Price / Performance ratio can be regarded as the most important factor when you decide what your new smartphone should be — unless of course you can spend any amount, even for inferior devices that you are going to replace the next month.

Price / performance ratio is the most important factor because smartphone technology has not reached any kind of “maturity” and you have to be flexible, ready to replace your device in a couple of years or so.

What do we mean by “performance”? That depends on what you need your smartphone for. Is it battery life, screen clarity, gaming power, camera quality? Let us see an example, a rather expensive smartphone, Samsung Galaxy S10. Would that be a wise purchase?

First of all, do not rely just to specs, you need to examine a phone in action, see the results and understand the real value of specs. First some well known facts, here taken for granted: Galaxy S10 has a life battery of about 25 hours between charges. Is this enough for you? You are going to judge. Its pixel density can reach 550 ppi, a level that is not only impressive but useless! Even Samsung won’t activate this mode before you explicitly decide so, since it has no visible results in everyday use and it consumes a lot of battery power. Perhaps you will see some difference in virtual reality, provided, even then, that you hold the screen really close to your eyes… It is also known that the fingerprint sensor of Galaxy S10 has some problems, it may fail more times than expected, and you need to place your hand very carefully to avoid failures.

Camera quality is my main concern along with battery life. Since battery life is less than impressive in Galaxy S10, let’s see its camera quality. If you are going to “invest” a lot of money in a smartphone, why would you reject Google Pixel 3, a phone able to take great photos? And it’s not Pixel 3 the only able competitor, since Huawei also can take better photos than Samsung. Here is a low light picture featuring the difference between Samsung Galaxy S10+ and Huawei P 30 Pro. Photos of P 30 are brighter, more natural and more detailed. (Daylight photos too.)

But is this result due to P 30 being equally expensive? Let’s see Xiaomi Mi 9T, a much better priced phone, and you can judge by yourself if the difference in quality is worth giving even just $ 50 more…

Since I’m really ruthless, I’ll go beyond mobiles of a similar price with S10, even beyond Mi 9T. Let’s see how S10 performs compared with Redmi Note 7! And, let’s bypass how bad this horizontal bar with the lens of Samsung is…

Evaluate by yourself: How much would you spend to get this difference in camera quality, assuming there is a difference you would want…

Are there conditions when S10 can take better pictures than Redmi Note 7? Yes. But, considering the HUGE price difference, I don’t believe S10 would be a nice buy, since it can take even inferior pictures.

As for processor power, I watched a video featuring Galaxy S10 against Mi 9T in gaming, and I have to admit, you can be depressed when you realize you spent $ 700 only to discover that S10 is slower than Mi 9T! So, here is what the price / performance ratio means. Think carefully before you spend, unless of course money is not a problem for you.