So far in both Melbourne and Sydney I've only been able to get just under 200Mbps maximum download speeds out of Telstra's 5G (the only 5G available right now),which is comparable to a good 4G connection and far lower than 5G's ultimate potential. Plus the number of places you'll find 5G coverage is currently very limited,and on a couple of occasions I've had to manually fall back to 4G to solve connection issues.
This is all understandable given how early 5G is,and if you buy an S10 5G today it will all get better over the life of the phone,but the benefit on day one is pretty slight. Especially once you consider the cost.
The 256GB Galaxy S10 5G is going for $56 per month over 36 months through Telstra,or a total of $2016 not including plan costs. This is an almost $800 premium over the 128GB S10+.
Price and 5G capabilities aside,this smartphone is a bigger,better and more luxurious version of the already big and excellent S10 devices.
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The massive S10 5G actually feels very nice in the hand,with its rounded glass front and back broken up by a raised aluminium frame,which helps grip. The front of the phone is all screen,save for the ovular double hole punch camera cutout top right. I'm not convinced this is more practical than a notch — it just pushes notification icons to the middle rather than squeezing them to one side — but it looks cool.
The display itself can run at up to a very crisp 1440x3040 and is compatible with HDR10+ content,and as always for Samsung it's brilliant to look at and most impressive if you forget about accuracy and leave Vivid mode on.