Killer Features on your Samsung Galaxy S10

The Samsung Galaxy S10 is certainly one impressive piece of kit, and it is rightly praised as the flagship phone of the Samsung range. Whilst features like the display and the camera get a lot of attention there are a few other things that are worth knowing about your new phone.

Ultrasonic Fingerprint Scanner

The fingerprint scanner has been a feature of Samsung phones for some time, and with the introduction of the S10, Samsung have finally got rid of the rear scanner. Which whilst it had its advantages, it did mean that if your phone was on your desk, then you couldn’t unlock it.

On the S10 Samsung have instead installed a scanner under the AMOLED display. Whilst other phones like the Huawei Mate Pro 20 and the OnePlus 6T have in display scanners, this one is under it. The reason is because unlike the others which are optical scanners, this is an ultrasonic scanner. This means it uses sound waves instead of light to read your fingerprint. Samsung say this makes it a lot more reliable as it can ‘see’ every ridge of your fingerprint really easily.

The fact that is uses sound instead of light means that is is also a lot less susceptible to interference from water. Picture the scene, you are out for your morning run, it is August, so the British weather is being typical, and it is pouring with rain, you are sweaty and you need to unlock your phone.

Faced with this the fingerprint scanner will still work perfectly. No more, please dry the screen and try again messages. So even if that is not you, but you might be in the middle of doing the washing up, you can still read your messages without having to make sure your hands are perfectly dry. 

Battery Life and Wireless Power Share

Another great feature that Samsung has been promoting heavily is the ability to share power wirelessly with other devices, and we are seeing this happen on more devices. This is facilitated by having a bigger battery in your phone to start with.

The upgraded capacity is certainly appreciated as you can get a good full day of heavy usage out of your phone. But it also allows you to use that spare power. The feature is turned on easily in one of the menus. Once you have all you need to do is flip your phone over and place the other device on top of the back of it. Hey presto instant wireless charging.

The device you are trying to charge needs to be wireless Qi charging compatible, but this is found on a lot of different devices these days. It is definitely useful if you are out with that one friend that forgets to charge their phone before you go out as you can give them a quick boost. Samsung have clearly pitched this feature at their new wireless Galaxy Buds though, and you can charge your phone with a cable whilst charging these wirelessly at the same time.