7 ways Samsung’s Galaxy S10e is the best compact smartphone in the world

There was a time when smartphones were handy and pocketable. And when Samsung launched the first Galaxy Note back at IFA 2011 in Berlin, everyone was wondering what Samsung was on — but they ushered in a new era of gigantic smartphones which are the norm today. Samsung helped kill the normal sized smartphone or what many people call the compact smartphone. So when today I review and test the Samsung Galaxy S10e, the irony doesn’t escape me in the fact that Samsung is perhaps the only mainstream brand which makes a rather compact flagship grade smartphone today, a type of smartphone it helped make extinct. Samsung has even been left alone by Apple which hasn’t updated the iPhone SE since 2016 which doesn’t only make the Galaxy S10e one of the best smartphones around, but one without any competition, almost. Let me explain why.

• The Galaxy S10e is just a classy looking phone. It has a ceramic looking feel, even though it has glass on the front and back and an aluminium frame on the side which is polished like stainless steel. This gives the phone a very stylish look and feel which is further enhanced by the fact that the phone has an IP67 dust and water resistance certification.
• At 5.8-inches, it kind of hits the sweet spot which is only held by the iPhone XS and the Google Pixel 3. That being said, because the Galaxy 10e has a hole punch display unlike the iPhone XS and the Pixel 3, it is the most compact phone of the lot. It also has the nicest screen of the three phones with vivid colours. The iPhone XS has more muted colours while the Pixel 3 colours are overly contrasty.
• The Galaxy S10e has a dynamic camera system which is a combination of a 12-megapixel camera and a superb wide-angle camera. This camera system has been rated quite highly on DXOMark and after a slew of software updates, it also is great low light camera. Overall, it provides the best balance between video and still photography; more so than either the iPhone XS or Pixel 3.
• Of all the compact smartphones, it has the best battery life lasting me 12 hours consistently during the day with around 4 hours of screen on time. This is too with heavy duty usage. Compared to the iPhone XS and Pixel 3, this phone also has reverse wireless charging on top of wireless charging and has the fastest charging tech.
• This phone also manages to retain the headphone jack which isn’t there in either the Pixel 3 or the iPhone XS. This makes it a great device for people who have their own headphones. Samsung also provides a pair of AKG tuned earbuds in the packaging unlike the crummy earpods or Google earbuds on the iPhone XS and Pixel 3.
• The performance of this Samsung Galaxy S10e is superb. It has Samsung’s latest Exynos processor coupled with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage which is further expandable using the microSD card slot. Again memory expansion is not a thing for the iPhone XS or Pixel 3. Samsung’s One UI and the lower resolution screen also means that it has good performance for even games like PUBG. Sure, PUBG runs better on the iPhone, but in Android land, it is the king of the hill, more so than even Google’s phone.
• Samsung off late as adopted an approach which has overindexes fast software updates. This approach pays off with the S10e as it has clean software, updates have also improved its camera and general funtional nature of the phone.