The Samsung Galaxy S10E Is Small Without Skimping Too Much

Alongside the flagship Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus, Samsung is launching a lower-cost, smaller smartphone it’s calling the Galaxy S10E. Starting at $749.99, it has a 5.8-inch display and lacks some of the more advanced features you’d get on its siblings — but I suspect most people won’t miss them.

It’s only a millimeter shorter and narrower than the iPhone XS. But compared to the ever increasing size of many flagship Android phones, it’s night and day.

Unlike recent Samsung Galaxy phones, the screen on the S10E is completely flat. That means the bezels are very slightly larger (or at least look larger) than on the S10. The screen itself isn’t much of a compromise. It’s bright and colorful, Samsung says that it has been certified for HDR10+. The resolution is “Full HD+,” which means it’s 1080 pixels wide with a 19:9 aspect ratio.

And hey, there’s a headphone jack, too, if you have been holding out to get a modern phone that still has one.

The processor is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, which is the best you can get in an Android phone right now (at least in the US).

On cameras, Samsung does make S10E users compromise a bit. Instead of the S10’s three rear cameras, you get two: a regular 12-megapixel wide-angle camera that’s similar to what you’ve likely used before and a 16-megapixel ultra-wide lens with a 123-degree field of view. They’re fast, at least, and absolutely laden with features. One of the newer modes is “shot suggestion,” which overlays some visual indicators on the camera to try to help you level and line up your shot. That worked only intermittently for us. Samsung says it’s also using its “Neural Processing Unit” to automatically change certain camera settings for the better in real time.

Samsung is also talking big game about its video capabilities — shooting 4K in HDR+. It has a new “super steady video” for stabilizing shots, and Samsung says that it will crop a little less than you might expect because it’s using that ultra-wide angle lens to gather the stabilization data.

With the S10E, you’ll be missing out on the telephoto lens, but the wide-angle would probably get more use anyway for most people. You can toggle between the two cameras with a button press or hold your finger down to zoom somewhat seamlessly between them and a digital zoom.

The software is Android 9 Pie with Samsung’s One UI custom experience. On the S10E, the default sizing of the icons feels weirdly large on the home screen — but presumably that can be adjusted (everything in Samsung software seems to have a custom setting somewhere).

The S10E is available for preorder on February 21st and will ship on March 8th. The default storage / memory configuration is 128GB of storage (expandable) with 6GB of RAM. You can spend more (we’ll update when we know how much) to get 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM.

The big question for the S10E is whether it’s going to find a big market. Since it’s “only” $150 less than the full S10, who should buy it instead of an S10? Or more to the point, will it be better than other, less-expensive Android phones from the likes of OnePlus? We can’t know the answers to those questions yet, but I suspect part of the answer is going to rest on how good the camera system on the S10E is, especially compared to cheaper Android phones.

In some ways, that big question was the same one that has been vexing the iPhone XR. With the iPhone XR, answers got weird because it was a weird size — bigger than the small iPhone XS, but smaller than the XS Plus. But with the Samsung Galaxy S10E, the answer is kind of obvious: it’s for people who prefer smaller phones.

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