- Samsung has pushed the specs of its Galaxy S20 Ultra to the max as it looks to go head to head with Chinese brands' premium phones; power users will love it
- Its 'periscope' zoom lens is best in class, but its main camera has focusing issues; handset's less curvy feel, and raised camera housing, may put buyers off
Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra might just look like another update to the South Korean company's long-running flagship handset series, but take a closer look and you will discover the latest release breaks with a number of Samsung conventions. It is a development that some would see as a gamble, especially given the stiff competition from Chinese smartphone makers.
Hardware and design
The screen edges on the S20 Ultra are noticeably less curved and the visual effect of the screen spilling off the sides is gone. There is still a rounding of edges for a smoother grip, but for the most part this 6.9-inch OLED display is a flat panel.
The flush camera module of years past has been replaced with an unsightly large bump on the back " needed to house a whopping 108-megapixel main lens, a "periscope" zoom lens that was first seen in Huawei and Oppo handsets, and the usual wide-angle and depth sensors. This camera array represents Samsung's other departure from tradition.
Over the past few years, most Chinese brands have been chasing ever-higher-megapixel cameras. While a higher megapixel count on a traditional camera is a good thing, it is risky on a thin mobile device because the more pixels there are in an image, the more light is needed to fill them, and smartphone bodies have limited space to house light-absorbing image sensors.
This explains why legacy brands such as Apple, Google, LG, and even Huawei have opted not to jump on the bandwagon and launch 48-, 64-, and 108-megapixel sensors, while upstarts like OnePlus, Xiaomi and Vivo are gunning for them. Samsung has joined the Chinese upstarts and gone for a headline-grabbing high pixel count on the S20 Ultra.
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It is not just the camera sensor " every specification of the S20 Ultra prompts a superlative: there is a 5,000 mAh battery; up to 16GB of RAM; the periscope lens can zoom up to 100X; and the main camera lens can record 8K-resolution video (at a time when 4K televisions are still a rarity in homes).
Software and features
Samsung's One UI Android skin, which runs on top of Android 10, is solid, but there are still some old Samsung quirks " such as an app tray that scrolls horizontally; a half-dozen Samsung apps that you cannot delete; and a hard-to-activate one-handed mode. Overall, though, it is a fine software experience.
Samsung uses a combination of hardware and software to make the light-hungry 108-megapixel camera lens work. On the hardware side, the S20 Ultra houses the largest image sensor ever seen in a smartphone " it measures 9.5mm x 7.3mm, which is around twice the size of the iPhone 11's image sensor.
The software uses a process called "pixel-binning" to combine nine pixels' worth of data into one. For the most part, this combination works: images captured by the S20 Ultra retain the benefits of a high megapixel count (photos are extremely detailed) while mostly eliminating the downsides (noisiness, lack of light).
There is a catch: the large image sensor creates the effect of shooting with a wide open aperture on a traditional camera, which results in a shallow depth of field. When shooting a subject, there is a bokeh effect not just in the background, but the foreground. This is not a flaw if the software keeps focus on the subject, but the S20 Ultra struggles here, losing focus a bit more often than previous Samsung phones.
The focusing problem has drawn enough attention from reviewers that Samsung released a statement promising a software update to fix the issue.
Performance and battery life
For years, Samsung's flagship handsets had the best screen of any phone. That ended in autumn 2019, when OnePlus launched a phone screen with a 90Hz refresh rate that made the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, whose screen has a 60Hz refresh rate, look slightly sluggish.
With the S20 Ultra, Samsung has come roaring back, with the screen refreshing at a blistering 120Hz. Like the recently released Oppo Find X2 Pro that also has a 120Hz panel, every animation looks extra fluid and smooth on the S20 Ultra.
The high refresh rate does hit the battery very hard, but the S20 Ultra's large 5,000 mAh cell keeps things from looking too dire. With my heavy usage, the S20 Ultra cannot quite last an entire day on a single charge " but it gets close.
The zoom camera works well, but Samsung has been needlessly aggressive in marketing its 100X zoom capability. While it is possible to shoot at 100X zoom, the images are a blurry mess. Still, images shot at 10X and 30X zoom using the S20 Ultra are best in class, edging out Oppo's Find X2 and Huawei's P30 Pro.
Overall, this camera has more raw power and focal length versatility than rivals on the market " but it needs polishing, something Samsung will hopefully deliver via its promised software patch.
Conclusion
Samsung is still the world's number one phone maker by market share, but its lead has shrunk over the years, entirely because of aggressive Chinese brands whose phones usually match Samsung's spec for spec. The S20 Ultra feels like Samsung saying "enough is enough". This is a phone that pushes every component to the extreme.
The cost of this maximal approach is a higher price tag, a camera with focusing issues, and a design that has lost some of the previous generation's elegance and mastery. Was the gamble worth it? I think power users will say yes.
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Dimensions: 167 x 76 x 8.8 mm
Weight: 221 grams
Display: 6.9-inch 1440 x 3200 OLED panel
Battery: 5,000 mAh
OS version reviewed: Android 10 with One UI 2.0 on top
Processor: Snapdragon 865
Cameras: 108-megapixel f/1.8 main camera; 12-megapixel wide-angle lens; 48-megapixel "Periscope" telephoto lens; TOF sensor; 40-megapixel selfie camera
Memory: 256/512GB ROM; 12/16GB RAM
Colours: black, grey
Price: HK$9,998 (12GB RAM+256GB ROM); HK$10,998 (16GB RAM+512GB ROM)
Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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