Samsung Galaxy S10 release date: New images revealed of final device

The Samsung Galaxy S10 is nearly upon us. Although details around Samsung’s next flagship remain scarce, especially as Samsung is more interested in pushing its upcoming foldable Galaxy X phone instead, new information is constantly slipping out.

The latest leak to slip out comes courtesy of case maker Ghostek. According to Gordon Kelly at Forbes, his source at Ghostek has sent over case renders that show off what the Samsung Galaxy S10 will look like.

From the images it’s clear to see Samsung has adopted a three-camera array on the rear of the device and has a complete edge-to-edge screen on the front. There’s no notch to be found either as Samsung has tucked the camera away in the screen with a small circular cutaway.

Samsung isn’t the first to go for such an approach. We’ve already seen this design decision be announced by Honor in its latest and greatest flagship phone too.

As Kelly outlines, this may still not be the final render for the S10 but it is the design that the company is going off for modelling its new phone cases. In the past Ghostek has been accurate in its design leaks ahead of producing protective cases, so there’s little reason to believe the S10 won’t turn out looking at least something like this.

Our last leak saw Android analyst Ice Universe tweeted some important news about the upcoming S10, and it’s believed that the version shown in Ghostek’s rendering is the middle-teir version that most will go on to buy.

There will be not one but three Samsung Galaxy S10 devices, according to this leak. In comparison the S9 had two variations, with no Lite alternative. By releasing all three at once Samsung is offering its budget option at the same time as its current option a lot like Apple’s iPhone XR.

Samsung is known for its wrap-around, nearly bezel-less screens. They’ve featured on every phone since the S7 Edge, so it should come as no surprise that the S10 is looking to build on that by adopting the market trend for a completely edge-to-edge display. However, unlike the iPhone Xs, OnePlus 6T, Google Pixel 3 XL and Huawei P20 Pro – to name a few – the Galaxy S10 is likely to not contain a notch.

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Instead of a notch space for the front-facing camera and facial recognition tools, Samsung appears to have opted for a little hole in the screen. A black dot that, presumably, will house the front-facing camera capable of fulfilling the same role as a notch, without the unsightly invasion onto your screen.

The patent was first spotted by Dutch website LetsGoDigital, and appears to have come from a filing with the Hague International Design System.

HIDS is a place for companies to file industrial design patents so they can then be accepted into 70 different countries at once if the design is approved. The patent consists solely of visual materials, so there are no descriptions to go alongside these to help understand just what you’re looking at.

From the series of patents it’s clear that a couple of designs did feature notches. Another features a sort of cutaway in the left side of the screen for a small camera array, while a colour image clearly shows a pinhole dot on the screen where a front-facing camera could sit.

Samsung Galaxy S10: Everything we know so far

The rumour mill of what we can expect from the Samsung Galaxy S10 is in full swing and there’s a huge swathe of potential features already set to come to Samsung’s next flagship phone.

To help you grasp what’s what, we’ve broken down everything we know so far.

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Samsung Galaxy S10 release date: When’s it out?

Samsung’s Galaxy S flagships are typically unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona each February, before releasing worldwide in March or April of the same year. Last year, for the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S9, Samsung brought the announcement out from MWC entirely, hosting it at a separate event. This event did still take place at the same time as before, but this change does indicate Samsung is prepared to mix its release dates up a little. According to The Korea Herald Samsung is accelerating the schedule for the S10 – possibly an indicator that the S9 isn’t reaching expectations.

According to Korea Herald, Samsung will unveil the S10 at CES in Las Vegas. This would mean a January 2019 unveiling for the handset, which is a tad surprising as that results in a February release date. It’s worth noting that similar CES rumours revolved around the S9, which never materialised at the show.

Samsung Galaxy S10 price: Will Samsung make it affordable?

When it comes to price, an affordable Samsung Galaxy S10 is almost completely impossible to hope for. While it’d be great for Samsung to reverse the trend of increasing phone prices, it’s unlikely we’ll see the S10 for anything less than the S9’s £739 price point. If anything, it’s likely to come in at the £800 mark given that each iteration of Samsung’s flagships seem to increase by around £50 each generation.

However, if you can wait, Samsung’s phone prices tend to drop quickly so you can pick up a bargain device within a handful of months after launch.

Samsung Galaxy S10 display and features:

According to Ice Universe, the Galaxy S10 screen resolution is going to exceed 600ppi. For comparison, the iPhone X has a screen resolution of 458ppi and the S9 has a resolution of 570ppi. As well as that, Ice tweeted that it would feature a screen to body ratio of 93%, so while it’s not bezel-less – it’s certainly close enough.

But what’s even more exciting is that the in-screen fingerprint sensor, once rumoured to be featured on the Note 9, is now apparently being saved for the Galaxy S10 rather than the bigger phablet. That is, if ultra-reliable Ice Universe is to be believed – and the leaker always seems to be right. That would make the S10 more desirable than Samsung’s Note 9 for sure, which apparently isn’t going to have a major upgrade.

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Korean website The Bell, also reports that the Samsung Galaxy S10 will be codenamed Beyond. The moniker will be used to refer to Samsung’s forthcoming flagship phone throughout its development process according to the site, which claims it has been tipped off by Samsung’s industry partners.

The name Beyond has been chosen because the handset will offer a host of features we’ve never seen in a Samsung phone, the website reports. In particular, it is expected to be the first phone from Samsung to include a fingerprint scanner in its screen. 

Ice Universe also revealed on Twitter that the Galaxy S10 will not be Samsung’s first 5G smartphone. “Samsung’s first 5G phone is not Galaxy S10,” came his laconic assertion.

“Samsung will launch 5G in March next year, but only 5G will be opened in few regions of the world,” he explained. “It is reasonable for Samsung not to carry 5G on S10. 5G baseband may bring instability and heat. Samsung will release a 5G dedicated mobile phone.”

We’re disappointed, obviously, not to see 5G in what will no doubt be a stunning smartphone. That being said, all this talk of “instability and heat” makes us hark uneasily back to the days of the ill-fated Note 7. Perhaps the call to omit 5G support from the Galaxy S10 was a prudent one after all…

KB Securities analyst Kim Dong-won writes that he expects Samsung will me embracing the triple-camera array debuted by Huawei with the excellent P20 Pro. “Samsung, which has a lower-than-expected demand for its latest Galaxy S9 lineup, will consider equipping its next premium phone with the triple cameras and a 3-D sensor to reinvigorate its smartphone business,” he writes, though details of how each lens would interact with the others is still a mystery.

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Samsung Galaxy S10 design: What could it look like?

A video from the YouTube channel Concept Creator, which shows a believable mock up of the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the S10 Plus in all of their sleek, streamlined glory. The teaser video doesn’t stem from Samsung itself; it’s not an official leak. Nonetheless, it does give us a tantalising insight into what the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S10 might one day look like. 

Meanwhile, Concept Creator took to Twitter to release some teaser images of the Samsung Galaxy S10, although reputable leaker Ice Universe questioned his visions, commenting: “Samsung may be bolder than you think”. 

At this stage, we don’t have any concrete details on the Galaxy S10, but here is a range of other things we’re hoping to see on the Samsung Galaxy S10, a device that celebrates a decade of Galaxy S handsets.