This is a good time for people looking to upgrade their phones. While OnePlus is a pioneer in launching good quality smartphones at an affordable price, Xiaomi, Realme and many others are also moving in this direction. Gradually the boundaries of a mid-range phone and a high-end phone disappeared, as today’s mid-range phones are also very good quality.
Realizing the market potential for solid budget friendly performance phones, Samsung jumped into the race, and it launched the Galaxy S10 Lite product line, which is basically viewed as a lower end take on the Galaxy S10.
Design
Honestly, the Galaxy S10 Lite design feels more like the Note lineup than the plain S10 line, but it’s not that bad of a thing ,or a minus point like some folks claim. The Galaxy S10 Lite still holds onto it’s own kinda distinct look and whole vibe, even if the comparison is sorta there, you know.
The front of the device is a 6.7-inch screen with Full HD + resolution with a 20: 9 aspect ratio. This is a machine with a large screen, which will be great when performing entertainment tasks on the device, but if using one hand with this phone, it will be a little difficult.
Honestly the screen quality on the Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite cannot quite match the S10,or any other flagship phones that come with Quad HD resolution screens. Not that the Galaxy S10 Lite screen is bad. It actually shows colors that feel correct and well balanced. If you want it to look more alive , you can crank up the saturation a bit, it gives a more vivid vibe, like it’s a little more present in the room. Also outdoor clarity is a strong point, even when you’re under direct sun it still stays readable.
Like the Note 10, the Galaxy S10 Lite has a “punch hole” style selfie camera sitting on the front. That selfie camera is rated at 32 MP,so it’s pretty sharp for day to day shots.
On the right side you’ll find the volume keys along with the power button. On the left edge there’s a nano-SIM slot plus support for two memory cards, depending on your setup. Down at the bottom you get the USB-C port, and the speakerphone too, put kinda neatly. There’s no 3.5 mm headphone jack on this handset. The fingerprint sensor area is placed under the screen itself.
Now flip it over, and the back design looks pretty close to the newly launched Galaxy S20 line, you can really feel that resemblance. The big camera module, for instance, is almost the same as what you see on the Galaxy S20 Ultra.
To keep the price in check, Samsung didn’t go with tempered glass here. Instead they used a material called polycarbonate. At first glance it can be easy to confuse it with glass. Smudges and fingerprinting aren’t too dramatic, but after a while the back surface starts to pick up scratches, and that is probably the annoying downside of this material.
- Performance
Although it is a mid-range phone version, Samsung does not “put” too many specifications on this S10 Lite. The device uses Snapdragon 855 chip which gives the machine a good performance. The graphics of the machine are handled by the Adrno 640 GPU. It has 2 versions of 6GB RAM and 8GB RAM, with this amount of RAM the machine has no problems running multitasking. Although running in the background of very heavy games with high configuration, the machine still performs well in its multitasking function.
Samsung has a nice pair of hardware plus software that makes the Galaxy S10 Lite feel like it runs really smooth, and honestly it does.
The device comes with a battery, 4,500 mAh capacity. The S10 Lite supports 45W fast charging, yet the charger that comes in the box is only 25W, but honestly in day to day use it doesn’t feel that terrible. During testing it managed to reach 100% from 0% in about 1 hour, like, start to finish. Battery life is also great, you can use from 5-6 hours continuously depending on the tasks you perform on the machine.
- Software
The S10 Lite runs on the exact same operating system version as the Galaxy S10 , it is basically on the Android 10 platform with a UI 2.0 interface. On top of that, a lot of the standard features you expect from the Samsung Galaxy lineup are already baked in on the S10 Lite, like quick screen-side shortcuts, or those navigation keys, depending how you set it up.
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- Camera
The S10 Lite comes with a really solid rear camera cluster, honestly. The main camera in the phone is a 48MP shooter, with a maximum aperture of f /2.0 and it looks pretty capable. Alongside it there is also an ultra-wide-angle camera with an aperture of f /2.2, and then there’s a dedicated 5MP macro camera too.
In my view, the 5 MP macro camera is kinda not that impressive. I think it would be much better if they replaced it with a telephoto camera, because that feels more useful overall. Still, this macro camera does handle close-up shots pretty well. You have to be about 3-5 cm away from the subject, otherwise you won’t get those nice, detailed “descriptive” pictures.
Looking at the photo above we can see that if you use a macro lens to shoot in low light conditions, the image will appear mild noise. Perhaps we should use a macro camera in bright enough conditions to get better photos.
With bright enough shots, we can see: the quality that the S10 Lite offers is very great compared to competitors in the same segment. The competitor of the S10 Lite that we can see most clearly is the OnePlus 7T.
For images taken in the dark, you can sort of see that if we do n’t turn on night photography, the resulting shot becomes very noisy, like immediately. When night photography is turned on, the pic looks better, but there is still a small hint of noise , nothings crazy, just kinda noticeable. At this point the Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite gets beaten completely by its rival, the OnePlus 7T, because it manages steadier low-light photography, like a calmer capture overall.
Finally, to the selfie camera of the machine. The selfie camera is basically good because it has a resolution of up to 32MP. However, as always, the selfie camera of the device interferes with so many beautiful features that the selfie photos are not realistic. However, you can choose to turn off these beautiful features.
The video recording capabilities of the S10 Lite are very good. The footage recorded at 4K / 30fps looks very sharp with true color. Interestingly, you can shoot 4K videos even while in super wide-angle mode. It is OIS optical stabilization is very good, giving you smooth, shake-free movies.
- Conclusion
The Galaxy S10 Lite is a machine suitable for those who want a fast, powerful phone with an attractive feature set, a good camera, and great battery life. Currently, the Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite is being sold directly on Amazon for $ 585, which is a great price for a near-high-end device like Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite.
Tech Reviewer & Product Analyst
Định Bia has spent over 10 years testing consumer electronics with a focus on smart technology. He work as a product advisor at Biareview where he helped customers find the right devices for their needs. He personally tests every product featured on this site using a consistent evaluation framework covering quality, durability, and value. All reviews are based on experience, not influenced by the manufacturer.
