Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra: The Beast And Best

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra

The S20 Ultra Is About Big Photos, Big Zoom Range And Large Price

OUR VERDICT

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra goes big in every way imaginable, with 108MP photos, a 100x camera zoom, 40MP selfies, and a 6.9-inch 120Hz display. With over-the-top internal specs on a par with some laptops, you'll pay more for this phone than any non-foldable phone before it, but that's not surprising. What’s surprising are a number of the bugs we've encountered that keep the Ultra from reaching its full potential.

FOR

• Impressive camera zoom range
• Samsung’s best display yet
• Fast 5G speeds confirmed

AGAINST

• Camera quality is inconsistent
• Price may be a new quite ridiculous
• You’re getting to need a much bigger hand

Two-Minute Review

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is Samsung’s biggest Android phone, and it’s most daring sales pitch: you'll own the world’s most advanced 5G phone with massive camera specs... if you’re prepared to spend extra money than ever on a non-foldable smartphone.

The Ultra is meant for early adopters, and three things stand out: it's a huge 6.9-inch display with next-gen fluid-scrolling tech which will stretch your hand; five cameras to capture 108MP photos, 40MP selfies and 8K video, and 5G antennas with peak speeds 66 times as fast as 4G LTE.

It's a nice jump from the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus cameras, although issues with inconsistent autofocus and overexposure keep the Ultra from being the simplest camera phone. Even with a camera software update, we still find the Galaxy S20 and S20 Plus to be better in most non-zoom scenarios.

The cameras specs do shine for far-off subjects. The 48MP zoom lens allowed us to urge up close and private because of a powerful sort of zoom lenses. It far surpasses the 2x optical and 10x digital zoom of previous Samsung phones, and therefore the limited 8x digital zoom on the Google Pixel 4 – although 100x zoom snaps were hardly Instagram-worthy, 30x zoom looked fine on a tripod.

Samsung's 'single-take mode' helps you answer an everyday question: should I take photos or a video?

Take both. Its new ‘single-take mode’ captures a spread of shots over a 10-second span: photos, ultra-wides, portraits, hyperlapse video, regular video, and so on. It kept us out of the settings menus and within the moment, plus you'll also clip 33MP photos from video, which proved handy.

The S20 Ultra features a monster spec list: 12GB or 16GB of RAM and 128GB or 512GB of internal storage kick things off.

There’s also an enormous 5,000mAh battery for demolition battery-intensive 5G signal, although we found it could only last quite 24 hours in 4G mode. There in-screen fingerprint sensor from last year’s phones, but it sadly is that the first S phone without a 3.5mm headphone jack.

It’s impossible to justify the Galaxy S20 Ultra price for everybody – even those that bought the S9 Plus or S10 Plus, and intended to urge subsequent ‘big one’ from Samsung.

For others, though, the word ‘upgrade’ means a totally different thing: they need a phone that pushes new boundaries, and that they don’t mind if that pushes the worth tag further into Galaxy Fold territory.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is Samsung’s own version of Tesla’s ‘Ludicrous Mode’ in its electric cars, and albeit the camera may be a bit overhyped and inconsistent at the instant , early adopters will love showing off how its cameras go from 0.5x to 100x zoom real quick.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Release Date And Price

• US, Australia release date: March 6; UK release date: March 13
• 128GB + 12GB of RAM: $1,399 / £1,199 / AU$1,999
• 512GB + 16GB of RAM: $1,599 / £1,399 / AU$2,249

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra release date was Friday, March 6 within the US and Australia, and March 13 within the UK, alongside the S20 and S20 Plus.

The S20 Ultra costs a staggering $1,399 / £1,199 / AU$1,999, which is quite any non-foldable smartphone we've tested within the past – which price is simply for the version with 128GB of internal storage and 12GB of RAM.

If you are feeling such as you may have 512GB of onboard storage and a mind-boggling 16GB of RAM, the S20 Ultra price jumps to $1,599 / £1,399 / AU$2,249. Sadly, there is no 256GB version in between, which most of the people who shoot video might want.

Some excellent news , though: you’re not getting to got to max-out the storage, given our ever-accelerating move to the cloud and therefore the incontrovertible fact that 5G connectivity will allow you to simply pull down remotely stored data.

Plus, all models of the S20 have a microSD slot for expanding the storage by up to 1TB just in case you are doing hit the built-in capacity.

Display And Overall Size

• 6.9-inch AMOLED display with fluid-looking 120Hz refresh rate
• 120Hz option only works at Full HD+ to save lots of battery life
• This is a tall phone, though not as wide because the 6.8-inch Note 10 Plus

Samsung’s 6.9-inch display will push the boundaries of your fingers’ reach and your thumb’s dexterity, yet it won’t feel much bigger than the S10 Plus – its width is really a tad smaller than the 6.8-inch Note 10 Plus and 6.7-inch Galaxy S10 5G.

It’s just that the Galaxy S20 Ultra is noticeably taller, not wider, expanding to a 20:9 ratio. you'll still grip it with one hand, and shove it during a deep-enough jeans pocket – just know that you’ll need to operate it with two hands to comfortably touch all corners of the display. It’s big; just not as big as its 6.9-inch screen suggests.

We found the Super AMOLED display to be bright and pixel-dense at its 3200 x 1440 QHD resolution, yet also look perfectly fine at the default Full HD+ resolution. The lower resolution saves battery life and – spoiler – it’s the sole resolution at which you'll experience the 120Hz screen refresh rate; that’s not QuadHD-compatible yet.

That's okay – we attended favor Full HD+ with 120Hz turned on instead of dialing the refresh rate backtrack to 60Hz. Samsung matches pure gaming phones just like the Asus ROG Phone 2 and Razer Phone 2 with this refresh rate, and therefore the screen fluidity makes playing fast-paced games, and even just scrolling through Instagram, feel nicer.

We appreciate that Samsung found how to form a smaller punch-hole for its front-facing camera within the top-center of the screen, and selfies actually look better than before – and say goodbye thereto wide dual-lens selfie camera from the S10 Plus, as there’s just one camera embedded during this display.

Software handled the depth detection fine, which casts doubt on why you would like a depth camera on the rear of the Ultra and therefore the Plus.

We were consistently wowed by the Ultra's screen-to-body ratio, brightness levels and support of display standards like HDR10+, offsetting our often cumbersome handling of this massive phone. It's worthwhile if you would like today's best smartphone display, and are not secretly wishing that the rumored iPhone 9 ushers in iPhone SE era sizes.

Design

• You get just two Ultra colors: Cosmic Gray and Cosmic Black
• Less screen curve, but accidental touches persist
• The camera bump and 1mm of additional girth aren't a hassle

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is formed of glass and aluminum – there’s no ceramic version this year – and comes in only two colors: Cosmic Gray and Cosmic Black. The Cloud Blue color is exclusive to the S20 and S20 Plus, while Cloud Pink is an option with the smaller S20 size, which may be a shame for Ultra owners who want some extra flash.

There’s still a curve on the proper and left edges of the screens, though it’s much less pronounced compared to past S phones. Sadly, that does not mean fewer accidental presses of the nearly bezel-less screen – Samsung still doesn't have excellent palm rejection software, so once we touched the sides with our grip and tried to press the shutter button within the camera app, the phone constantly thought we were trying to activate multi-touch and concentrate, rather than performing single press of a button. Palm creep is extremely real on this phone.

We’ve talked about the tall-not-wide dimensions (166.9mm x 76mm), so now let’s mention the girth and weight. At 8.8mm, the Ultra is noticeably thicker than the opposite S20 phones and every one of the S10 phones (those range from 7.8mm to 7.9mm), and it's a large rear camera bump on top of that. Both are completely okay with us.

It’s also heavier at 220g (roughly in between the S10 Plus at 175g and therefore the Galaxy Fold at 276g). But again, to us, this is often a totally favorable trade-off given the fast 5G mmWave technology, 108MP camera, and 5,000mAh battery that are packed into this cutting-edge smartphone.

Too repeatedly, camera team leads from various phone makers have told TechRadar “we would’ve slot in a far better camera, but the planning team won” – that’s an immediate quote from one among them.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra, thankfully, doesn’t sacrifice camera quality so as to seem extra chic. It’s big, but it's stylish enough – and more people will see your glorious 108MP photos than your phone anyway.

Five Cameras

• 108MP main camera allows you to crop into photos while minimizing quality loss
• Most 108MP shots we took ended up having autofocus and overexposure issues
• The 100x zoom may be a neat party trick, but not Instagram-worthy; 10x is where the magic happens
• The is that the best selfie camera, but not the simplest camera – a minimum of not with the present software

UPDATE: As promised, we went back are thoroughly tested this phone's camera with the most recent software following our initial in-depth Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra camera test. There are changes, but they didn't move the needle enough to vary our review verdict.

We could write an entire review of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra’s cameras, there’s such a lot to mention about them – and that’s excellent news if you would like something fresh out of your smartphone’s photos, but bad news if you would like the simplest photos with every snap.

It’s Samsung’s biggest camera sensor upgrade since the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, yet we found the hyped-up 108MP camera mode captures photos that do not look much different than snaps taken within the main camera's default 12MP mode.

However, the extra-large pictures do offer the power to crop in without the maximum amount quality loss. It is sensible for an equivalent reason recording 8K video is usually an honest idea albeit you don’t own anything quite a 4K TV: you'll crop and edit without sacrificing detail. It gives you creative latitude, albeit you ultimately output to a 12MP photo and 1080p video,

But Samsung’s 108MP mode features a tendency towards overexposing images while its overaggressive image processing can smooth faces and textures, and that we had difficulty with the autofocus in several of our tests. Another issue: once we snapped good 108MP shots, we had issues with uploading the 20MB files to some social media networks, as that they had a 12,000 x 9,000-pixel resolution. Twitter didn't just downsize the photographs, it flat-out rejected them.

That's troubling for such a dear camera phone. You furthermore may lose some features in 108MP mode, including motion photos (fine) and wonder mode (won't miss that), and there seems to be some baseline skin smoothing you cannot control (not good).

In the two photos above, taken on the Ultra and an iPhone 11 Pro Max, you'll see that the Ultra image is brighter, but to the detriment of the dynamic range – this happened tons with the photos we tested. You’ll also see where the phone had trouble focusing. The bokeh is sweet, though, giving the background some nice blur.

The 100x digital zoom range of the 48MP telephoto camera may be a neat party trick, but never gave us a usable photo. Even on a tripod, we found images taken using the 30x digital zoom looked oversharpened, and not in the least great. It is the 10x hybrid optical zoom that appeared most impressive in side-by-side photo comparisons with the iPhone and Pixel.

Where the 108MP camera struggled, the front-facing 40MP camera produced a number of the simplest selfie photos in our tests. There have been few autofocusing issues within the default 12MP mode, and more noticeable detail within the 40MP mode, but again, just one occasion we cropped in.

Samsung should offer you more control over the virtual bokeh on its selfie camera, because a shallow depth of field limits the flexibility of a 40MP camera (although the selfie camera takes 10MP photos by default). There isn’t an enormous amount you'll crop into if the backgrounds are always blurred.

Samsung has also introduced 'Smart Selfie Angle', a menu option that zooms out of group selfies automatically. We have seen the power to expand the frame on the Google Pixel 3, iPhone 11, and S10 series, but here it happens automatically when the camera detects two or more faces; when you're alone, it says tight for a more intimate view. This is often one less choice to worry about when you're trying to grab a fast selfie with several friends.

5G, Battery Life, Specs And Software

• 5G mmWave speeds are up to 66x as fast 4G LTE, but only in some areas
• During our testing, 4G LTE was sometimes faster than sub-6 5G
• Google Duo video calls are helpfully now integrated into the dialer app
• Samsung's Quick Share feature apes Apple's AirDrop so you'll easily transfer files, but it's limited to S20 phones for the instant

The Galaxy S20 Ultra will almost certainly the primary 5G smartphone for tons of individuals – just 1% of phones that shipped in 2019 were 5G devices, so it’s still very new tech.

Like the S20 Plus, the Ultra combines mmWave and sub-6 technology to supply the fastest peak download speeds (mmWave) and therefore the widest range (sub-6). The S20 is outfitted with just sub-6, and it won’t be sold by Verizon, an mmWave-exclusive carrier within the US, for this reason.

So how briskly is 5G on the S20 Ultra? Exactly 66 times faster than the 4G LTE iPhone 11 Pro Max we tested right next to Samsung's phone, a minimum of in NY City. We got 1.9Gbps on Verizon's mmWave network in Bryant Park, which broke our previous record of 1.6Gbps on the Galaxy S10 Plus within the same spot.

We did need to be outdoors, and shut to a 5G node on top of a lamppost, to form that happen. Sadly, mmWave is extremely fast but incredibly limited in range, whereas sub-6 is slower (ranging from 200Mbps to 500Mbps) but features a wider range, offers a more reliable connection and works indoors. Traveling around London, which is restricted to sub-6 networks immediately, we actually saw faster speeds with our 4G LTE iPhone 11.

The fact is that 5G remains considerably in its infancy in some regions, but, by combining the 2 5G technologies, the S20 Ultra and S20 Plus futureproof your access to super-fast connectivity.

The rest of the interior specs are all top-of-the-line: a 7nm chipset (Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 within the US, or Samsung’s Exynos 990 within the UK and Europe), 12GB or 16GB or RAM, 128GB or 512GB of internal storage, and a microSD card slot for expandable storage.

Samsung’s One UI 2.0 software reskins Android 10 with a one-hand-friendly layout, with tons of the menus items you would like to the touch appearing on rock bottom half the screen. Another perk is that Google Duo is now integrated directly within the dialer app – we were ready to fill HD video calls, and you'll chat with up to eight people.

The other new software addition is Quick Share, Samsung's combat Apple's AirDrop. It allows you to share files with multiple people, not only one person at a time, without having to attach to Bluetooth or sign into anything. However, the feature is exclusive to the Galaxy S20 series for now, with the intention that older Samsung phones should catch on within the future.

Battery Life

• 5,000mAh may be a monster battery size, but power gets spent quickly at higher settings
• There's a big difference in drain time with 5G and 120Hz enabled
• There's a 25W charger within the box, and therefore the Ultra is compatible with an optional 45W charger and 15W wireless charger

Using 5G hogs battery life, and partially to counter this the Galaxy S20 Ultra features a 5,000mAh battery capacity, while the S20 Plus features a 4,500mAh battery. We found that the Ultra lasted longer than 24 hours on days we weren't testing 5G speeds non-stop.

The Ultra lasted 12 hours and 13 minutes in our battery drain test that ran through sites on the T-Mobile LTE network. Switching to the 120Hz screen, however, shaved off exactly three hours, with the phone dying at 9 hours and 13 minutes using an equivalent test. We found it hard to mention no to the fluidity of 120Hz screen, but you'll want to show it off when you are not gaming.

Samsung’s ‘Super Fast’ charging returns on the S20 Ultra, up to 45W here with an optional charger, and 25W with the charger included within the box.

That mirrors what we saw on the Galaxy Note 10 Plus, as does the Ultra’s fast wireless charging prowess of up to 15W.

Despite the massive battery size, we were ready to charge the phone to 31% in only quarter-hour, and 63% in half-hour, using the 25W charger.

Buy It If...

• You relish phones with big, beautiful screens
• This 6.9-inch display will stretch you grip and need juggling to urge to all or any corners of the screen, but you finish up with an amazing-looking picture that's more fluid when the 120Hz refresh rate is turned on.

You Want Your First 5G Smartphone

5G remains in its infancy in some regions, but it proves to be 66 times as fast as 4G LTE within the right locations with mmWave technology – although in fact your milage may vary.

You Want To Point Out Off The 108MP Camera And 100x Zoom

The S20 Ultra cameras boast big numbers and cutting-edge specs, and although the 108MP photos aren't perfect, and therefore the 100x zoom looks blurry, both offer neat party tricks, and everybody we showed this phone to was wanting to try them out.

Don't Buy It If...

• You want the simplest camera phone
• Samsung is offering something new that pushes the boundaries of smartphone photography. But the experience isn't consistent, with exposure and autofocus issues, and while the Ultra's 108MP photos have their perks, it's hard to call them 'the best' we've taken on a phone.

You Wish Smaller Phones Would Make A Comeback

You shouldn’t buy the Galaxy S20 Ultra if it’s too big for your hand, which could also be true for many average phone buyers. It makes a convincing case for foldable phones to exist.

You're On A Budget

Even if you've bought a Plus-sized Samsung phone within the past, its new big phone for 2020 might not be for you due to the eye-watering price. The Galaxy S20 Plus also got a price hike, but it's more reasonable if you're strapped for cash.