Almost Perfect, Yet so Flawed

Overall, the Galaxy S10+ is an almost perfect device. At least, it would be if it weren’t for the fact that there's two of them. The Snapdragon Galaxy S10+ is actually the first phone I would have considered giving a gold award to, which considering that over the years I've never given an award to any phone should put things into context.

If you’re a reader in the US or other Snapdragon markets, you can stop reading here and feel happy about your purchase or go ahead and buy the Galaxy S10+.

Unfortunately the rest of the world gets another phone. Although battery life and performance this year aren’t an issue for the Exynos variant, the unexpected huge discrepancies in the camera quality, some screen calibration bugs, and the audio quality disparity all make this variant of the Galaxy S10+ a lesser choice. Except for the audio matter, most of these issues are software related. However I do have reservations if it’s even possible to make the camera processing equal to the Snapdragon.

Yet even with all these drawbacks, the Exynos variant of the Galaxy S10+ is still a great phone. It's just not as great as the Snapdragon version; which is to say that it's not as great as it could and should be. Consequently, interested buyers may want to wait a few months to get it at a cheaper price, making one feel better about the disadvantages it has against the Snapdragon.

Ultimately if Samsung wants to continue to compete against Apple and a surging Huawei in the ultra-high-end smartphone space, they will need to be able to deliver more consistent products across all markets. That Samsung Mobile division is not a vertically integrated with full control over their own silicon is now starting to show its disadvantages. It’s clear that vertical integration and more exclusive features is how things will go forward in the future for vendors who want to truly differentiate their products. In Samsung Mobile’s case, even with Samsung's incredible resources at their disposal, if they have to split their attention across two variants, it means each model will only get half the invested effort. Which, I suppose, is food for thought for what this means for the future of Samsung’s flagship devices.
The Samsung Galaxy S10+ Snapdragon & Exynos Review: Almost Perfect, Yet So Flawed