The stuff Hacker News actually recommends.

Phones · Samsung Galaxy S

Samsung Galaxy S10e

10owners with an opinion
67%of verdicts positive
5/3positive/negative since 2024
7 yrslongest happy owner
3happy after 3+ years

Praised for portability and performance; criticized for software and durability.

What owners wrote

Likes itOwned 7 years
I'm writing this on a seven year old phone (an S10e), running a community ROM with A15, and I have no issues at all in installing any apps. This device is my daily driver (it has a headphone jack and SD card support, and a relatively easily replaceable battery, and is small and light - so it's better than most modern flagships for my needs). A pixel would have much better community ROM support still. These old flagship phones are still plenty powerful for anything other than (useless) on device AI or intense 3D gaming. There is only a "depreciation" model if you don't unlock your bootloader - and even then, a seven year support cycle makes it very easy to obtain cheap, old, fully supported phones, if that's your jam.
Likes itOwned 4 yearsStill going
Samsung tries very hard to get me to upgrade but my 4-year old s10e still works great, it's super fast, though it doesn't have updates anymore. However, I'm keeping it till it dies because there is no other small Android phone on the market with a side fingerprint reader.
Likes itOwned 4 years
As someone who has used a S10e for 4 years and just ordered a S23 I think people are blowing the "bloatware" way out of proportion. I use the Samsung apps I want, the rest are disabled/tucked away in a folder. I never get bothered to update the ones I don't use. My wife has a pixel 6a, I don't see how my Samsung is any more bloated after 5 mins of setup. In fact OneUI allows you to make everything look a lot more minimal and cleaner than the default pixel setup with it's huge buttons, colours everywhere and the google search bar you can't get rid of.
Likes it
I use a 2019 flagship phone (an s10e), and Firefox for Android is butter-smooth for me. So I cannot imagine why it would be janky for you with your multiple-times-faster modern phone? Sounds like you're describing Firefox from around the time my phone was made (which was indeed slow and janky, and had lots of UI issues).
Likes it
At 193 cm in height, I have large hands too. I currently use a Zenfone 10 and a Galaxy S10e before that, and I can grip them both just fine in one hand, but I can't also control them with that same hand without awkward contortions and a reliance on gravity. The only phones I've had that I could comfortably use one-handed were my old BlackBerry Q10 (2013) and BlackBerry Classic (2014). The Q10 because it's short enough to hold between my thumb and ring finger such that I could use my index and middle fingers on the touch screen (slightly unorthodox but it worked really well), and the larger Classic because it has an optical thumbpad and excellent software support for it (it was so good I rarely used the touch screen at all). And both had physical keyboards.
Likes it
i tried that with some sugru on an old phone (samsung s10e) and it does a really good job of blocking the microphone. if you have a case on your phone its a lot less destructive too since you can just stuff the sugru into the microphone hole in the case. the case i was using was soft rubber so it was easy enough to pop out the corner of the case to be able to use the microphone for a call. that wasnt my daily phone at the time though so im not sure how well it would work in reality. i could see myself forgetting to pop out the case when i get a call and the other person just handing up before i realised what was going on. it also doesnt work on every phone. i tried the same thing on a pixel 5 but blocking the mic hole did nothing, but that phone uses an under screen speaker so maybe there is something similar going on with the mic
Doesn’t like it
>I never heard of someone who bought a new phone _solely_ for a new battery I did. I had a Samsung Galaxy s10e, and I have an s23 now, which I got on its launch. The only reason I got a new phone is because they don't have legit batteries to replace my shitty s10e battery in my country of residence (very shitty European country). No Samsung support, no iFixIt (they don't ship here), nothing. Just shady shops selling shady batteries. I preferred the smaller size of the s10e, and software-wise it did everything I needed it to do. Plus I didn't have to rely on Bluetooth earbuds when I need(ed) to wear some earbuds. Oh, and the battery has gotten noticeably worse in the past year and a half, and the _only_ reason why I will buy a new phone in a year, year and a half is that I know for a fact the battery life will become (even more) unbearable, and there aren't any official/legit channels through which I could replace the battery. I know I'm talking about Samsung, but the same would apply to Apple here, and any other brand. If this wasn't an issue for me, I could see myself using the same phone for 5-6 years, probably even longer if set up lineageOS on it -- but after +5 years I imagine I would like to use some new phone with its "new" features... which I will likely never really use in the first place
Doesn’t like it
I don't use wireless headphones because they are impractical and quality is low and I feel unconfortable to put wireless emitter almost in my brain. I don't use 3,5mm jack on my phone as well, because output from S10e is terrible. So I connect fiio DAC via USB-C and wired Shure headphones to DAC. I don't understand why anyone, who cares about sound quality, complainis about output, that crippling that quality.
Doesn’t like it
I too have an S10e. The initial reason was I had a real leather case for my S7 for when it finally got too janky to use, and I was able to 3d print a new shell to put in the case for the S10e. I drop my phone enough, after a few years I had 2 problems: 1. The phone had a cracked screen and moisture found its way inside causing wireless (cell and WiFi) to sometimes not work and 2. Security updates (or lack thereof) meant I could not access work stuff anymore due to their policies. After shopping around I realized paying another $200 for a replacement phone which still did the job, fit in my pocket and my nice leather case, and which could be upgraded to LineageOS and get back up to date on security patches was the best option for me. So I am on my second S10e as of a few months ago. At 200 USD, I would be happy replacing the phone every 2 years, but I suspect if I am careful, I will not have to. Smart phones have become big, expensive and ever more filled with crapware. LineageOS helps with crapware too (which is probably why everyone locks their bootloader these days).
Likes it
Just a regular Samsung (S10e because it has a headphone jack; bought second hand to reduce e-waste), running Debian in userspace on the stock kernel because I didn't want to give up things like the camera 960fps slow motion feature. I like open source but I also like practical usability ^^' The Debian "app" gives me access to apt and anything that has an ARM build, which is nearly everything. Sometimes I write code on it, like a PoC to brute force a numeric parking lot voucher was the most recent instance, but most commonly I use qalc (best calculator ever, also use it on desktop) and sshd to remotely access photos/Screenshots. It used to be more featureful and you could run things like wavemon and aircrack, but selinux restrictions have made that a thing of the past. Surely it's possible to adjust, but I haven't invested the time in finding out how yet
Likes it
My daily driver phone is a Galaxy s10e (which I bought when my s7 got hinkey, because it could more or less fit into the same leather wallet case). It is not rooted because TBH I don't do much more than calls, web, chat, email on it (in that order). Work requires an android security patch level less than 6 months old, so I decided the new Pixel 8 pro would give me at least 7 years before I have to replace it. I use it on Wifi only, and my life is improved by not always being connected to work. It takes nice pictures but so far I am wasting all that power. I need it to last 7 years. I have an Android tablet for movies on travel (Galaxy Active Tab Pro). But mostly - I prefer a machine I have close to full control over. I am a Windows guy, so I have a a 2014 era HP x360 for super light "throw it in bag and forget it" and a cheap Dell Latitude refurb which came with a GPU (200 bucks shipped), 32gb RAM and a 2018 era i7. It runs older games admirably. When I had my work stuff on my s10e, I would bring the x360 on vacay instead of my work laptop and just use Dex if something blew up which needed my attention. (Mostly not needed, but I lole to be ready). I have a NAS device running Windows Server 2022 which does backup / JellyFin / misc duties. It is an old i7 from 2015 with 32gb DDR3. Runs like a champ. I am looking at some point to clean up my Google account by pulling everything down and burning it to MDISC. I have a fairly modern gaming PC I built, but mostly don't use…
Neutral
Counterpoint: I have a rather good experience with Samsung. I bought flagships devices some time after their releases (I had S2, S4, S8 and now a S10e from work) and they lasted me a long time (S2 and S4 both lasted for four years). The big advantage is that they were powerful devices with a removable battery and a SD-card slot. Downside was a tendency to overheat a bit (this was particularly bad on the S2 at some point, though I recall subsequent software updates helped a lot). In all cases, the devices kept being updated to the latest android while I was using them. The Samsung Android additions are pretty much useless except maybe one or two good ideas, but they also don't get in the way. I just spend 30 minutes to disable things when I get my phone. Also I don't know if you've looked at real stock android (e.g. fire an emulator from Android studio for instance) but that stuff is real ugly (shouldn't be a big consideration - it can be themed quite easily, but I felt I needed to make this point).