Despite its pricing concerns, there’s a lot to love about Samsung’s heavily redesigned Galaxy S10. But a new leak has confirmed the most exciting new model has a potential dealbreaker…
Continuing his hot streak, ever reliable tipster Roland Quandt has obtained high-resolution press photography of Samsung’s all-new iPhone XR competitor, the Galaxy S10e. And it botches the range’s headline feature.
Quandt’s images reveal the Galaxy S10e not only omits the cutting-edge Ultrasonic in-display fingerprint reader featured on every other Galaxy S10 (as we already knew), but it doesn’t even have a sensible alternative.
Eschewing the tried and tested tactic of placing a fingerprint reader on the back of a phone in a convenient circular shape, Quandt’s images confirm Samsung has decided to cram the reader into the Galaxy S10e’s rectangular side-mounted power button instead. Not only is this almost as frustrating to use as rear-mounted sensors when the phone is sat on a table, it offers a smaller authentication area, is far more easily pressed when holding the phone and eliminates use of the power button to check lockscreen notifications.
History also shows Samsung this is not the way to go.
Sony has been trying to popularise power button based fingerprint sensors on its Xperia smartphones since 2015 without any success whatsoever. Furthermore, Samsung’s number one target with the Galaxy S10e is the iPhone XR and, arguably, its main claim to fame is delivering the same cutting-edge Face ID security as its premium stablemates.
Not smart Samsung.
Couple this move with the Galaxy S10e’s underwhelming battery capacity, and it looks like users are going to have to pay a lot more for true 10th-anniversary flagship experience. With the iPhone XR struggling, this is an opportunity missed.
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