Galaxy S10+ VS iPhone XS Max: A comparison of their key features...

March 4, 2019

A few days before the new Samsung Galaxy S10+, officially unveiled by the Korean company on February 20, is released in stores, we can now see with real data (beyond leaks and indications), how Samsung's new "flagship" stands against Apple's iPhone XS Max. It should be noted that the Apple device was presented and released last fall.

Let's get started... Samsung's Galaxy S10+ uses the design that all next-generation smartphones will wear, with an edge-to-edge display and very thin bezels to maximize the available screen size. The Galaxy S10+ uses a 3040 x 1440 (6.4-inch) OLED display and instead of the notch that smartphones used to use until last year, it carries a small hole for the selfie camera, in a display that Samsung calls Infinity-O.

It's worth mentioning, of course, at this point that the S10 has a small hole, but the Galaxy S10+ which has a dual-lens camera on the top right side of the screen, the hole is a bit bigger. On its side, the iPhone XS Max has a 6.5-inch (1242 x 2688 pixels) display, and the single lens is located inside a notch, at the top of the screen.

Beyond that, both the Galaxy S10+ and the iPhone XS Max, in the dimensions they play with, are not phones that can be handled with one hand. Instead of using facial recognition for unlocking like Apple (Android manufacturers have not yet managed to perfect this technology), Samsung's device implements an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, embedded under the screen. This sensor seems to work quite well, according to what users have reported, however it is not as fast and accurate as the Face ID of the iPhone XS Max.

In terms of basic cameras now, Apple's iPhone XS Max has a dual-camera setup on the back (of 12MP, one lens is wide-angle and the other is telephoto), while the Galaxy S10+ is equipped with three cameras: a telephoto (12MP), a wide-angle lens (12MP) and an ultra-wide-angle lens (16MP). According to the leaks, this is the style that Apple will follow with the successor to the iPhone XS Max, which is expected to make its appearance in the fall of 2019.

Moving forward, Samsung has incorporated a unique feature, "Wireless PowerShare" that allows the Galaxy S10+ to charge other Qi-based devices such as the Galaxy Watch, Galaxy Buds or even the iPhone! This is a pretty useful and well-established feature, which Apple may bring to the new devices as well. It is a fact that, following this move by Samsung, iPhones should also be able to charge the expected AirPods with the wireless charging case, as well as other Qi-based devices.

Internally now, the Galaxy S10+ uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip (in the US and China) or its own Exynos processor in other markets. Measurements that have been taken, during the period when the device was not yet released, showed that the Galaxy S10+ is slower than the iPhone XS Max, but in practice both smartphones are quite fast and the everyday user will not notice any difference.

In conclusion, we must mention that Samsung's effort with the entire family of Galaxy S10 is remarkable - these are devices that stand out both visually and in their general characteristics and we are waiting for Apple's "hit" in 2019 to say more!