An excellent screen and a robust battery

The new Samsung device’s 6.4-inch screen is on a par with the 6.5-inch screen on Apple’s iPhone XS Max and the 6.3-inch display on Google’s Pixel 3 XL. All produce sharp, rich images with accurate colors and excellent shadow detail. (If you asked me which screen was best, I would call it a draw.)

As for the battery, the Galaxy S10 Plus had such long battery life that by bedtime after a busy day, the device still had about 25 percent of juice remaining. Samsung said it expanded the size of the battery while also improving the software to manage energy use.

Samsung is so confident in the new Galaxy phone’s battery that it designed the device to wirelessly charge other gadgets, like smart watches and other phones. The feature, Wireless PowerShare, uses induction, which involves tapping an electrical current to generate a magnetic field that powers other devices.

To use the power-sharing feature, you hit a button in the phone’s settings and place another device that supports wireless charging onto the back of the Samsung. I stacked my iPhone and the Galaxy S10 Plus back to back, and it took the Samsung about 15 minutes to replenish 5 percent of the iPhone’s battery. That’s a slow charge rate, though Samsung said the feature was primarily intended for charging accessories like wireless earbuds or smart watches.

An improved fingerprint sensor, but weaker biometrics than the iPhone

I found that the fingerprint reader on Samsung’s Galaxy S10 Plus was an improvement over past models. But the device’s biometrics over all were still weaker than the features on Apple’s iPhone, Samsung’s biggest rival.

In previous Samsung phones, the sensor was a physical button on the back of the phone near the camera, which often led people to accidentally bump the camera lenses when attempting to unlock their phones.

Now the sensor is on the front and embedded in the screen. Its ultrasonic technology uses sound waves that read the ridges and valleys of a finger. This means you can now unlock the phone while it is flat on a table, and the ultrasonic technology will be able to scan your print through water or grease. In addition, because the captured image is so detailed, the print becomes much more difficult to spoof than with past fingerprint sensors.