Wednesday saw Samsung unveil their latest range of Galaxy smart phones, with rumours rife from last year, everyone was keen to see if the S10 did feature a folding screen. From long before the smartphone, Samsung had a great legacy with its flip phones, none more popular than the E600 which at one stage was the best selling phone in the country. A return to this sort of model of device, with it's nostalgic background was appealing to many but 24 hours prior to the official launch, hopes were dashed as Samsung Norway mistakenly uploaded their ad for the S10 and S10+ on YouTube and while the device looked fantastic, it didn't fold up but knowing Samsung the event had more in store for us than just two devices, fast forward 24 hours and we were not disappointed.
The local launch took place at Discovery's head office in the heart of Sandton and proved to be the perfect setting to watch the live stream event. The very first device that was unveiled was the Samsung Galaxy Fold, yup they did it, Samsung made a device with a folding screen! While it wasn't quite the device some of us were expecting, it is a major breakthrough in technology. Essentially the Fold is a tablet that folds into a device the size of your average smart phone. It it has two screens, one on the front which is a 4.6" HD_Super AMOLED touch screen and when opened up, the screen on the inside measures 7.3" and is a QXGA+AMOLED. The Fold packs massive specs, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of onboard memory, a 7nm 64 bit-Octa Core processor and because of the fold, it has two batteries which function as one, with a combined power of 4,380mAh. The Fold has 6 cameras, 3 on the back, which feature a 16MP Ultrawide camera, 12MP Wife Angle camera and a 12MP Telephoto camera with 2 x Optical Zoom. The Fold has 2 cameras, which are a 10MP Selfie Camera and a 8MP RGB Depth camera, and lastly on the cover, a 10MP Selfie Camera. The Fold runs Android 9.0 and features app continuity, which basically means, if you're using an app when the device is folded, when you open it, the app displaying the same information expands onto the larger screen. It also has 3 app multitasking, so you can use 3 apps at the same time. Pretty powerful stuff from the Korean electronics manufacturer. Local release date for the Galaxy Fold in SA is said to be with the global launch on the 26th of April but no local pricing details are available yet, don't expect it to be cheap though.
After the main attraction left everyone in awe, it was time for us to meet the rest of the Galaxy squad. Samsung launched 3 versions the Galaxy S10 on the night. The normal Galaxy S10, the S10e and the S10+. All devices boast their new infinity-O design screen with the screen extending over the bevel, giving the user a greater screen to body ratio. The one thing that strikes you is that the device doesn't feature the famous "notch" that other brands have on theirs. Samsung have laser cut the front facing cameras into the actual screen, so it just a black dot on the top right corner. The Galaxy S10 is powered by Samsungs Exynos 9820 Octa-core chipset with memory on the S10 at 128GB and ranging from 128GB up to 1TB on the S10+. The Galaxy S10 finally features tripe lens technology with an ultra wide lens, with a 123 degree width, the same as the human eye. Colours captured by the device in all light conditions look astounding but as Samsung's claim to fame with their mobile device cameras, is definitely the video quality, the Samsung S10 records videos in HDR10+ which is a format developed by Samsung to beat Dolby Vision and will feature on all their smart TV's. It has Dynamic Tone Mapping which gives you a brighter, more crisp picture with an insane amount of detail. Samsung also announced a host of collaborations, one which caught our attention was one with Adobe, who created a version of their popular video editor, Premiere, called Premiere Rush exclusive for the Galaxy S10. It gives the user a powerful video editor on their device so they can make stunning videos on the go. Other notable collaborations was with Instagram, which allows to user to edit pictures using Instagram tools and upload the picture instantly.
Pre-Orders for the Samsung Galaxy range have begun, with everyone who pre-orders getting a set of Samsungs new wireless buds which are valued at R3500 for free. The price range for the Galaxy range starts off at R15,000 for the S10e, S10 comes in at R18,999 and up to R35,999 for the S10+ 1TB. Overall, pretty convincing products by Samsung, who are laying down the challenge to the others in the market as they aim to keep their number one status in the country for yet another year.
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