NEW DELHI: Samsung has launched its flagship smartphones -- the Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, a cheaper Galaxy S10e and the Galaxy S10 5G at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. The company was yet to announce the India pricing of the devices. The launch comes as the smartphone market experiences its worst-ever decline with consumers keeping devices longer and waiting for new innovations.

Samsung made the announcement on the home turf of rival Apple, with the two giants battling in the premium segment of the market.

Samsung introduced the new "Infinity-O" screen in the devices which has a tiny cut-out for the camera hole on top of the display. That means users don't have any sort of "notch" as you see on iPhones.

"Galaxy S10 delivers breakthrough display, camera and performance innovations. With four premium devices, each built for a unique consumer in mind, Samsung is leveraging a decade of industry leadership to usher in a new era of smartphone technology," said DJ Koh, President and CEO of IT and Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics.

Samsung's direct rival to Apple iPhone XR is Galaxy S10e that doesn't have all of the features of the pricier Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+, including the new in-screen fingerprint scanner, the advanced cameras or the curved displays. However, it does have the same brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor and the most affordable price, starting at $749 (roughly Rs 53,000).

The price of Galaxy S10 starts at $849 (roughly Rs 60,000) and packs in almost all features as its high-end sibling Galaxy S10+ -- except for a slightly smaller display and a front-facing camera with portrait mode.

The S10 brings three rear cameras -- a 16MP ultrawide sensor with fixed focus, a main 12MP dual aperture wide-angle lens with OIS and a 12MP telephoto lens with OIS.

It has a 6.1-inch display and it is slightly smaller than the Galaxy S10+, which has a 6.4-inch display.

It is the first HDR10+-certified smartphone and its dynamic AMOLED display is also VDE-certified for vibrant colours and extraordinary contrast ratio for even deeper blacks and brighter whites, the company said.

The costliest of the lot is Galaxy S10+ that adds a 6.4-inch screen and a selfie camera for portrait selfies.

Samsung would reportedly sell a super premium model with a stronger ceramic body, 12GB RAM and a massive 1TB of storage out of the box apart from the $999 (roughly Rs 74,000) variant with 128GB internal storage and 8GB RAM.

All three devices come with glass back panels and support wireless charging. Similar to the Huawei Mate 20, the Galaxy S10 also supports reverse wireless charging, thus allowing users to charge a device by placing it on the rear of the S10.

Galaxy S10 is built with defense-grade Samsung Knox, as well as a secure storage backed by hardware, which houses your private keys for blockchain-enabled mobile services.

Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+ and Galaxy S10e will be available in Prism White, Prism Black, Prism Green, Prism Blue, Canary Yellow and Flamingo Pink. Galaxy S10+ will also be available in two, all-new, premium Ceramic models: Ceramic Black and Ceramic White.

The company also unveiled the Galaxy S10 5G phone, which has the largest screen of the bunch, measuring in at 6.7 inches. The Galaxy S10 5G has a 4,500mAh battery and comes with 256GB storage with 8GB RAM. The South Korean tech major also unveiled the Galaxy Fold with six cameras and two batteries for $1980 (roughly Rs 140,000). This is Samsung's first truly flexible device which converts from a smartphone to a tablet and will be available on April 26.

(With inputs from agencies)