment, it seems like an extremely strong contender to the Galaxy S10+.

Conclusion

Driven by a new gorgeous display, a new camera system, and Qualcomm’s new chip, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ is the best performing phone released in 2019 so far. It also creatively eliminates the top bezel by using an unobtrusive punch hole front cam. Internal software and AI improvements refine the overall usability, and new ceramic material and color options are welcoming, too, albeit at the cost of added weight.

A new ultra-wide camera finally lets users effortlessly capture stunning landscape photos. Although all three lenses produce fantastic images when lighting is good, they still trail behind the Pixel 3 XL in bad lighting conditions.

Starting at CAD$1,419, pricing is the biggest deterrent for the Galaxy S10+. It’s not short of new features, but I say hold off on upgrading if you got the previous year’s Galaxy S9+ lest you desperately need the beautiful display and the extra camera for some reason. With that said, for the first-time buyer who needs the phone that does it all and has the cash to burn, then the Galaxy S10+ is a no-brainer.

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2IsRYNQ via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[sheminecrafts]

The new iPhone is ugly

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit old-fashioned when it comes to phones. Everyone scoffs at my iPhone SE, but the truth is it’s the best phone Apple ever made — a beautiful, well designed object in just about every way. But damn is the iPhone 11 Pro ugly. And so are the newest phones from Samsung and Google, while we’re at it.

Let’s just get right to why the new iPhones are ugly, front and back. And sideways. We can start with the notch. Obviously it’s not new, but I thought maybe this would be some kind of generational anomaly that we’d all look back and laugh at in a year or two. Apparently it’s sticking around.

I know a lot of people have justified the notch to themselves in various ways — it technically means more raw screen space, it accommodates the carrier and battery icons, it’s necessary for unlocking the phone with your face.

Yeah, but it’s ugly.

If they removed the notch, literally no one would want the version with the notch, because it’s so plainly and universally undesirable. If Apple’s engineers could figure out a way to have no notch, they’d have done it by now, but they can’t and I bet they are extremely frustrated by that. They try to hide it with the special notch-camouflaging wallpaper whenever they can, which is as much as saying, “hey, we hate looking at it too.”

You can forget for a few seconds. But in the back of your mind you know it’s there. Everyone knows.

It’s a prominent, ugly compromise (among several) necessitated by a feature no one asked for and people can’t seem to figure out if they even like or not. Notches are horrible and any time you see one, it means a designer cried themselves to sleep. To be fair that probably happens quite a bit. I grew up around designers and they can be pretty sensitive, like me.

I’m not a big fan of the rounded screen corners for a couple reasons, but I’ll let that go because I envision a future where it doesn’t matter. You remember how in Battlestar Galactica the corners were clipped off all the paper? We’re on our way.

Having the screen extend to the very edge of the device on the other hand isn’t exactly ugly, but it’s ugly in spirit. The whole front of the phone is an interface now, which would be fine if it could tell when you were gripping the screen for leverage and not to do something with it. As it is, every side and corner has some kind of dedicated gesture that you have to be wary of activating. It’s so bad people have literally invented a thing that sticks out from the back of your phone so you can hold it that way. Popsockets wouldn’t be necessary if you could safely hold your phone the way you’d hold any other object that shape.

  The back is ugly now, too. Man, is that camera bump bad. Bump is really the wrong word. It looks like the iPhone design team took a field trip to a maritime history museum, saw the deep sea diving helmets, and thought, Boom. That’s what we need. Portholes. To make our phone look like it could descend to 4,000 fathoms. Those helmets are actually really cool looking when they’re big and made of strong, weathered brass. Not on a thin, fragile piece of electronics. Here it’s just a huge, chunky combination of soft squares and weirdly arranged circles — five of them! — that completely take over the otherwise featureless rear side of the phone.

The back of the SE is designed to mirror the front, with a corresponding top and bottom “bezel.” In the best looking SE (mine) the black top bezel almost completely hides the existence of the camera (unfortunately there’s a visible flash unit); it makes the object more like an unbroken solid, its picture-taking abilities more magical. The camera is completely flush with the surface of the back, which is itself completely flush except for texture changes.

The back of the iPhone 11 Pro has a broad plain, upon which sits the slightly higher plateau of the camera assembly. Above that rise the three different little camera volcanoes, and above each of those the little calderas of the lenses. And below them the sunken well of the microphone. Five different height levels, producing a dozen different heights and edges! Admittedly the elevations aren’t so high, but still.

If it was a dedicated camera or another device that by design needed and used peaks and valleys for grip or eyes-free navigation, that would be one thing. But the iPhone is meant to be smooth, beautiful, have a nice handfeel. With this topographic map of Hawaii on the back? Have fun cleaning out the grime from in between the volcanoes, then knocking the edge of the lens against a table as you slide the phone into your hand.

Plus it’s ugly.

The sides of the phones aren’t as bad as the front and back, but we’ve lost a lot since the days of the SE. The geometric simplicity of the + and – buttons, the hard chamfered edge that gave you a sure grip, the black belts that boldly divided the sides into two strips and two bows. And amazingly, due to being made of actual metal, the more drops an SE survives, the cooler it looks.

The sides of the new iPhones look like bumpers from cheap model cars. They look like elongated jelly beans, with smaller jelly beans stuck on that you’re supposed to touch. Gross.

That’s probably enough about Apple. They forgot about good design a long time ago, but the latest phones were too ugly not to call out.

Samsung has a lot of the same problems as Apple. Everyone has to have an “edge to edge” display now, and the Galaxy S10 is no exception. But it doesn’t really go to the edge, does it? There’s a little bezel on the top and bottom, but the bottom one is a little bigger. I suppose it reveals the depths of my neurosis to say so, but that would never stop bugging me if I had one. If it was a lot bigger, like HTC’s old “chins,” I’d take it as a deliberate design feature, but just a little bigger? That just means they couldn’t make one small enough.

As for the display slipping over the edges, it’s cool looking in product photos, but I’ve never found it attractive in real life. What’s the point? And then from anywhere other than straight on, it makes it look more lopsided, or like you’re missing something on the far side.

Meanwhile it not only has bezels and sometime curves, but a hole punched out of the front. Oh my god!

Here’s the thing about a notch. When you realize as a phone designer that you’re going to have to take over a big piece of the front, you also look at what part of the screen it leaves untouched. In Apple’s case it’s the little horns on either side — great, you can at least put the status info there. There might have been a little bit left above the front camera and Face ID stuff, but what can you do with a handful of vertical pixels? Nothing. It’ll just be a distraction. Usually there was nothing interesting in the middle anyway. So you just cut it all out and go full notch.

Samsung on the other hand decided to put the camera in the top right, and keep a worthless little rind of screen all around it. What good is that part of the display now? It’s too small to show anything useful, yet the hole is too big to ignore while you’re watching full-screen content. If their aim was to make something smaller and yet even more disruptive than a notch, mission accomplished. It’s ugly on all the S10s, but the big wide notch-hole combo on the S10 5G 6.7″ phablet is the ugliest.

The decision to put all the rear cameras in a long window, like the press box at a hockey game, is a bold one. There’s really not much you can do to hide 3 giant lenses, a flash, and that other thing. Might as well put them front and center, set off with a black background and chrome rim straight out of 2009. Looks like something you’d get pointed at you at the airport. At least the scale matches the big wide “SAMSUNG” on the back. Bold — but ugly.

Google’s Pixel 4 isn’t as bad, but it’s got its share of ugly. I don’t need to spend too much time on it, though, because it’s a lot of the same, except in pumpkin orange for Halloween season. I like the color orange generally, but I’m not sure about this one. Looks like a seasonal special phone you pick up in a blister pack from the clearance shelf at Target, the week before Black Friday — two for $99, on some cut-rate MVNO. Maybe it’s better in person, but I’d be afraid some kid would take a bite out of my phone thinking it’s a creamsicle.

The lopsided bezels on the front are worse than the Samsung’s, but at least it looks deliberate. Like they wanted to imply their phone is smart so they gave it a really prominent forehead.

  I will say that of the huge, ugly camera assemblies, the Pixel’s is the best. It’s more subtle, like being slapped in the face instead of kicked in the shins so hard you die. And the diamond pattern is more attractive for sure. Given the square (ish) base, I’m surprised someone on the team at Google had the rather unorthodox idea to rotate the cameras 45 degrees. Technically it produces more wasted space, but it looks better than four circles making a square inside a bigger, round square.

And it looks a hell of a lot better than three circles in a triangle, with two smaller circles just kind of hanging out there, inside a bigger, round square. That iPhone is ugly!

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[technicalsolutions88]

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit old-fashioned when it comes to phones. Everyone scoffs at my iPhone SE, but the truth is it’s the best phone Apple ever made — a beautiful, well designed object in just about every way. But damn is the iPhone 11 Pro ugly. And so are the newest phones from Samsung and Google, while we’re at it.

Let’s just get right to why the new iPhones are ugly, front and back. And sideways. We can start with the notch. Obviously it’s not new, but I thought maybe this would be some kind of generational anomaly that we’d all look back and laugh at in a year or two. Apparently it’s sticking around.

I know a lot of people have justified the notch to themselves in various ways — it technically means more raw screen space, it accommodates the carrier and battery icons, it’s necessary for unlocking the phone with your face.

Yeah, but it’s ugly.

If they removed the notch, literally no one would want the version with the notch, because it’s so plainly and universally undesirable. If Apple’s engineers could figure out a way to have no notch, they’d have done it by now, but they can’t and I bet they are extremely frustrated by that. They try to hide it with the special notch-camouflaging wallpaper whenever they can, which is as much as saying, “hey, we hate looking at it too.”

You can forget for a few seconds. But in the back of your mind you know it’s there. Everyone knows.

It’s a prominent, ugly compromise (among several) necessitated by a feature no one asked for and people can’t seem to figure out if they even like or not. Notches are horrible and any time you see one, it means a designer cried themselves to sleep. To be fair that probably happens quite a bit. I grew up around designers and they can be pretty sensitive, like me.

I’m not a big fan of the rounded screen corners for a couple reasons, but I’ll let that go because I envision a future where it doesn’t matter. You remember how in Battlestar Galactica the corners were clipped off all the paper? We’re on our way.

Having the screen extend to the very edge of the device on the other hand isn’t exactly ugly, but it’s ugly in spirit. The whole front of the phone is an interface now, which would be fine if it could tell when you were gripping the screen for leverage and not to do something with it. As it is, every side and corner has some kind of dedicated gesture that you have to be wary of activating. It’s so bad people have literally invented a thing that sticks out from the back of your phone so you can hold it that way. Popsockets wouldn’t be necessary if you could safely hold your phone the way you’d hold any other object that shape.

  The back is ugly now, too. Man, is that camera bump bad. Bump is really the wrong word. It looks like the iPhone design team took a field trip to a maritime history museum, saw the deep sea diving helmets, and thought, Boom. That’s what we need. Portholes. To make our phone look like it could descend to 4,000 fathoms. Those helmets are actually really cool looking when they’re big and made of strong, weathered brass. Not on a thin, fragile piece of electronics. Here it’s just a huge, chunky combination of soft squares and weirdly arranged circles — five of them! — that completely take over the otherwise featureless rear side of the phone.

The back of the SE is designed to mirror the front, with a corresponding top and bottom “bezel.” In the best looking SE (mine) the black top bezel almost completely hides the existence of the camera (unfortunately there’s a visible flash unit); it makes the object more like an unbroken solid, its picture-taking abilities more magical. The camera is completely flush with the surface of the back, which is itself completely flush except for texture changes.

The back of the iPhone 11 Pro has a broad plain, upon which sits the slightly higher plateau of the camera assembly. Above that rise the three different little camera volcanoes, and above each of those the little calderas of the lenses. And below them the sunken well of the microphone. Five different height levels, producing a dozen different heights and edges! Admittedly the elevations aren’t so high, but still.

If it was a dedicated camera or another device that by design needed and used peaks and valleys for grip or eyes-free navigation, that would be one thing. But the iPhone is meant to be smooth, beautiful, have a nice handfeel. With this topographic map of Hawaii on the back? Have fun cleaning out the grime from in between the volcanoes, then knocking the edge of the lens against a table as you slide the phone into your hand.

Plus it’s ugly.

The sides of the phones aren’t as bad as the front and back, but we’ve lost a lot since the days of the SE. The geometric simplicity of the + and – buttons, the hard chamfered edge that gave you a sure grip, the black belts that boldly divided the sides into two strips and two bows. And amazingly, due to being made of actual metal, the more drops an SE survives, the cooler it looks.

The sides of the new iPhones look like bumpers from cheap model cars. They look like elongated jelly beans, with smaller jelly beans stuck on that you’re supposed to touch. Gross.

That’s probably enough about Apple. They forgot about good design a long time ago, but the latest phones were too ugly not to call out.

Samsung has a lot of the same problems as Apple. Everyone has to have an “edge to edge” display now, and the Galaxy S10 is no exception. But it doesn’t really go to the edge, does it? There’s a little bezel on the top and bottom, but the bottom one is a little bigger. I suppose it reveals the depths of my neurosis to say so, but that would never stop bugging me if I had one. If it was a lot bigger, like HTC’s old “chins,” I’d take it as a deliberate design feature, but just a little bigger? That just means they couldn’t make one small enough.

As for the display slipping over the edges, it’s cool looking in product photos, but I’ve never found it attractive in real life. What’s the point? And then from anywhere other than straight on, it makes it look more lopsided, or like you’re missing something on the far side.

Meanwhile it not only has bezels and sometime curves, but a hole punched out of the front. Oh my god!

Here’s the thing about a notch. When you realize as a phone designer that you’re going to have to take over a big piece of the front, you also look at what part of the screen it leaves untouched. In Apple’s case it’s the little horns on either side — great, you can at least put the status info there. There might have been a little bit left above the front camera and Face ID stuff, but what can you do with a handful of vertical pixels? Nothing. It’ll just be a distraction. Usually there was nothing interesting in the middle anyway. So you just cut it all out and go full notch.

Samsung on the other hand decided to put the camera in the top right, and keep a worthless little rind of screen all around it. What good is that part of the display now? It’s too small to show anything useful, yet the hole is too big to ignore while you’re watching full-screen content. If their aim was to make something smaller and yet even more disruptive than a notch, mission accomplished. It’s ugly on all the S10s, but the big wide notch-hole combo on the S10 5G 6.7″ phablet is the ugliest.

The decision to put all the rear cameras in a long window, like the press box at a hockey game, is a bold one. There’s really not much you can do to hide 3 giant lenses, a flash, and that other thing. Might as well put them front and center, set off with a black background and chrome rim straight out of 2009. Looks like something you’d get pointed at you at the airport. At least the scale matches the big wide “SAMSUNG” on the back. Bold — but ugly.

Google’s Pixel 4 isn’t as bad, but it’s got its share of ugly. I don’t need to spend too much time on it, though, because it’s a lot of the same, except in pumpkin orange for Halloween season. I like the color orange generally, but I’m not sure about this one. Looks like a seasonal special phone you pick up in a blister pack from the clearance shelf at Target, the week before Black Friday — two for $99, on some cut-rate MVNO. Maybe it’s better in person, but I’d be afraid some kid would take a bite out of my phone thinking it’s a creamsicle.

The lopsided bezels on the front are worse than the Samsung’s, but at least it looks deliberate. Like they wanted to imply their phone is smart so they gave it a really prominent forehead.

  I will say that of the huge, ugly camera assemblies, the Pixel’s is the best. It’s more subtle, like being slapped in the face instead of kicked in the shins so hard you die. And the diamond pattern is more attractive for sure. Given the square (ish) base, I’m surprised someone on the team at Google had the rather unorthodox idea to rotate the cameras 45 degrees. Technically it produces more wasted space, but it looks better than four circles making a square inside a bigger, round square.

And it looks a hell of a lot better than three circles in a triangle, with two smaller circles just kind of hanging out there, inside a bigger, round square. That iPhone is ugly!

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/31uN4pN ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/

[mikemortgage]

Samsung Galaxy S10+ review: the best big phone in 2019 so far

As Samsung’s heaviest hitter in the Canadian market in 2019, the Galaxy S10+ sees tremendous improvements in display quality, camera, and software. A new stunning Dynamic OLED display aces colors and brightness, setting a new bar for smartphone displays. Performance is driven by the blazing Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset and up to 12GB of RAM, which translates to exceptional multitasking and gaming experiences. While camera quality is fantastic during the day, they falls short when things get dim. The biggest challenge, however, is pricing; even an entry model Galaxy S10+ costs CAD$1,419.99 – an ambitious pursuit for shallow wallets. Pros:

Eye-watering display

New ultra-wide angle camera

Fantastic battery life

Premium ceramic option

Punchhole camera>notch

Wireless charging and reverse charging

Improved software

Neat AI modes

Bixby button can now be remapped

Expandable storage

Still has the headphone jack

Cons:

Very expensive

Slow and inconsistent fingerprint sensor

Cluncky. Hard to take pictures with one hand

Ceramic option is distinctly heavier

Still carries some bloatware

Faster charger would be awesome

Bixby gets stumped by simple commands

Samsung Galaxy S10+ specifications

Galaxy S10e Galaxy S10 Galaxy S10+ Display size 5.8” FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2,280×1,080 6.1” QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 3,040×1,440 6.1” QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 3,040×1,440

Chipset

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

RAM 6GB / 8GB 8GB 8GB/12GB Storage 128GB / 256GB 128GB / 512GB 128GB / 512GB / 1TB Camera Rear:

12MP Wide angle

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Rear:

12MP Wide angle

12MP Telephoto

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Rear:

12MP Wide angle

12MP Telephoto

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Battery 3,100mAh 3,400mAh 4,100mAh Dimensions 142.2mm x 69.9mm x 7.9mm 149.9 x 70.4mm x 7.8mm 157.6mm x 74.1mm x 78.8mm Weight 150g 157g 175g (glass) / 198g (ceramic) Price Starting at $1,019.99 Starting at $1,259.99 Starting at $1,419.99

Design

The S10 series are encased in Gorilla Glass 6, Corning’s best glass yet. An unfortunate side effect is that the ultra-smooth surface and behemoth size makes it hard to grip without a case.

New year, new camera. The Galaxy S10 now has a 16MP ultra-wide angle camera in addition to the 12MP standard and 12MP telephoto cameras.

Ceramic color options are now available for those who prefer a less glossy finish. Our review unit is clad in Ceramic White, which is both less glossy and will more competently hide fingerprints. While many would undoubtedly appreciate the elegance in its simplicity, I personally feel like it’s a bit bland.

Whereas most phone manufacturers swiftly embraced the notch, Samsung vehemently defended the top bezel on their flagship devices. With the Galaxy S10+, it jumped from using a top bezel to a tiny pinhole front camera. Despite the mixed opinions on its design, there’s no doubt that it’s far less intrusive than notches.

The Galaxy S10+ has two front cameras: a 10MP dual-pixel image sensor and an 8MP depth sensor. Dual pixel just means that the phase detection autofocus (PDAF) sensing points have been integrated into the sensor.

A gentle curve extends from the edge of the display inwards, making swiping from the edge that much smoother. Colors distort slightly when pushed against the edge, but I didn’t find it glaring. An aluminum band encircles the device, occasionally interrupted by the antenna bands.

The volume rocker and the Bixby button are found on the phone’s right edge.

  The Galaxy S10+ creates stereo sound by combining the bottom mono speaker with the earpiece. Audio quality is great, and volume is easily loud enough for a small room.

Our good friend, headphone jack, is still here! Hurray!

The SIM tray accepts a nano SIM card and a microSD card, supplying the already copious internal storage with ample room to grow.

I’ve never been bothered by a phone’s weight until I held the ceramic Galaxy S10+. At 198g, the Galaxy S10+ feels like an anchor in my pocket even without a case.

Display

One of the biggest improvements to the Galaxy S10 phones is its new Dynamic AMOLED display. The Galaxy S10+, the biggest of the bunch, carries one that’s 6.4” with a 3,040 x 1,440p resolution.

Samsung’s new Dynamic AMOLED display is set to be Samsung’s best display technology to date. It not only covers 100 per cent of the DCI-P3 color space popular in films, but also boasts an impressive 1,200 nit peak brightness. On the Galaxy S10, Display Mate measured its fullscreen brightness to be 804 nits, which is a 17 per cent increase over the Galaxy S9+. It compensates for the increased power draw of the brighter display by using a more power efficient OLED material.

Despite boasting 100 per cent color gamut coverage, Samsung claims that it manages to reduce harmful blue light by 42 per cent. But wait. How can it retain the same color accuracy while removing colors? In a statement to CNET, Samsung says that previous displays actually supported color spectrums beyond DCI-P3, and that it simply dialed back on the blue light output to more closely fit the DCI-P3 guidelines.

In addition, it’s the first smartphone display to ever to support HDR10+, an HDR format endorsed by major streaming services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. Even more impressive, Dynamic AMOLED features sub-pixel rendering and dynamic tone mapping.

Subpixel design hasn’t changed, however; Dynamic AMOLED still uses an RGGB pentile subpixel layout. A traditional white pixel contains a red, green, and blue subpixel. In a pentile display, there are two green subpixels for every one white pixel.

The color difference is immediately apparent upon turning on the screen. In a side-by-side comparison against the Google Pixel 3 XL with Adaptive colors enabled, which is also renowned for its excellent display, the Galaxy S10+ is noticeably warmer at its “Normal” setting, but not overly so, like the iPhone X. It strikes the perfect middle ground between vibrancy and eyestrain. Their colors are simliar, however, even when displaying HDR content on YouTube.

Something most would consider baffling, the Galaxy S10+ omits the pre-installed screen protector found on the smaller Galaxy S10. Thinking a little deeper produces several possible explanations. Corning’s Gorilla Glass 6 is literally on the entire phone and is a major part of the experience you’ve paid for. Therefore, it simply doesn’t make sense to cover up the front, especially considering most users will buy a case to cover the back. And let’s face it: no aftermarket screen protector can match the quality of Gorilla Glass 6.

Camera

With form factor and design becoming relatively stagnant over the past few years, smartphone cameras are now the main differentiating factor that affects buying decision. Manufacturers are placing paramount focus on developing innovative ways to make their cameras stand out.

This year’s Galaxy carries a new 16MP ultra-wide angle lens alongside the 12MP standard wide-angle lens and 12MP telephoto lens. The ultra-wide lens encompasses 123-degree vision and an f/ 2.2 aperture. The other two sensors don’t seem to have changed all that much; resolution, aperture, and pixel pitch all remain identical to the Galaxy S9’s.

Thought it recycles a few old – albeit still excellent – sensors, Samsung says it has made strides in AI post-processing features that take full advantage of the chipset’s NPU. One prime example is scene optimizer where the camera detects the scene and suggests an optimal angle for the shot. When it doesn’t recognize the scene, it can at least try to level the phone.

On the flip side, the selfie cam now uses a new 10MP sensor, as well as an 8MP RGB depth sensor for better bokeh effects.

Rear Camera

Standard wide-angle

Maybe Samsung is confident in the phone’s AI capabilities, but the camera seems to favor a fast shutter speed and then performs touch-up in post. Just as with the Galaxy S9 series, the main sensor boasts impressive sharpness and excellent colors in good lighting. Unfortunately, the camera has trouble capturing fine detail in darker scenes and has a haziness that generally comes with aggressive denoising.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

Telephoto

The telephoto lens features a 2x optical zoom and can extend all the way up to 5x digital zoom. Like the main sensor, it does a great job under good lighting. OIS keeps the phone rock steady during shooting.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

Ultra-wide

Be careful with the new ultra-wide angle lens. Because of its super wide field of view, it can sometimes capture your fingertips without you realizing. While there’s barrel distortion, it can be corrected via the distortion correction in the camera app once enabled.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

What can’t be corrected is the weird color “silhouettes” in certain scenes. In the darker images below, there’s a clear difference between the sky’s color in the background versus between the gaps of the tree branches. I suppose this is due to the AI unable to apply color corrections to finer areas.

RAW vs JPEG

Photographers tend to shoot in uncompressed RAW image format to provide higher flexibility in post-processing software like Adobe Lightroom. While the Galaxy S10+ supports RAW shooting, it can only be toggled in Pro mode. When enabled, the phone does not apply any inherent post-processing and only saves the image data as they were shot. It captures a ton more detail than normal JPEG at the expense of larger file size and needing manual post processing.

Front Camera

The new dual-sensor front camera does an excellent job at applying depth of field effects around strands of my hair and didn’t blur out my clothes and kept my face in focus.

Performance

All Galaxy S10 series phones are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 SoC. It’s the first Qualcomm consumer chipset built on the 7nm transistor node and is designed to compete against Huawei’s Kirin 980 and Apple’s A12. Our review unit has 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage – enviable even by laptop standards – and can even be upgraded to 12GB and 1TB respectively.

Geekbench

In Geekbench, the Galaxy S10+ scored 3,474 in the single-core test and 10,890 in the multi-core test. While single-score sees only a marginal improvement over the Galaxy S9+, multi-core score is around 2,000 points higher. It also beats the Huawei Mate 20 Pro by 196 (5.9%) in single-core and 1,141 (11.7%) in multi-core.

PCMark Work 2.0

PCMark for Android is as real-world as synthetic benchmarks get. It runs the phone through a list of everyday business tasks includes writing, web browsing, video editing, and photo editing.

The Galaxy S10+ crushed it in PCMark Work benchmark, scoring an impressive 9,746 average. Compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 in the Google Pixel 3 XL, the biggest improvements were in the writing and web browsing categories, which saw a 1,482 (18%) and 1,655 (17%) jump respectively. The Galaxy S10+ also handily defeated the Huawei Mate 20 Pro’s Kirin 980, which scored a 7,709 average.

3DMark Slingshot Extreme

3DMark gauges the phone’s graphics processing ability and attempts to estimate how well it can handle 3D intensive workloads.

PCMark storage test

We’ve added a new benchmark to test for storage performance. It speaks to the phone’s ability to quickly restart, load apps, and retrieve files.

Software and Features

Whereas its hardware is excellent, Samsung’s software hasn’t been favored in the Android community. Many consider it to be way too bloated, and the plethora of default Samsung apps irks Android purists as well. In addition, Samsung phones are always the latecomers in receiving Android feature and security updates.

Since then, Samsung has been committed to solving its software’s reputation by launching its One UI initiative. One UI aims to improve UI flow, unifying app and icon aesthetics, and presenting the most important information first.

And the efforts have definitely paid off. App icons look more unified, and despite being inundated with features, the most important ones are clearly labeled and intuitive to find. Some advanced features like Secure Folder and Dual Apps are now more easily accessible and configurable.

Several other features are also refreshing and helpful. Download Booster, for example, couples Wi-Fi and mobile data together for faster download speeds in Google Play Store. MIrrorLink can mirror the phone’s screen onto your car’s display via a USB cable. Video Enhancer automatically increases color and brightness when watching videos.

Regrettably, One UI didn’t lose much bloat; it still comes bundled with a bunch of things many users won’t ever touch beyond the initial setup. The Galaxy Store, Theme Store, and Game Launcher are just a few of the unneeded extras. It even has McAfee antivirus built-in, which is (thankfully) disabled by default. With that said, Samsung Pay is the lone exception, as it’s incredibly handy if you have a compatible card like the Tangerine Cash Back rewards card.

One UI also incessantly tries to shove other Samsung services down your throat, and heavily insists that you sign up for a Samsung Account, which enables features like Samsung Cloud and Samsung pass, none of which are needed by most users. I was peppered with its notifications daily, forcing me to mute it manually.

Bixby, Samsung’s beloved voice assistant, is back, and it’s still mapped to a physical button. This time around, however, it lets users remap the button to perform other more useful tasks like launching the calculator or the camera app. You’ll need to keep Bixby enabled as a prerequisite to remapping, though.

Our third run-in with Bixby still leaves much to be desired. It couldn’t understand what I was trying to say when I asked it to show me restaurants in my area. Ask it to play music Spotify, and it will try its best to convince you that Samsung Music is what you need. Hilarious.

What happens when you ask Bixby to play music on Spotify.

Samsung is finally ending awkwardly placed fingerprint sensors by embedding it in the display. Samsung claims that instead of capturing a 2D image of your fingerprint, its ultrasonic fingerprint sensor builds a 3D map that accounts for your fingerprint’s valleys and peaks, and should therefore be nearly impossible to fake.

In my experience, the in-display fingerprint sensor is very inconsistent, often having trouble recognizing my thumb at an off-angle and requiring multiple attempts to register.

Battery Life

With a giant 4,100mAh battery, it’s unsurprising that the Galaxy S10+ produced 7 hours of screen-on time across nearly two days. My daily workload involves composing emails, editing Google Doc files, web browsing, managing social media, and streaming videos. Most apps I use are in dark mode, which helps save battery in OLED devices. Location services are enabled while NFC and Bluetooth are turned-on sporadically.

One thing that could improve the experience is a faster charger. Samsung’s adaptive charger can deliver up to 15W of power, 3W shy of Qualcomm’s QuickCharge 4.0. At this pace, it takes almost two hours to charge the phone from zero to 100 per cent. The silver lining is that thanks to its tremendous battery, you won’t have to plug it into the wall as frequently.

In addition to capping the processor clock speed in power saving mode, it also lowers the display’s resolution. Because One UI is based on Android 9, it also takes advantage of Google’s Adaptive Battery power saving feature.

Pricing and competition

All aspects of the Galaxy S10+ screams premium – including its price. For Canadian customers, an unlocked device runs for CAD$1,419.99 and comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Samsung charges CAD$1,749.99 for 512GB storage, and a whopping CAD$2,209.99 for 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

The Galaxy S10 series is one of the first phones to feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. As such, competition in the performance front is relatively thin, and most phones are either from China – which are hard to get or haven’t been released yet.

But competition is looming on the horizon. 2019 will see an impressive roster of big flagship phones like the LG V40, Huawei P30 Pro, Sony Xperia 1, and the OnePlus 7. A few Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi have already released its version of Snapdragon 855 equipped devices, they’re just harder to get in North America.

Apple’s current flagship can also put up some fight against the Galaxy S10+. Despite its improved performance, the Galaxy S10+ still trails the iPhone XS Max’s A12 Bionic chipset. Familiarity wit the operating system makes a difference, too; some users rely on iOS apps to get through their workday. The Galaxy S10+ has a distinct edge in camera quality, AI capability, and a superior display.

The newly released Huawei P30 Pro is currently the closest matchup against the Galaxy S10+. While I’m not expecting its HiSilicon Kirin 980 processor to crush any benchmarks, its camera system is extremely impressive. The starting configuration comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB for $220 less. One area it does seem to underperform in is the display. I’m still going through the motions on evaluating the P30 Pro, but at the moment, it seems like an extremely strong contender to the Galaxy S10+.

Conclusion

Driven by a new gorgeous display, a new camera system, and Qualcomm’s new chip, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ is the best performing phone released in 2019 so far. It also creatively eliminates the top bezel by using an unobtrusive punch hole front cam. Internal software and AI improvements refine the overall usability, and new ceramic material and color options are welcoming, too, albeit at the cost of added weight.

A new ultra-wide camera finally lets users effortlessly capture stunning landscape photos. Although all three lenses produce fantastic images when lighting is good, they still trail behind the Pixel 3 XL in bad lighting conditions.

Starting at CAD$1,419, pricing is the biggest deterrent for the Galaxy S10+. It’s not short of new features, but I say hold off on upgrading if you got the previous year’s Galaxy S9+ lest you desperately need the beautiful display and the extra camera for some reason. With that said, for the first-time buyer who needs the phone that does it all and has the cash to burn, then the Galaxy S10+ is a no-brainer.

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2UIL3GX via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[mikemortgage]

Samsung Galaxy S10+ review: the best big phone in 2019 so far

As Samsung’s heaviest hitter in the Canadian market in 2019, the Galaxy S10+ sees tremendous improvements in display quality, camera, and software. A new stunning Dynamic OLED display aces colors and brightness, setting a new bar for smartphone displays. Performance is driven by the blazing Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset and up to 12GB of RAM, which translates to exceptional multitasking and gaming experiences. While camera quality is fantastic during the day, they falls short when things get dim. The biggest challenge, however, is pricing; even an entry model Galaxy S10+ costs CAD$1,419.99 – an ambitious pursuit for shallow wallets. Pros:

Eye-watering display

New ultra-wide angle camera

Fantastic battery life

Premium ceramic option

Punchhole camera>notch

Wireless charging and reverse charging

Improved software

Neat AI modes

Bixby button can now be remapped

Expandable storage

Still has the headphone jack

Cons:

Very expensive

Slow and inconsistent fingerprint sensor

Cluncky. Hard to take pictures with one hand

Ceramic option is distinctly heavier

Still carries some bloatware

Faster charger would be awesome

Bixby gets stumped by simple commands

Samsung Galaxy S10+ specifications

Galaxy S10e Galaxy S10 Galaxy S10+ Display size 5.8” FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2,280×1,080 6.1” QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 3,040×1,440 6.1” QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 3,040×1,440

Chipset

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

RAM 6GB / 8GB 8GB 8GB/12GB Storage 128GB / 256GB 128GB / 512GB 128GB / 512GB / 1TB Camera Rear:

12MP Wide angle

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Rear:

12MP Wide angle

12MP Telephoto

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Rear:

12MP Wide angle

12MP Telephoto

16MP Ultra-wide angle

Front:

10MP selfie cam

Battery 3,100mAh 3,400mAh 4,100mAh Dimensions 142.2mm x 69.9mm x 7.9mm 149.9 x 70.4mm x 7.8mm 157.6mm x 74.1mm x 78.8mm Weight 150g 157g 175g (glass) / 198g (ceramic) Price Starting at $1,019.99 Starting at $1,259.99 Starting at $1,419.99

Design

The S10 series are encased in Gorilla Glass 6, Corning’s best glass yet. An unfortunate side effect is that the ultra-smooth surface and behemoth size makes it hard to grip without a case.

New year, new camera. The Galaxy S10 now has a 16MP ultra-wide angle camera in addition to the 12MP standard and 12MP telephoto cameras.

Ceramic color options are now available for those who prefer a less glossy finish. Our review unit is clad in Ceramic White, which is both less glossy and will more competently hide fingerprints. While many would undoubtedly appreciate the elegance in its simplicity, I personally feel like it’s a bit bland.

Whereas most phone manufacturers swiftly embraced the notch, Samsung vehemently defended the top bezel on their flagship devices. With the Galaxy S10+, it jumped from using a top bezel to a tiny pinhole front camera. Despite the mixed opinions on its design, there’s no doubt that it’s far less intrusive than notches.

The Galaxy S10+ has two front cameras: a 10MP dual-pixel image sensor and an 8MP depth sensor. Dual pixel just means that the phase detection autofocus (PDAF) sensing points have been integrated into the sensor.

A gentle curve extends from the edge of the display inwards, making swiping from the edge that much smoother. Colors distort slightly when pushed against the edge, but I didn’t find it glaring. An aluminum band encircles the device, occasionally interrupted by the antenna bands.

The volume rocker and the Bixby button are found on the phone’s right edge.

  The Galaxy S10+ creates stereo sound by combining the bottom mono speaker with the earpiece. Audio quality is great, and volume is easily loud enough for a small room.

Our good friend, headphone jack, is still here! Hurray!

The SIM tray accepts a nano SIM card and a microSD card, supplying the already copious internal storage with ample room to grow.

I’ve never been bothered by a phone’s weight until I held the ceramic Galaxy S10+. At 198g, the Galaxy S10+ feels like an anchor in my pocket even without a case.

Display

One of the biggest improvements to the Galaxy S10 phones is its new Dynamic AMOLED display. The Galaxy S10+, the biggest of the bunch, carries one that’s 6.4” with a 3,040 x 1,440p resolution.

Samsung’s new Dynamic AMOLED display is set to be Samsung’s best display technology to date. It not only covers 100 per cent of the DCI-P3 color space popular in films, but also boasts an impressive 1,200 nit peak brightness. On the Galaxy S10, Display Mate measured its fullscreen brightness to be 804 nits, which is a 17 per cent increase over the Galaxy S9+. It compensates for the increased power draw of the brighter display by using a more power efficient OLED material.

Despite boasting 100 per cent color gamut coverage, Samsung claims that it manages to reduce harmful blue light by 42 per cent. But wait. How can it retain the same color accuracy while removing colors? In a statement to CNET, Samsung says that previous displays actually supported color spectrums beyond DCI-P3, and that it simply dialed back on the blue light output to more closely fit the DCI-P3 guidelines.

In addition, it’s the first smartphone display to ever to support HDR10+, an HDR format endorsed by major streaming services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. Even more impressive, Dynamic AMOLED features sub-pixel rendering and dynamic tone mapping.

Subpixel design hasn’t changed, however; Dynamic AMOLED still uses an RGGB pentile subpixel layout. A traditional white pixel contains a red, green, and blue subpixel. In a pentile display, there are two green subpixels for every one white pixel.

The color difference is immediately apparent upon turning on the screen. In a side-by-side comparison against the Google Pixel 3 XL with Adaptive colors enabled, which is also renowned for its excellent display, the Galaxy S10+ is noticeably warmer at its “Normal” setting, but not overly so, like the iPhone X. It strikes the perfect middle ground between vibrancy and eyestrain. Their colors are simliar, however, even when displaying HDR content on YouTube.

Something most would consider baffling, the Galaxy S10+ omits the pre-installed screen protector found on the smaller Galaxy S10. Thinking a little deeper produces several possible explanations. Corning’s Gorilla Glass 6 is literally on the entire phone and is a major part of the experience you’ve paid for. Therefore, it simply doesn’t make sense to cover up the front, especially considering most users will buy a case to cover the back. And let’s face it: no aftermarket screen protector can match the quality of Gorilla Glass 6.

Camera

With form factor and design becoming relatively stagnant over the past few years, smartphone cameras are now the main differentiating factor that affects buying decision. Manufacturers are placing paramount focus on developing innovative ways to make their cameras stand out.

This year’s Galaxy carries a new 16MP ultra-wide angle lens alongside the 12MP standard wide-angle lens and 12MP telephoto lens. The ultra-wide lens encompasses 123-degree vision and an f/ 2.2 aperture. The other two sensors don’t seem to have changed all that much; resolution, aperture, and pixel pitch all remain identical to the Galaxy S9’s.

Thought it recycles a few old – albeit still excellent – sensors, Samsung says it has made strides in AI post-processing features that take full advantage of the chipset’s NPU. One prime example is scene optimizer where the camera detects the scene and suggests an optimal angle for the shot. When it doesn’t recognize the scene, it can at least try to level the phone.

On the flip side, the selfie cam now uses a new 10MP sensor, as well as an 8MP RGB depth sensor for better bokeh effects.

Rear Camera

Standard wide-angle

Maybe Samsung is confident in the phone’s AI capabilities, but the camera seems to favor a fast shutter speed and then performs touch-up in post. Just as with the Galaxy S9 series, the main sensor boasts impressive sharpness and excellent colors in good lighting. Unfortunately, the camera has trouble capturing fine detail in darker scenes and has a haziness that generally comes with aggressive denoising.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

Telephoto

The telephoto lens features a 2x optical zoom and can extend all the way up to 5x digital zoom. Like the main sensor, it does a great job under good lighting. OIS keeps the phone rock steady during shooting.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

Ultra-wide

Be careful with the new ultra-wide angle lens. Because of its super wide field of view, it can sometimes capture your fingertips without you realizing. While there’s barrel distortion, it can be corrected via the distortion correction in the camera app once enabled.

Click on image for more full resolution samples

What can’t be corrected is the weird color “silhouettes” in certain scenes. In the darker images below, there’s a clear difference between the sky’s color in the background versus between the gaps of the tree branches. I suppose this is due to the AI unable to apply color corrections to finer areas.

RAW vs JPEG

Photographers tend to shoot in uncompressed RAW image format to provide higher flexibility in post-processing software like Adobe Lightroom. While the Galaxy S10+ supports RAW shooting, it can only be toggled in Pro mode. When enabled, the phone does not apply any inherent post-processing and only saves the image data as they were shot. It captures a ton more detail than normal JPEG at the expense of larger file size and needing manual post processing.

Front Camera

The new dual-sensor front camera does an excellent job at applying depth of field effects around strands of my hair and didn’t blur out my clothes and kept my face in focus.

Performance

All Galaxy S10 series phones are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 SoC. It’s the first Qualcomm consumer chipset built on the 7nm transistor node and is designed to compete against Huawei’s Kirin 980 and Apple’s A12. Our review unit has 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage – enviable even by laptop standards – and can even be upgraded to 12GB and 1TB respectively.

Geekbench

In Geekbench, the Galaxy S10+ scored 3,474 in the single-core test and 10,890 in the multi-core test. While single-score sees only a marginal improvement over the Galaxy S9+, multi-core score is around 2,000 points higher. It also beats the Huawei Mate 20 Pro by 196 (5.9%) in single-core and 1,141 (11.7%) in multi-core.

PCMark Work 2.0

PCMark for Android is as real-world as synthetic benchmarks get. It runs the phone through a list of everyday business tasks includes writing, web browsing, video editing, and photo editing.

The Galaxy S10+ crushed it in PCMark Work benchmark, scoring an impressive 9,746 average. Compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 in the Google Pixel 3 XL, the biggest improvements were in the writing and web browsing categories, which saw a 1,482 (18%) and 1,655 (17%) jump respectively. The Galaxy S10+ also handily defeated the Huawei Mate 20 Pro’s Kirin 980, which scored a 7,709 average.

3DMark Slingshot Extreme

3DMark gauges the phone’s graphics processing ability and attempts to estimate how well it can handle 3D intensive workloads.

PCMark storage test

We’ve added a new benchmark to test for storage performance. It speaks to the phone’s ability to quickly restart, load apps, and retrieve files.

Software and Features

Whereas its hardware is excellent, Samsung’s software hasn’t been favored in the Android community. Many consider it to be way too bloated, and the plethora of default Samsung apps irks Android purists as well. In addition, Samsung phones are always the latecomers in receiving Android feature and security updates.

Since then, Samsung has been committed to solving its software’s reputation by launching its One UI initiative. One UI aims to improve UI flow, unifying app and icon aesthetics, and presenting the most important information first.

And the efforts have definitely paid off. App icons look more unified, and despite being inundated with features, the most important ones are clearly labeled and intuitive to find. Some advanced features like Secure Folder and Dual Apps are now more easily accessible and configurable.

Several other features are also refreshing and helpful. Download Booster, for example, couples Wi-Fi and mobile data together for faster download speeds in Google Play Store. MIrrorLink can mirror the phone’s screen onto your car’s display via a USB cable. Video Enhancer automatically increases color and brightness when watching videos.

Regrettably, One UI didn’t lose much bloat; it still comes bundled with a bunch of things many users won’t ever touch beyond the initial setup. The Galaxy Store, Theme Store, and Game Launcher are just a few of the unneeded extras. It even has McAfee antivirus built-in, which is (thankfully) disabled by default. With that said, Samsung Pay is the lone exception, as it’s incredibly handy if you have a compatible card like the Tangerine Cash Back rewards card.

One UI also incessantly tries to shove other Samsung services down your throat, and heavily insists that you sign up for a Samsung Account, which enables features like Samsung Cloud and Samsung pass, none of which are needed by most users. I was peppered with its notifications daily, forcing me to mute it manually.

Bixby, Samsung’s beloved voice assistant, is back, and it’s still mapped to a physical button. This time around, however, it lets users remap the button to perform other more useful tasks like launching the calculator or the camera app. You’ll need to keep Bixby enabled as a prerequisite to remapping, though.

Our third run-in with Bixby still leaves much to be desired. It couldn’t understand what I was trying to say when I asked it to show me restaurants in my area. Ask it to play music Spotify, and it will try its best to convince you that Samsung Music is what you need. Hilarious.

What happens when you ask Bixby to play music on Spotify.

Samsung is finally ending awkwardly placed fingerprint sensors by embedding it in the display. Samsung claims that instead of capturing a 2D image of your fingerprint, its ultrasonic fingerprint sensor builds a 3D map that accounts for your fingerprint’s valleys and peaks, and should therefore be nearly impossible to fake.

In my experience, the in-display fingerprint sensor is very inconsistent, often having trouble recognizing my thumb at an off-angle and requiring multiple attempts to register.

Battery Life

With a giant 4,100mAh battery, it’s unsurprising that the Galaxy S10+ produced 7 hours of screen-on time across nearly two days. My daily workload involves composing emails, editing Google Doc files, web browsing, managing social media, and streaming videos. Most apps I use are in dark mode, which helps save battery in OLED devices. Location services are enabled while NFC and Bluetooth are turned-on sporadically.

One thing that could improve the experience is a faster charger. Samsung’s adaptive charger can deliver up to 15W of power, 3W shy of Qualcomm’s QuickCharge 4.0. At this pace, it takes almost two hours to charge the phone from zero to 100 per cent. The silver lining is that thanks to its tremendous battery, you won’t have to plug it into the wall as frequently.

In addition to capping the processor clock speed in power saving mode, it also lowers the display’s resolution. Because One UI is based on Android 9, it also takes advantage of Google’s Adaptive Battery power saving feature.

Pricing and competition

All aspects of the Galaxy S10+ screams premium – including its price. For Canadian customers, an unlocked device runs for CAD$1,419.99 and comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Samsung charges CAD$1,749.99 for 512GB storage, and a whopping CAD$2,209.99 for 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

The Galaxy S10 series is one of the first phones to feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. As such, competition in the performance front is relatively thin, and most phones are either from China – which are hard to get or haven’t been released yet.

But competition is looming on the horizon. 2019 will see an impressive roster of big flagship phones like the LG V40, Huawei P30 Pro, Sony Xperia 1, and the OnePlus 7. A few Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi have already released its version of Snapdragon 855 equipped devices, they’re just harder to get in North America.

Apple’s current flagship can also put up some fight against the Galaxy S10+. Despite its improved performance, the Galaxy S10+ still trails the iPhone XS Max’s A12 Bionic chipset. Familiarity wit the operating system makes a difference, too; some users rely on iOS apps to get through their workday. The Galaxy S10+ has a distinct edge in camera quality, AI capability, and a superior display.

The newly released Huawei P30 Pro is currently the closest matchup against the Galaxy S10+. While I’m not expecting its HiSilicon Kirin 980 processor to crush any benchmarks, its camera system is extremely impressive. The starting configuration comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB for $220 less. One area it does seem to underperform in is the display. I’m still going through the motions on evaluating the P30 Pro, but at the moment, it seems like an extremely strong contender to the Galaxy S10+.

Conclusion

Driven by a new gorgeous display, a new camera system, and Qualcomm’s new chip, the Samsung Galaxy S10+ is the best performing phone released in 2019 so far. It also creatively eliminates the top bezel by using an unobtrusive punch hole front cam. Internal software and AI improvements refine the overall usability, and new ceramic material and color options are welcoming, too, albeit at the cost of added weight.

A new ultra-wide camera finally lets users effortlessly capture stunning landscape photos. Although all three lenses produce fantastic images when lighting is good, they still trail behind the Pixel 3 XL in bad lighting conditions.

Starting at CAD$1,419, pricing is the biggest deterrent for the Galaxy S10+. It’s not short of new features, but I say hold off on upgrading if you got the previous year’s Galaxy S9+ lest you desperately need the beautiful display and the extra camera for some reason. With that said, for the first-time buyer who needs the phone that does it all and has the cash to burn, then the Galaxy S10+ is a no-brainer.

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