Samsung announced the Galaxy M10 in January 2019, adding another device to its Galaxy M mid-range smartphone lineup. The phone then became available in February 2019.

The Galaxy M series is a line of online-exclusive affordable smartphones produced by Samsung. The first models of the series were the Galaxy M10s and Galaxy M20, both of which came out early last year, in February. Then, the tech giant introduced the Galaxy M30 and Galaxy M40 in March and June, respectively. Essentially, the M series acts as the successor of the Galaxy J and Mega phablets.

At the price of Rs 6,999, the Galaxy M10 is much cheaper than its cousins in the same lineup, such as the Galaxy M10s (Rs 8,999), Galaxy M40 (Rs 19,780), Galaxy M20 4GB RAM (Rs 11,499) and Galaxy M30 128GB (Rs 17,990).

While the M10 is the cheapest in its lineup, it’s hard for the phone to beat rivals at the same price point, like the Realme 3. Everything about this phone is OK, nothing outstanding.

Display

This smartphone comes with a PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen with a size of 6.22 inches, a resolution of 720x1520 pixels, and a 270ppi pixel density. The screen features the Infinity-V design with a waterdrop top notch that houses the front-facing camera. This display design is the same as the M10s, M20, and M30 of the same phone lineup.

Plane to Line Switching, or PLS, is Samsung’s proprietary screen design technology with performance close to IPS screens. This type of screen is 15% cheaper to manufacture compared with IPS displays with similar pros and cons to those of IPS screens.

Plane to Line Switching is when all the electrodes are on the same plane while the liquid crystal molecules are driven by horizontal and vertical electric fields. Samsung mostly uses this display tech for mid-range handsets to better publicize it to the market. To compare, it offers higher color accuracy, brightness, and wider view angles.

Overall, the viewing experience on this display is good for these specs, it features a screen resolution of 720x1520 pixels and a pixel density of 270 ppi. Its outdoor visibility is bright and sharp while the colors keep most of their vividness. The quality is actually not as great as an AMOLED screen, but good enough for the money. The video quality is good, you can watch in HD resolution.

The screen on this phone definitely allows for gaming. During gameplays, the frame rate mostly maintains at 30 frames per second, sometimes dropping to 26 fps. There are a few frame drops but it’s still within the acceptable range.

Chip

Regarding the platform and performance, the Galaxy M10 is powered by the 14nm Exynos 7870 octa-core processor, featuring eight 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 cores and Mali-T830 MP1 GPU. With this chip, the phone got 3662 points on GeekBench 4.1 multi-core score, a lot lower than the Realme 3’s score (4936 points). Its single-core score is even worse, 724 points as opposed to 1482 points of the Realme 3. These scores say pretty much about how powerful the device is.

This processor lets you play intensive mobile game titles, such as PUBG Mobile. When testing with this game, though you cannot choose high-end settings, the frame rate maintains in the range from 25 fps to 30 fps. This range is very good for this price range and swiping, pressing buttons feel really smooth. Also, when you play games, you will see the notch is hidden in a bezel instead of interfering with the interface with a small curve.

This chip cannot offer a very high frame rate or very smooth graphics, but it’s stable and good enough for gaming.

Storage

When it comes to RAM and ROM of the Galaxy M10, there are two options to choose from, either 2GB/16GB or 3GB/32GB. Considering these specs, the capacity is quite small compared with current phones, but common for entry-level devices at such a low price point. If you want a better gaming experience, you should opt for the 3GB RAM variant.

Battery

The smartphone packs a 3,400mAh Li-Ion battery with no support for wireless charging or fast charging. The battery can get you through an entire day with moderate use though this capacity is smaller than the Galaxy M10s (4,000 mAh). Meanwhile, its endurance rating is 89 hours, that’s 3.5 days.

Users of the Samsung Galaxy M10 have faced overheating issues. There are several reasons for this, including long gaming sessions that exhaust the phone’s hardware components.

Camera

In terms of photography specifications, the handset sports a dual-camera setup on the back, including a 13MP lens with a wide-angle feature and an aperture of f/1.9 along with a 5MP lens with ultra-wide-angle and an aperture of f/2.2. The rear camera module allows for taking shots in HDR mode, panorama mode, as well as video recording at 1080p resolution and 30fpx frame rate, supported with an LED flash.

On the front, there is a single 5MP selfie lens with an aperture of f/2.0 that also supports HDR mode and video recording at 1080p resolution and 30fps frame rate.

This is an entry-level smartphone, so except for these common features, the Galaxy M10 doesn’t offer anything special for photographing.

Of course, the Galaxy M10 cannot generate pictures as high-quality as the Galaxy S10, for example, but it does a very good job for its price tag. Daylight shots boast nice contrast, nice colors, and an adequate amount of detail, but the dynamic range is limited. And overall, the daylight photos look a bit darker than real life even on sunny days.

On the other hand, details are better than you may expect and with the right light conditions, there is limited noise. Wide-angles are brighter than standard shots but highlights are clipped.

Portraits and selfies are okay and low-light pictures are the limitation of the Galaxy M10. Night shots have a lot of noise and the dynamic range is limited. Without a dedicated night mode, you should expect anything good in low-light conditions.