The Samsung Galaxy A-Series selection for this year is likely the company’s most diversified array of smartphones to date. On one end, you have flagship-class features like those found on the Galaxy A90 5G, while on the other, you have affordable options like the Samsung Galaxy A10 phone.
The A10, the current baby of the A-series, lacks the aesthetic flair and photographic feature set of its numerically greater A-series brothers, but it nevertheless manages to distill that Galaxy DNA into a handset that costs less than £140.
Samsung continues to compete with Apple in the flagship sector, but the corporation must be wary of the expanding number of Chinese companies now present at the cheap end of the market.
Companies like Oppo, Xiaomi, and Realme are all making inroads into the historical strongholds of Samsung with equally inexpensive phones that give experiences that are beyond what you’d expect for the price.
This Samsung phone comes with varied quantities of internal storage and RAM, which influences cost depending on where you buy it. The basic model comes with 32GB of internal storage and 2GB of RAM. It is most likely to be found in the UK.
It is available on both PAYG and Pay Monthly options. With the former costing £139.99 and the latter starting at £11.99 a month with no upfront fee.
You may also purchase it straight from Samsung, as well as other retailers like Amazon.
When looking at the Samsung Galaxy A10′s design, the word ‘functional’ comes to mind. It’s hardly unexpected that, at this price range, Samsung’s most basic A-series gadget doesn’t quite stretch its legs in terms of design. However, a chromed accent here and there, as well as some more dynamic colorways, would not have hurt its design.
While even the basic black Galaxy A50 is boosted by an eye-catching holographic top-coat. However, A10 sticks to simpler block colors rendered in glossy, fingerprint- and scuff-prone plastic. Depending on where you purchase the phone, you may be able to obtain the more daring red color; otherwise, your options are a conservative dark blue or the standard black. However, in this instance, the phone is closer to a dark blue.
Despite the use of polycarbonate rather than glass, the A10 seems firmly constructed. The wraparound unibody has cut-outs on the right side for the normal selection of plastic hardware controls. Also, there are ports along the bottom edge, while the display sticks slightly, making the A10 appear and feel narrower than it is.
While USB-C is now standard, this low-cost Galaxy still has a micro USB connector, which is now obsolete. It’s a slight nuisance if you’ve experienced the reversible ease of newer Type-C connections. However, if you haven’t, chances are you’ll still have plenty of suitable cables lying around, making locating a charging station a breeze.
The original 3.5mm headphone port is one vestige that’s glad to see remain on the bottom edge of the A10. In certain areas, Samsung even includes wired headphones in the package. With an FM radio on board, listening to music is arguably considerably more accessible than it is on more expensive smartphones that either doesn’t contain earbuds or a headphone connection natively. The phone’s left-side pop-out tray also takes one or two nanoSIM cards, as well as a microSD card.
The display has to be one of the most premium elements of the A10. Not so much because of its quality or the panel Samsung chose, but because of its incorporation with the phone’s overall design.
The top & sides of the phone’s 6.2in, 19:9 aspect ratio screen have pleasingly low bezels, comparable to the likes of an iPhone 11.
What Samsung refers to as an ‘Infinity-V’ display really refers to the form of the notch at play here. The A10, like the OnePlus 6T, offers a wonderfully rounded. However, not-too-obtrusive, dewdrop notch, which houses the phone’s single 5MP front-facing camera and earpiece.
Most other phones in this price range have a less elegant option, akin to the one featured on Samsung’s own Infinity-U panels. The A10 has a somewhat thicker ‘chin’ of bezel compared to the top and side corners of the display’s surround, although it looks to be thinner than the phone’s closest competitors.
In terms of the display, Samsung has chosen an extended HD+ TFT LCD. Its viewing angles are impressive, and its mere size makes the A10 an excellent phone for consuming media on a budget. There is also a one-handed mode, making it simple to operate if you don’t have both hands free.
The lower-than-average resolution is evident, but not significantly so – individual pixels are only just perceptible, and the screen is nevertheless capable of showing fine picture detail and text, even if it loses the crispness of the A-Series’ more senior members.
This Samsung phone’s Night mode changes the mood of the UI from light to dark to make seeing easier; this function may be changed manually or automatically based on dawn and sunset. The dark mode is inherent to the most recent version of Android 10, which the A10 currently lacks.
The phone’s display settings do contain a blue light filter. It is useful for seeing material in low light or late at night. However, it’s one of the most basic applications of technology. You can toggle it on and off from the phone’s fast settings menu, but that’s all there is to it.
Control over the filter’s strength, tone, and scheduling would have been welcome additions, and it’s odd that Samsung left such features out in this case.
Android 9 is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the transition to Android 10 for Samsung’s most basic Galaxy handsets from the previous year remains a long way off.
The company’s proprietary One UI overlay helps to mitigate the consequences of this mismatch by introducing features such as the aforementioned dark mode. Meanwhile, there’s a consistency from the A10 all the way up to the Note 10+ that helps unite the user experience across Samsung’s various devices, regardless of the technology on offer.
Moving about the A10’s OS is a streamlined and gesture-driven experience that allows for one-handed navigation even when the UI is not shrunk down. The option to run several instances of certain applications like Messenger or WhatsApp, which is particularly handy for individuals who wish to keep their business and personal lives distinct, is one of the standout features that distinguishes it from standard Android.
Although the Galaxy Store duplicates the products of the Play Store, some may find value in it due to special discounts or deals, as well as access to phone customization, ranging from fonts and wallpapers to complete system-wide downloaded themes.
Gamers may like the addition of Samsung’s Game Launcher. This program not only gathers all of the games installed on the A10 into one location, but it also generates statistics based on gameplay, rankings relative to other players and friends, and suggestions for new titles you might enjoy.
As a result, Game Booster intervenes during gameplay to regulate elements such as device temperature and available RAM in order to provide an optimized experience. In reality, experiencing some of these benefits is difficult, but certain aspects should have concrete value for a large number of gamers.
The camera system is where the cheap aspect of phones like the Samsung Galaxy A10 shines through the most. With a single 13MP primary snapper and a 5MP front-facing camera, the A10 has a conservative photographic setup in comparison to the many-sensors phones that are increasingly pervading the market.
According to the phone, while shooting with the primary camera, photographs are shot with HDR on by default. In reality, it appears that dynamic range is one of the A10’s camera’s major flaws.
Darker regions are crushed to flat black all too quickly in sunny circumstances. While nighttime shooting suffers from the reverse problem; that’s before you consider that picture quality plummets, succumbing to grain and significant detail loss in such situations as well.
The A10’s camera performs best in bright, neutral lighting; anything else, and although images may still be passable, the imaging hardware’s flaws will be visible.
The Samsung Galaxy A10 is powered by the company’s own Exynos 7884B SoC. It is combined with 2GB of RAM in this configuration.
In general, the mid-range processor at work here isn’t something to sneer at; it’s the RAM that raises issues.
While swiping through the UI is rarely a problem. However, there is a noticeable wait whenever you launch or close an app or switch between programs. Tapping certain UI components and typing both seem slow to varying degrees.
In terms of gaming, the A10 can handle rich titles with 3D visuals as long as they aren’t too high definition or need rapid reflexes. As seen by its mediocre benchmarking ratings, games should remain enjoyable even if they sometimes drop a few fps.
The other side of the coin is battery life, and the Galaxy A10’s 3400mAh cell performs admirably in testing, providing just over seven hours of screen-on time. Because of the simple components at work, the A10 should last a whole day, which is especially essential given that this phone does not support fast charging.
30 minutes of charging will get you just over 21% of the way there, which is good for a couple of hours of use but not much more, so keep that in mind if you don’t charge your phone every night.
When you can have a full mobile experience for under £140, there’s a lot that can slip. Samsung has done an excellent job of bringing its One UI user experience to the low-level technology within the Samsung Galaxy A10. Also, the 6.2inch display, as previously said, will appeal to Netflix and YouTube addicts.
Aside from that, there’s not much the phone can brag about. The camera is adequate, as is the battery life, but the design is unappealing.
For the same price, comparable handsets like Motorola and Xiaomi may be better buys; with higher quality cameras, in some cases additional cameras, larger batteries, and more intriguing designs.
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