Galaxy S10 Lite: Samsung's affordable flagship is here

Samsung has chosen a rather odd time to launch the Galaxy S10 Lite in India, which has been unveiled just ahead of the launch of its much-awaited flagship series -- the Galaxy S20 -- next week.

The Galaxy S10 Lite is a serious attempt by the South Korean tech giant to give users better speed and performance, while making them compromise a little bit on some specs, to lay their hands on this Galaxy S series device. It is more like an "affordable flagship" from the House of Samsung. The smartphone packs in a top tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor and a big 4500mAh battery.

We reviewed the 8GB RAM and 128GB on board storage variant that costs Rs 39,999 for about a week and here's what we think of it.

The phone packs in a 6.7-inch AMOLED display that is crisp and pretty large. The company has, however, ditched the curved waterfall edges, which the pricier Galaxy S10+ and S10 has, for a flat screen on this one.

There's a punch-hole at the top which is the front-facing camera and is housed at the centre of the display.The handset maker seems to have worked on the improvement of the optical in-display fingerprint scanner as it was quick to identify and unlock the device.

The handset borrows a rectangular camera bump design from the upcoming S20 phones. However, the company has used a "glastic" instead of a glass for the body which is likely to disappoint.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite houses three rear cameras: there's a Steady OIS Camera (48MP), Ultra-Wide (12MP) and Macro (5MP) sensor. The device also sports a 32MP selfie camera.

The main shooter sports Super Steady OIS technology which can essentially make the lens move around like a gimbal to stabilise your videos.

The lens can move upwards, downwards and to the left and right to offset device movements caused by the user. In simpler words, it's more or less like the OIS you get on flagship smartphone cameras.

The ample 8GB RAM and 128GB on-board storage was smooth enough for multi-tasking, watching videos, playing games, taking images and browsing the Internet simultaneously. A major high point of the device is the 4500mAh battery that is supported by 25W fast charging technology.

This one's battery outpaces the 4100mAh capacity battery of Galaxy S10+.

The handset uses pixel binning to combine four pixels into one and take images with a final resolution of 12MP. In daylight, the technology works to produce great quality images. The camera has a tendency to push up the exposure a bit much during low light conditions.Samsung's Galaxy S10 Lite runs Android 10 OS with its own One UI 2.0 out of the box.

This brings in features like the built-in screen recorder, edge screen, edge lighting, Bixby Voice, Bixby Routines and power key customisation as well.

Samsung has not provided any water or dust resistance for the phone, which could be a bummer too.

Conclusion: The S10 Lite is a great attempt by Samsung at bringing the S-series flagship specs to a wider audience by toning down the flashy elements.