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5 reasons you should stick with your Galaxy S10 instead of buying the new Galaxy S20
5 reasons you should stick with your Galaxy S10 instead of buying the new Galaxy S20
Antonio Villas-BoasFeb 22, 2020, 19:09 IST
Antonio Villas-Boas/Business InsiderThe Galaxy S10 is still a great phone, and you don't need to upgrade to the Galaxy S20.
The Galaxy S20 represents one of the biggest leaps in Samsung's phones in years because of new features like 5G connectivity and a smooth 120Hz screen that makes for a powerful experience.
But the Galaxy S20 starts at $1,000, which makes it a pricey upgrade. You can trade-in your Galaxy S10 for up to $600, which gives you a massive discount for the Galaxy S20. But that's still spending $400 for not much reason at all.
The new features in the Galaxy S20 will surely feature in Samsung's next smartphone in 2021. Since the Galaxy S10 is only a year-old, it's worth saving your money until at least the next Samsung phone is released.
Samsung's Galaxy S20 is one of the biggest leaps we've seen on a Samsung phone, even when you compare it to last year's Galaxy S10.
The new devices have totally refreshed camera systems, 5G connectivity, a glorious 120Hz screen, and even Samsung's Quick Share that's reminiscent of Apple's AirDrop - an incredibly useful feature loved by iPhone users.
These are worthy upgrades, even if you're a Galaxy S10 owner. But there's one big, massive obstacle that prevents me from recommending that anyone upgrade from the Galaxy S10 to the Galaxy S20.
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I'm talking about the Galaxy S20's $1,000 minimum price tag.
On their own, those four numbers after the dollar symbol should deter most Galaxy S10 owners from upgrading. There isn't a slightly pared down and less expensive model like the Galaxy S10e.
Samsung does, however, give you the option to trade-in your Galaxy S10 for a huge $600 credit towards a new Galaxy S20, bringing the price tag down from $1,000 to $400. That's a pretty great deal that almost made me stop writing this article.
Still, that's $400 you'd be spending over what you spent on the Galaxy S10 just one year ago.
Here's a quick reminder on why your Galaxy S10 is still great, and why a massive $600 discount still doesn't justify the upgrades you'd get on the Galaxy S20:
The Galaxy S10 phones are still strong performers with great specs.
The Galaxy S10 phones run on the top hardware from 2019, including the Snapdragon 855 chip and between 8 GB and 12 GB of RAM. Those specs will run the Android operating system, your apps, and games just fine for at least another year until Samsung launches a new phone in 2021.
And it still looks like a modern, sleek smartphone.
The Galaxy S10 is still among the prettiest smartphones, even after the Galaxy S20 was announced. They're classy and clad in premium materials like metal and glass.
The Galaxy S10 has the same variety of camera lenses, including a regular, ultra-wide, and zoomed lens.
The base Galaxy S20 doesn't offer much more in the camera front compared with the Galaxy S10. Yes, Samsung added new sensors with more megapixels and zoom than ever before, but that's unlikely to fix one of the biggest issues with Galaxy smartphone cameras, which typically try too hard to make your photos look good. It often results in photos that look badly photoshopped. Plus, the Galaxy S20's ultra-wide cameras clock in at 120-degree field-of-view, which is actually slightly narrower than the 123 degrees offered by the S10's ultra-wide lens.
It's hard to justify spending $1,000 on the biggest upgrade in the Galaxy S20 that you don't get with the Galaxy S10: 5G.
5G is one of the biggest upgrades you get with the Galaxy S20. After all, 5G is the next generation of wireless networks that promises better performance than today's 4G LTE. It's a pretty big deal.
With that said, 5G networks are still quite sparse. There's no guarantee that you'll be connected to a 5G network if you get the Galaxy S20. T-Mobile users will have the best chance, as T-Mobile's 5G network has the most coverage so far. Just note that T-Mobile's 5G network is the long-range version, which also means it's the slower version of 5G. You can expect somewhat faster speeds than 4G LTE, but it's not the super fast 5G you may have heard about.
AT&T and Verizon have the super fast 5G networks so far, but the coverage is extremely limited at the moment. Verizon and AT&T customers may get a glimpse of 5G connectivity if they happen to live in a city where these carriers have deployed it, but their 5G networks are unlikely to be the primary networks you'll be connecting to on a daily basis.
There's also the Galaxy S20's buttery-smooth 120Hz screen, but I wouldn't ditch a year-old-phone just for that feature.
No doubt about it. The Galaxy S20's 120Hz screen makes for a buttery-smooth look and feel while you're swiping around. It gives off the impression that the phone is more powerful and advanced than previous phones with standard 60Hz screens, like your Galaxy S10!
Still, I wouldn't ditch a year-old phone just to get that smooth screen experience. It's a feature that's likely to stick around for a while, and it'll surely be on Samsung's next big smartphone in 2021, and the year after that, and after that, and so on. There's no rush, basically.
