Daniel Rotar

July 17, 2020

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra – Why Apple should be worried!

Daniel Rotar

July 17, 2020

With a release date of mid-to-late August, the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 is just around the corner. Not only that, but the Note 20 is looking to be a true iPhone 12 killer. We know most of the details of both the iPhone 12 and the Note 20, so let’s take a closer look at the Note 20 and see how it stacks up against the iPhone 12!

Design

The Note 10+ from last year was one of my favourite Smartphones ever, in terms of the Design. Having that squared-off form-factor with almost no Bezels and a curved Display made the Phone look and feel like it was something straight from the future. The Camera was great, the S-Pen was always a nice touch and overall, I was a massive fan of the Note 10+.

When it comes to the Note 20, ‘OnLeaks’, who’s been incredibly accurate in the past when it came to his leaks, revealed the full Design of the Note 20 back in May. It looks like it is pretty much a Note 10+, with a few minor changes. The first change is that the edges are not as curved as they were on the Note 10+. In fact, they look to be almost entirely flat now, similar to what we got with the S20 Ultra. Personally, I have always preferred curved edges as they just look so futuristic and while accidental touches have been an issue in the past, with the S7, S8 and even the S9, I’ve never had that issue with my S10 or my Note 10. So, it’s a bit of a shame that Samsung got rid of those.

Check out "@ZONEofCONCEPTS” on both Instagram & Twitter for more concepts like this one

The second change is that the Front Camera Cutout is now smaller, it’s pretty much the same size as it was on the S20’s. The third, and final Design change is when it comes to the Camera Module on the back, which I’ll get to when I’m talking about the Camera Section. But, Design-wise at least, we do have these rings that actually match the colour of the Phone, which I think looks so good. I’m absolutely in love with the Note 20’s Design, even more so than with the Note 10+.

Moving on and just as we had last year, Samsung will be releasing two models of the Note 20. These will be the regular Note 20 and the Note 20 Plus, which might be called the Note 20 Ultra, which is how I’m going to refer to it throughout this video. We don’t really know much about the regular Note 20 aside from the fact that it will be smaller, with a lower Refresh Rate and a downgraded Camera. So, I won’t really be talking about the regular Note 20 from this point on as I’ll be focusing on the higher-end Note 20 Ultra model.

Speaking of that, we are expecting three colours: White, Black and this new Copper colour. We’ve actually had a recent leak of the new Copper Note 20 Ultra, which was posted on Samsung’s Russia website by…Samsung themselves. I’m not really sure if this is even a leak at this point but you can’t get more official than that. I have to say, the Note 20 Ultra looks absolutely gorgeous, even better than in our own concept. I love how the squared-off Camera matches the squared-off Body. The S-Pen also seems to perfectly match the Body of the Phone now, possibly even down to the actual material.

Display

The Note 10+ came with a 6.8” Display with a 19:9 Aspect Ratio and a Resolution of 3040x1440. The Note 20 Ultra is said to be getting a larger 6.9” Display with a taller 20:9 Aspect Ratio and a Resolution of 3200x1440. Not only that, but Ross Young, a well known Display Analyst, says that the Note 20 Ultra will be Samsung’s first Smartphone to come with an LTPO Display.

The Note 20 Ultra is said to come with a Dynamic Refresh Rate, similar to the iPad Pro.

Essentially, with the Galaxy S20’s earlier this year, we got a 120Hz Refresh Rate Display. However, we did not have a Variable Refresh Rate, meaning that you could either get 60Hz all the time, or 120Hz all the time. We didn’t have a dynamically adjustable Refresh Rate like on the iPad Pro for example, which can automatically adjust from 24Hz, all the way up to 120Hz, whenever it needs to. However, this will indeed be possible on the Note 20 Ultra, which will be able to dynamically adjust the Refresh Rate from 1Hz, all the way up to 120Hz. What this means is that we’ll see a much improved Battery Life over the S20 line and hopefully even 120Hz at Native Resolution, which on the S20’s is currently limited to 1080p.

Camera

Samsung made some gigantic Camera improvements with the S20 line. Not only did we have a larger Image Sensor for the first time since 2016, but we also got 8K Video Recording and 30x Digital Zoom on the S20 & S20+.

Of course, we also had the big S20 Ultra, which added a 108MP Sensor, up from the 12MP Main Module that the other two S20’s had. It also added 100x Space Zoom, which could theoretically zoom in so much that you could even see the surface of the Moon. All of that sounded great on paper, but unfortunately the S20 Ultra’s camera was plagued with issues.

The Low-Light performance was severely impacted by how small the Pixels on the Sensors really were. Even with Samsung’s Pixel Binning technology, photos and videos in Low-Light looked like they were taken on a Phone from a few years ago. The Zoom functionality was actually very good, but only up to 10x. Once you got to 30x, or not even to mention 100x, you know the story. That’s not even to mention all of the Auto-Focusing issues that were still not fully resolved, even after Samsung issued a ton of software updates. The Image Processing had its own fair of issues, with photos being either overly exposed, under exposed and the HDR Processing was hit and miss.

The Laser Module enables precise Auto-Focus.

So what about the Note 20 Ultra’s Camera then? Is it the same problematic Camera that the S20 Ultra had? Well…yes and no.

The Main Camera is said to be the same as on the S20 Ultra. That means we get a 108MP Sensor, with an f/1.8 Aperture and 0.8 µm Pixels. However, Samsung is said to be adding a new Laser Module to the right, the purpose of this new Module is to help the Main Camera focus faster. In theory, that should solve all the Focusing issues that the S20 Ultra had.

That 48MP, 100x Zoom Periscope Module that the S20 Ultra got is indeed said to be replaced with a 13MP Module that provides 5x Optical Zoom and around 50x Digital Zoom. This is compared to the 4x Optical Zoom, 10x Hybrid Zoom and 100x Digital Zoom that the S20 Ultra had. The quality at 50X, as this is quite a low Resolution Sensor, should be similar to the quality that the S20 Ultra had at 100x. But at 10x, it should be quite similar to the Ultra or even better, as we do have 5x Magnification on the Lens, so I’m definitely looking forward to trying that out.

Also, since we also get an f/3.4 Aperture, rather than the f/3.5 that the S20 Ultra got, alongside the much lower Resolution of 13MP, the Zoom Module should be much better in Low-Light than the S20 Ultra’s Camera was.

Finally the third Module is said to be the same 12MP, f/2.2 Ultra-Wide Angle Module that we got with the S20 Ultra. Aside from this, the Front Camera is said to be the same one as on the S20 Ultra, which means that it would be a 40MP Sensor with an f/2.2 Aperture capable of recording 4K Video at 60 FPS. 8K Video Recording will be there as well, but that’s on the Back Camera. So, overall if Samsung can indeed fix the Auto-Focusing issues, the Zoom issues and of course the Image Processing issues that the S20 Ultra had, I do think that this would be a great Camera.

Performance

Performance wise, this is a bit of a tricky one. You see, the S20 Ultra actually had very good Performance. It came with 12GB or even 16GB of RAM, the Note 20 Ultra will pretty much be the same. The baseline Storage model is said to be bumped to 256GB, compared to 128GB on the S20 Ultra. That would be the one that would come with 12GB of RAM, as the 512GB model would come with 16GB of RAM. So, with regards to RAM and Storage, we’re all good.

The tricky part is when it comes to the Processor. The S20 Ultra came with two different Processors, based on where you bought it from. If you bought it from the US, Canada, China or even South Korea, it would come with the Snapdragon 865 Processor. However if you bought it from Europe and anywhere else, it would come with Samsung’s own Exynos 990 Processor. You would expect Samsung’s own CPU to be the better choice as this is a Samsung Smartphone, but it turns out that it was actually the other way around.

The Snapdragon Processor models ended up having better performance, cooler Operating Temperatures and even better Battery Life by a significant margin, when compared to the Exynos models. Also, keep in mind that Samsung was charging the same amount of money for both Phones. It was just that based on where you lived, you could be getting a noticeably inferior product. Samsung has received a ton of backlash for this to the point where Users even started a petition, which ended up getting over 44,000 signatures. This was for Samsung to stop using Exynos Processors in their Phones.

So now, what about the Note 20 Ultra? Well, all the rumors point towards Samsung still using Exynos Processors in some of the Note 20’s. However, I do have some good news here. A report from ZDNet Korea states that Samsung would be using a new Exynos 922 Processor inside the Note 20. This would be the world’s first Chip to be manufactured on a 6nm process and apparently Samsung is also trying to get this down to 5nm. Apple will be switching to 5nm in September 2020 with the introduction of the Apple A14 Chip, inside the iPhone 12.

The reports are saying that this new Exynos 922 even outperforms the Snapdragon 865 but, to be honest, I just don’t believe that’s the case, considering that Samsung has been lacking behind Qualcomm for a number of years now. Even if the Exynos 922 outperforms the Snapdragon 865 in terms of raw Performance, Power Consumption and Heat are still two ongoing issues that would also need to be solved. But at the end of the day, the Exynos variant is still a good Phone, just not quite as good as the Snapdragon variant.

Special Features

If you’re looking for the S-Pen, the Note 20 will be your only option.

So what about Special Features? Is there anything that would make the Note 20 Ultra stand out from the rest?

Well, the main reason why anyone would be a Galaxy Note, rather than a Galaxy S, is because of that S-Pen. The S-Pen is said to be getting some more improvements this year, with the biggest one being a significantly improved experience, all thanks to that 120Hz Refresh Rate Display. This will make writing and drawing on that Display feel so much more natural and fluid than ever before.

Also, Ice Universe says that the Note 20 will have some new S-Pen features. We don’t really know what these features are, but I would say it would be quite safe to assume that most of these would be software features similar to what we got with the Note 10+. The S-Pen has already reached a point where it is quite difficult to improve anything in terms of the hardware as it’s already so advanced. Aside from this, the surface area of the Ultrasonic Fingerprint Reader is also rumoured to be increased but..that’s pretty much it.

Battery

In terms of the Battery, the Note 10+ had a 4300mAh Battery. The Note 20+ is rumoured to have anywhere between a 4500mAh and a 5000mAh Battery. The S20 Ultra, for example, has a 5000mAh Battery, however, do keep in mind that the Note also needs some extra space inside for that S-Pen. My prediction would be around 4800mAh at the very best and likely somewhere around 4600mAh.

Fast charging is said to stay the same as on the S20 Ultra and the Note 10+, so 25W with support of up to 45W (with a separate Charger).

Release Date

When it comes to the Release Date, the event is said to be on August 5th, with the Note 20’s to be released on August 21st and fun fact, that’s just two days after my birthday so, that’s pretty exciting!

Price

Price-wise, the Note 20 line is said to be the most expensive, non-folding, Smartphone from Samsung yet. Greek website ‘Techmaniacs’ claims that the Note 20 will start at 1,250 Euros, while the Note 20 Ultra will start at 1400 Euros.

It seems like the Note 20 Ultra would be about the same price that the S20 Ultra was, even though it does come with more features and that S-Pen.

In conclusion, I’m pretty excited for the Note 20 Ultra but I’m personally more excited for that Galaxy Fold 2. Having used the Fold 1 as my daily driver for around two months, I just cannot be as excited for regular Smartphones. Folding Phones are the future and this is also the field where we’ll see the biggest improvements, year after year.

Unfortunately, even-though the Fold 2 would be a gigantic upgrade from the original Fold, it seems like it would actually not have an S-Pen in the end, despite many rumours saying that it will. This means that if you really want that S-Pen experience, the Galaxy Note 20 is pretty much your only option.

Daniel Rotar

May 7, 2020

Reviews

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra - The Complete Review! (1 Month Later)

Daniel Rotar

May 7, 2020

Reviews

Finally, we have a smartphone that ticks every single box! That Smartphone, is the S20 Ultra. It comes with:

A 108MP Camera, which has nine times the Resolution of the iPhone 11 Pro Max and most flagships Smartphones out there.
100X Space Zoom, when most Smartphones feature just 2X Optical or 10X Digital.
A massive 6.9”, 3200x1440, Ultra-Wide 20:9 Aspect Ratio Display with a 120Hz Refresh Rate, compared to the 60Hz of most other Smartphones.
It features the second largest Sensor on any Smartphone, right after the Huawei P40 Pro.
8K Video Recording.
A 40MP Front-Facing Camera.
A gigantic 5000mAh Battery.
45W Fast Charging.
15W Wireless Charging.
9W Reverse Wireless Charging.
An Always-On Display.
12GB of RAM.
Up to 1.5TB of Storage and you can even turn it into a Desktop PC, thanks to Samsung Dex.

The S20 Ultra is the god of all Smartphones and it is by far the most amazing Smartphone that I have ever used! Or at least…this is how I was hoping I would start this Review.

You see, the Galaxy S10 from last year was one of my favourite Smartphones ever. The S10 was so perfect for me, that I ended up using it as my daily driver for almost three full months, even replacing my iPhone for that period of time. Then, the Galaxy Note 10+ came out, which was an even more perfected S10, with an even bigger Display and an S-Pen. In my Review of the Note 10+, I even called it the best Smartphone ever made. I was honestly so happy with the Note 10+, just because it could do every single thing that I wanted from a Smartphone and more.

So, when I heard that the S20 Ultra would come out, with that insane 108MP Camera and 120Hz Display, I was just counting the days until this would release. We made so many videos on the S20 Ultra way before it was even announced, we made ‘Leaks & Rumors’ episodes, Concepts and I even attended the S20 launch event, which was my first ever Samsung event, and I was honestly so hyped about this Smartphone. I was eagerly awaiting the S20 Ultra launch. I don’t remember the last time I was so excited about a Smartphone, it was probably in 2017 when the big iPhone X launched.

However, rather than this being the ultimate Smartphone, as it looks to be, judging from the specs, it ended up being the most disappointing that I have ever ever used. On paper, they make this Smartphone look like it came from five years into the future. However, every single one of these specs has a major flaw and this Smartphone cannot deliver on any of its big promises. I’ve been using the S20 Ultra as my daily driver for the past month or so, so here is my full, honest Review of the S20 Ultra covering the Design, Display, Camera, Performance, Special Features, Battery and Value!

I mentioned that I finally attended my first Samsung event, I managed to see the unveil of the S20 line and the Galaxy Z Flip in person, which further sparked by insane hype about this Smartphone. After the event ended, just like everyone else, I was waiting for my Review Unit from Samsung.

The recent ‘Unpacked’ event was the first time we had attended an actual Samsung reveal.

However, while others started receiving very early units, we didn’t get anything. I kept being promised by Samsung that they would send one over as soon as possible, however, other channels, even smaller creators, got it, while we were left without a unit. About two weeks pass and most Reviews of the S20 Ultra started coming out already and pretty much all of them were very negative, which further crushed my hype for this Smartphone.

Now, Samsung did end up sending us a unit, so thank you Samsung, but that one actually arrived a full month after everyone else got it. It even got delivered at the exact same time as our Retail Unit of the S20 Ultra, which we bought and even that got delayed by an entire week, due to stock issues.

So, we got the S20 Ultra about a month after everyone else already posted their Full Review, seeing all of those negative Reviews and getting this so late pretty much killed all of my excitement. This is why we haven’t done a single video with the S20’s yet, just because we got it so late, compared to everyone else. But still, I wanted to make this Full Review, so I’ve put the S20 Ultra through its paces and here’s what I found.

Design

Design wise, from the front, the S20 Ultra does look outstanding. The Bezels are extremely thin, even thinner than on the S10 and Note 10. The Camera Cutout is now even smaller than before and it is now in the centre, just like on the Note 10. You honestly forget about it after just a few minutes and you just get impressed in that massive 6.9” Display.

Comparing it to the iPhone 11 Pro Max, the Ultra looks light-years ahead. It just looks so futuristic without that massive Notch and those extremely thin Bezels. The back, however, isn’t as pretty. That’s not necessarily because of that massive Camera Module, but mostly because of the colours, we only get Grey and Black colour options. The Grey is just a regular Grey so nothing really too special here, but the Black is actually pretty bad. There’s no shimmer to it or anything, it’s just a fingerprint magnet. It actually reminds me a lot of our fake Galaxy mock-ups. It looks so much like cheap plastic. Samsung used to have some amazing colours with the Note and S10 last year but for some reason, those didn’t translate to the Ultra. Not only that, but most Smartphones in 2020 started adding a Frosted Glass back.

The Ultra is very bulky, even without that mammoth Camera Module.

The iPhones have it, the Pixels have it, OnePlus has it, Huawei has it with the P40 Pro and many others do as well. A Frosted Glass back not only makes it look so much better, but it removes the issue of fingerprints and smudges almost entirely. I’m quite surprised that Samsung still hasn’t done that.

Now, leaving the back aside, there are three design issues that I really do have to mention, the first one being the table wobble. So, because of how massive and deep this Camera Module is, you’ll notice that when the Ultra is sitting flat on the table, it will wobble like crazy. If you’re the kind of person that likes using your Smartphone when it’s sitting flat, you can forget about that with the Ultra.

Secondly, the Ultra is very thick at 8.8mm for just the body alone, not even to mention the Camera Module. The Ultra is pretty much the thickest non-folding, flagship Smartphone on the market right now. If you add a case, to remove that table wobble issue and flatten out the Camera Module, it will make this Smartphone even thicker.

Lastly, this Smartphone is also pretty heavy. At 222g, it is one of the heaviest Smartphones on the market and while it’s actually 4 grams lighter than the iPhone 11 Pro Max, it does feel top heavy to me. I always feel like I’m about to drop this Smartphone and that Camera Module is so big that you’ll always end up touching it. So, great design on the front, but a very bulky and big Smartphone overall.

Display

Moving on to the Display, we now get a massive 6.9” Display, up from the 6.7” Panel that the S10 5G had, or the 6.8” Display that the Note 10+ had. But, this size increase is mostly due to its extra height. We now have a taller 20:9 Aspect Ratio, compared to 19:9 like we had before, it actually doesn’t feel as big as you would expect. In fact, the entire Smartphone is not as wide as the Note 10+ was, meaning that, compared to the Note, it is actually more comfortable to use. I really do like this.

Also, the Glass is almost flat now, Samsung pretty much killed their ‘Edge’ Display with the S20 line. Design wise, I do prefer the Note 10+ over the S20 Ultra. Also, thanks to the flatter Display, there are no more accidental touches at all with this Smartphone, so Samsung definitely gets a plus for that. Resolution wise, we get a 3200x1440 Resolution Display, which translates to 511PPI. The Colour Reproduction is excellent and the Brightness is very good, maxing out at 1300 Nits. So overall, the S20 Ultra has one of the highest quality Displays in a Smartphone.

Now, aside from the Resolution and Aspect Ratio, something else that’s new this year is the Refresh Rate. We now get a 120Hz Display, compared to the 60Hz Panel that we got before. This means that the S20 Ultra can now Display up to 120FPS, compared to 60FPS like on most other Smartphones. Not only will games run twice more fluid on the Ultra, compared to let’s say, the iPhone 11 Pro Max, but animations, scrolling and just using the Smartphone in general will feel so much snappier than ever before.

But, this is where the first main disappointment with this Smartphone kicks in. Unlike the OnePlus 8 Pro for example, which runs at 120HZ at full Resolution, the S20 Ultra can only run at 120Hz when the Display is in 1080p. This wouldn’t really be an issue if this Display was any smaller but, on a massive 6.9” Display, 1080p will make the text look a bit blurry. So, you’ll have to choose, you’ll either want a fluid but blurry experience, or you’ll want a not so fluid but sharp experience. There’s always a trade-off.

Also, OnePlus for example, added a 10-bit Display Panel on the 8 Pro, which can display over 1 billion colours, compared to the 16 million colours that the S20 Ultra can display. OnePlus also added an MEMC Chip, which adds extra frames in videos, bringing them to 120FPS from 30FPS for example. So, even though OnePlus actually uses a Samsung Display, it seems like it is a higher quality Panel than what Samsung themselves have put in their highest-end Smartphone.

Camera

So, speaking of disappointments, let’s talk about the biggest one there is and that is…the Camera.

About a month before the S20 Ultra was even announced, we made a video called “S20 Ultra – Why I’m concerned”, in which I talked about why that 108MP Sensor that the S20 Ultra will come with, might not be a great idea. My point here was that a Camera Sensor is just like a chessboard, it’s a fixed area, inside of which you have multiple squares. These squares are actually the Pixels on the Sensor. The larger the Pixels are, the more light they can capture. Now, if you want to add multiple squares, nine times the amount of squares in the case of the Ultra, they will have to become nine times smaller in order for all of them to fit. This means that they will capture nine times less light and long story short, the Camera would be very bad in Low-Light.

To combat this issue, Samsung increased the chessboard size, or the Sensor size in this case, from 1/2.55” like we had on the Note 10+, to 1/1.33”. This was a massive increase, pretty much double the size. This was a pretty big deal for Samsung as we hadn’t had a larger Sensor since the Galaxy S7 in 2016, Samsung had been using the exact same Camera specs. The only problem, and this is where my scepticism was regarding this Camera, was that the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 also used the same 108MP Sensor from Samsung. It is the same size, has same specs and this is a mid-range Smartphone that costs three to four times less than the Ultra. That 108MP Camera inside of it wasn’t great either.

Photos were indeed sharp, but only when the Camera had a ton of light. If you didn’t have tons of sunlight, the Camera was pretty bad. Now, Samsung did claim that they were doing something a bit different on the Ultra, where they would actually combine nine Pixels on the Sensor, into one, for much better Low-Light performance via something they called ‘NonaBinning’. But, I just wasn’t buying it. The Pixels on the Sensor are still 0.8 Microns in size, compared to 1.4 Microns on the Note 10+ for example. So, the Pixels were almost twice as small. That video of me being skeptical about the Samsung Camera before release got quite a lot of dislikes and I’m sorry to tell you but…I was right.

The Variable Aperture Module is a notable loss on the Ultra.

Even with Samsung’s ‘NonaBinning’, this Camera just isn’t great at all. Low-Light performance is noticeably worse than the iPhone 11 Pro Max, or even the S10 from last year. Low-Light shots on the Ultra, as I expected, are very bad, they are extremely noisy and unfortunately video performance in Low-Light is even worse. As a video is essentially a sequence of 30 or 60 photos every second, the Processor isn’t fast enough to reduce the noise in real time, so video ends up being even noisier than the Low-Light photos. Low-Light video just falls apart entirely on the Ultra because of those extremely tiny Pixels on the Sensor.

Remember that really cool Variable Aperture Module, the f/1.5-f/2.4 Module that the S9 introduced? Well, that’s now gone and all we’re left with is a fixed f/1.8 Aperture Module, which is another reason why this Smartphone does not excel in Low-Light.

So pretty bad Low-Light performance but, the day-time performance should at least be good, right? Unfortunately, that’s pretty bad as well. The HDR Processing on this Smartphone is close to non-existent, Shadows get completely crushed and Highlights get blown out almost every single time. I don’t remember the last time we had a Smartphone that was this bad in terms of HDR Processing. These photos remind me of pre-HDR Smartphones from around 2012-2013 or so.

The Ultra makes the Moon look like it really is made of cheese.

Also, the Ultra doesn’t really take 108MP photos. All of the photos that you take are using that Pixel Binning/NonaBinning merge that I talked about before, so they’re all 12MP photos unless you have the 108MP Mode specifically enabled. While the 108MP photos do look very good, the HDR Processing is actually even worse on the 108MP photos, things are definitely not looking great for the S20 Ultra’s Camera. Something has to be good about this Camera, what about that 100X Zoom or at least the 8K video?

Samsung is using a Periscope Camera inside the Ultra, which is a genius solution of putting a Telephoto Lens inside the thin body of a Smartphone, they actually positioned the Telephoto Camera to the side and they’re using a mirror to direct the light onto the Sensor. But you don’t get 100X Optical zoom, that would really be ridiculous. Instead, you get about 4X Optical Zoom, which is really only twice the Zoom level of the iPhone 11 Pro Max for example, and then the rest of the Zoom is all Digital, thanks to the 48MP Resolution of the Telephoto Sensor and that 108MP Resolution Main Sensor.

Long story short, 10X Hybrid Zoom on this Smartphone is actually pretty impressive, the 30X is OK but I wouldn’t really use it on an Instagram Post. Anything more than 30X, especially 50X or 100X, is borderline unusable. Images end up looking like Oil Paintings and Samsung should’ve really marketed this as 10X Zoom, rather than literally printing 100X Space Zoom on the back of the Smartphone, this would’ve been so much better received. But instead, Samsung hyped this Smartphone up so much to the point where the 100X Space Zoom is pretty much a meme.

I was a bit sceptical when, at the event, Samsung didn’t show us a single photo of the night sky or at least the Moon, even-though the branding on this camera was 100X Space Zoom.

Printing that on the Ultra may not have been the best idea.

Now, there are two more things that I want to mention regarding the Zoom Camera. The first one being that if you just want to use the Telephoto Module, the Standard Zoom is now 5X, so if you want to Zoom in just a bit, that would be Digital Zoom and not Optical. Portrait Mode is now done with the Main Lens because of that. Secondly, the Telephoto Module is actually a very slow Lens now. It is an f/3.5 Aperture Module, which combined with the fact that it is a 48MP Sensor, explains why this Module is pretty much unusable in Low-Light, or any light that’s not direct Sunlight.

So, what about that 8K video? It’s pretty sharp but it is only at 24FPS and I have a feeling that sometimes it even drops below that, just because it does look pretty choppy every now and then. The HDR Processing is again very poor in this Mode and the Bit-Rate is quite low as well. After the recent updates, it is now around 50-70Mb/s, but for 8K video, you would expect that to be much much higher, at least 150Mb/s, considering that the Storage inside the S20 Ultra is indeed capable of this. But, just to make matters worse, the focusing on this Smartphone is one of the worst I’ve seen in years. First of all, the S20 Ultra, because of that massive Sensor, now lacks the incredible Dual Pixel Autofocus that we’ve had on Samsung Smartphones for years. We just have Phase Detection Autofocus, which is quite slow.

The problem here is that when recording video, it focus hunts a lot. Getting a focused subject with this Smartphone is quite tricky. On top of this, based on how big the Sensor is, and while you do get some incredibly natural Depth of Field straight from the Camera’s hardware, this only makes the Focusing issue even worse. Now, close-ups would look incredibly blurry when compared to other ones.

You still get a whole lot with the regular S20 (Shibe not included).

Also, aside from Focusing, Low-Light and HDR issues, something else that got a downgrade is Slow-Motion. We no longer get Samsung’s iconic 960FPS Slow-Motion, this is now just 480FPS on the Ultra and then digitally enhanced up to 960FPS. Fun fact, the regular S20 and the S20+ don’t have any of these issues. They still have a 12MP Main Sensor, which is also larger than last year, but Low-Light performance on those is just incredible because the Pixels themselves are not as small as on the Ultra. Autofocusing works just fine because we still have Dual Pixel Autofocus and we still get a massive 64MP Sensor as the Secondary Camera, which you can also use to take full 64MP photos.

So, the S20 and S20+ do have a much better Camera than the Ultra, ironically. It’s just that you’re missing out on that 4X Optical Zoom and instead you now just have Digital Zoom all around. The only actual Camera improvement that the S20 Ultra gets over the other S20’s, is when it comes to the Front-Facing Camera. This is now a 40MP Sensor, up from the 10MP Sensor that we have on the other S20’s, and the selfies on this are razor sharp but aside from that, this is pretty much it.

Now, I do have to give props to Samsung for releasing a ton of software updates on the Ultra, which did improve the Camera. But, at the same time, issues such as the Autofocusing or Low-Light performance are hardware limitations of that massive 108MP Sensor, which won’t be fixable through software updates.

Performance

Ok, the Camera is a disappointment. Ironically, this was supposed to be the biggest feature of this Smartphone. But now, what about the performance?

Well, just like the years before, there are two different models of the S20 Ultra. If you buy one from the US, Canada or South Korea, you get the Snapdragon 865 Processor, which is the most powerful Processor in an Android Smartphone right now. But, if you buy it from anywhere else, you’ll get Samsung’s own Exynos 990 Processor inside. While on paper they look almost identical, they’re actually not.

Long story short, there is now a massive difference between these two Chips, not just in terms of overall performance but also in terms of the Battery Life. Unfortunately, for most people, the Exynos model is actually the bad one.

If you’re in the US, Canada or South Korea, you will be getting the higher-end Processor.

Arun, or ‘MrWhoseTheBoss’, compared the two side-by-side. There, he found that the Snapdragon model was up to 20% faster. Not only that, but the Camera performance is also better on the Snapdragon variant, thanks to an improved Image Signal Processor. This is weird because if anything, the Exynos model should’ve had the best Camera performance as that’s a Samsung made CPU and that 108MP Sensor is also a Samsung made Sensor. Arun also found that the Battery Life was up to two hours longer on the Snapdragon model. So, to make matters worse, the Exynos variant is pretty much the nail in the coffin here.

My experience, performance wise, with the Ultra has been great, I do have to mention that. Those 12GB of RAM and that UFS 3.0 Storage, combined with that 120Hz Refresh Rate, make it one of the fastest Smartphones I’ve ever used. Still, the OnePlus 8 Pro felt much smoother and more responsive.

Special Features

Moving on to the special features, the biggest one here is probably the new Haptic Engine. This is now the same one that Samsung used in the Galaxy Note 10+ last year and it is brilliant. I do find Samsung’s implementation of Haptic Touch in the OS to be the very best on any Smartphone out there. You get these small tap backs when you go into the Settings, take a photo or even when you type on the Keyboard. It’s just incredible. But other than that, there’s really nothing extra that we get from the Note.

The Always-On Display is still there, as is Reverse Wireless Charging and pretty much all of the features that you would expect from a Smartphone. We now we get 5G as well, this is mmWave 5G. Aside from the S-Pen, this Smartphone has the most features of any Smartphone on the market. It’s just too bad it’s lacking on the essentials.

Battery

On my Exynos model, with my use-case, I was getting around five hours of screen-on time, which isn’t great. This was with 120Hz enabled, but do keep in mind that this was on 1080p Resolution. That was similar to the Battery Life that I got with my S10+ after about two months, or so, of use. It’s fine, but it could be so much better.

Value

Having said all this. Is the S20 Ultra worth it? If this thing was $800/£800, maybe. But, it’s actually $1400, or £1200.

At that price point, the Ultra is now the most expensive non-foldable Smartphone on the market that you can buy. Also, this is just for the baseline 128GB of Storage model and you don’t even get a Case inside the box. Well, you get one in the US but not in the UK, which for this price, this really sucks. You don’t even get the USB C to USB A Adapter anymore, so you’re actually getting less than what you got with the S10 last year.

When an iPhone SE, which costs $400, more than three times less, takes better photos that a Smartphone that’s supposed to be the Camera King, I’m sorry but no one should be buying the Ultra. However, the regular S20 is actually a very good deal. At $900, you get a better Camera than the Ultra and you also get most of the features that the Ultra has.

ZONEofTECH

April 6, 2020

Unboxings

Huawei P40 Pro - First Impressions

ZONEofTECH

April 6, 2020

Unboxings

The Huawei P40 Pro is here and we’ve managed to get some hands-on. In this article, we’ll go through our first impressions and see how it stacks up against some of its’ main competitors in key areas such as Display, Camera, Specifications and Apps. Also, be sure to check out the video we’ve posted on the channel, which also includes our live unboxing of the new Huawei P40 Pro.

Display

The Build Quality and feel is as good as you would expect from a high-end, flagship Smartphone.

When it comes to the Design and the overall size, the P40 Pro seems to be very similar to the Galaxy S10+ from last year. We do, however, get a larger Display on the P40 Pro, which is 6.58”, compared to the 6.4” display that the S10+ had. We really do like the way it feels in the hand, it’s got a very nice weight to it. In terms of Design & Build Quality, it feels very premium and we are very impressed.

When it comes to the Display, this is a 2640x1200 Resolution OLED Display, with DCI-P3 Coverage, HDR10+ Support as well as a 90Hz Refresh Rate. We do have a fairly large Front-Facing Camera Cutout, the reason being that we get a large 32MP Sensor, with an f/2.2 Aperture, and a ToF Sensor.

As with the iPhone X onwards and the Google Pixel 4, the P40 Pro also features an advanced face unlock system. On top of this, we also have an in-display Optical Fingerprint Reader, so the same as on the OnePlus 7T Pro. This makes the Huawei P40 Pro the only 2020 flagship right now that has both an in-display Fingerprint Reader as well as an advanced facial recognition system, on the front. But what makes this phone so unique, is the Camera.

Camera

The P40 Pro comes with a 50MP 1/1.28” Sensor, which is even larger than the 108MP 1/1.33” Sensor that we have on the S20 Ultra. So, at the moment, this is the largest Sensor on any Smartphone. The larger the Sensor, the better it is in low light and also the more natural Bokeh. The module at the top, is a 40MP Ultra-Wide Angle Module, while the module below it, is an 12MP Telephoto Module, very similar to that Periscope Module that we also got in last year’s P30 Pro. We also have 5x Optical Zoom and 50x Digital Zoom. We’ve done a few tests against the S20 Ultra, which in theory should have a much better Telephoto Module, with up to 100x Digital Zoom. However, it turns out that the P40 Pro was actually much sharper at 50x.

The P40 Pro also comes with Leica Optics. In case you don’t know, Leica is one of the most famous manufacturers of Lenses in the world. They make some of the best ones on the market, so it’s pretty amazing to see a partnership between such a well known Camera Gear Manufacturer and a Smartphone Manufacturer.

We don’t have 8K Video on this, but that’s fine because at the moment, 8K recording quality is pretty poor, at least when it comes to Frame-Rate and Dynamic Range. However, we do have 4K at 60FPS as well as autofocus with the Front-Facing Camera. We are extremely excited to be testing out this Camera so, if you guys want to see an in-depth blind Camera comparison, then definitely subscribe and hit the notification bell to be the first to see that video as soon as it comes out.

Specifications

At 40W, this makes the P40 Pro the fastest Wireless Charging Smartphone on the market.

In terms of the Specifications, the P40 Pro comes with the Kirin 990 Processor, which is based on a 7nm+ Process. This is Huawei’s most powerful Processor, as well as 8GB of RAM. We also get 128GB of Storage, as well as Nano Memory Support. This is Huawei’s proprietary microSD card but with this, you can expand the Storage by up to 256GB. Fast charging has also been improved, we now get 40W Fast Wired Charging, as well as 40W Wireless Charging, which makes this the fastest wireless charging on any smartphone out there, at the moment. In fact, there are zero wireless chargers that even have this speed right now. Reverse wireless charging is also here, which is something that Huawei was the first to introduce to the market, with the Mate 20 Pro.

The P40 Pro also features the most insane level of Slow-Motion ever, for a Smartphone. So, just to give you guys an idea, the iPhone 11 Pro Max can do 240FPS Slow Motion, the S20 Ultra can do 480FPS Slow Motion (960FPS is only available on the S20 & S20+, not the S20 Ultra). The P40 Pro can do 7680FPS, which is just ridiculous, take a look for yourselves!

Google Apps

Now, some of you might be wondering how you would get Google apps on this? Is the Google Play store still available? The answer is…kind of. Right out of the box, you do not have any Google apps on this. You can still side-load them if you know what you’re doing, it’s not really that difficult to do really, so you can indeed get them working this way.

Despite recent events, you can still get all of your favourite apps on the Huawei P40 Pro.

But, Huawei has launched their ‘AppGallery’ app, which is their own App Store and it turns out that you can actually find a lot of popular apps on there right now. Microsoft Office, Snapchat, Telegram, TikTok, Asphalt 9 and many more apps that you might be familiar with from the Google Play store are already here, with many more to come.

Additionally, you can have something called ‘PhoneClone’, which transfers all of your data from your current phone, onto the P40. If you’re wondering about apps, PhoneClone will automatically find the PlayStore apps on the Huawei AppGallery and download them from there and, if it cannot find the apps on the Playstore, it would actually copy the app and transfer it directly to the P40 Pro. This is a pretty smart-way to get your apps transferred and it’s such an easy process.

What are your comments & thoughts on the P40 Pro?

ZONEofTECH

March 13, 2020

Things You Didn't Know

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip – 30 Things You Didn’t Know!

ZONEofTECH

March 13, 2020

Things You Didn't Know

Samsung has now released another foldable phone, right after the Galaxy Fold, and it’s called the Galaxy Z Flip. We had a chance to go to the Unpacked Event ourselves and use it for a while, so here are 30 Interesting things you probably didn’t know about the Galaxy Z Flip!

We did a similar video & article, covering 40 things you didn’t know about the Galaxy S20’s. So feel free to check those out in case you’re curious about the S20’s, as this article is solely focused on the Z Flip!

1 - Crease

So, since the Z Flip is a folding phone, albeit a vertical folding one rather than the horizontal style, it will have a crease in the middle. Now, is the crease noticeable? We would say no. We’ve used it for probably around 20-30 minutes at the event and while yes, you can see it from certain angles, we didn’t really notice it until we intentionally looked for it, so nothing to worry about.

2 - UTG

Also, unlike the Galaxy Fold, which just like all the other foldable devices that use plastic screens, such as the Royole Flexpai, the Huawei Mate X and the Moto Razr. The Galaxy Z Flip is the world’s first foldable phone to actually use a glass display.

It’s using Samsung’s brand new UTG (Ultra-Thin Glass) technology. We’re extremely curious to learn how on earth they managed to make this fold. Long story short, Corning did this, not Samsung. Samsung’s simply using Corning’s Flexible Gorilla Glass but regardless, this results in a much more durable screen, compared to the plastic display that you could literally destroy by just pressing a bit harder with your fingernail.

3 - Aspect Ratio

Something pretty awesome that Samsung didn’t really talk that much about, is the aspect ratio of this display. On TV’s and Computer Monitors, we usually have a 16:9 aspect ratio. The S10’s from last year had a 19:9 aspect ratio, a much taller and much more cinematic display.

The S20’s from this year have a 20:9 aspect ratio, even taller than the 19:9 on the S10. The Z Flip has a 22:9 (well, 21.9:9 to be more precise) aspect ratio display which is actually the tallest display on any smartphone. This is even taller than the Sony Xperia 1 which had a 21:9 aspect ratio and was known to have an extremely cinematic display.

4 - No High Refresh

Unfortunately, the display on the Z Flip does not have the high 120Hz refresh rate display that the S20’s get, or even a 90Hz refresh rate. Instead, we get a 60Hz refresh rate panel, same as what the S10’s had last year and similar to what we already have on most other smartphones today.

5 - Resolution

Next up, even though the Z Flip has a pretty large 6.7” display, the same size as the S20+, the Z Flip is actually taller than the S20+ by quite a bit because of that 22:9 aspect ratio. Also, the resolution itself is lower than on the regular S20’s. We have a 2636x1080 resolution vs 3200x1440 on the S20’s. This translates to 425 PPI vs over 500, which is what we get on the S20’s.

6 - Bezels

If you do care about Bezels, the Z Flip has thicker bezels than the S20. It’s essentially this uniform border that surrounds the phone, sort of like the border on the iPhone 11 Pro’s, just with no notch.

7 - microSD

Something pretty interesting is that, unlike all the S20’s which do have a microSD card slot. The Z Flip does not, so you’ll be forever stuck with the base storage.

8 - Storage

Speaking of the storage, we do get 256GB as the baseline on the Z Flip which is pretty good. It’s pretty much double of what we get on the S20’s, which only come with 128GB But like I said before, this storage is fixed and you cannot expand it, whereas you can on the S20’s.

Also, the Z Flip now features the new UFS 3.0 storage, just like the S20’s, which gives you double the read and write speeds, compared to the S10. This translates to just over a 1GB/s read which is pretty insane on a smartphone.

9 - New Hinge

Now, one of the most important things about a foldable phone, is the hinge. Luckily, Samsung has learned a lot from their Fold and the Z Flip now has their latest hinge design. It features synthetic fibres on the inside to protect it from any dust or dirt getting into the hinge but, my favourite part of it is that you can stop it at different angles.

10 - Split-Screen

If you stop at a 90 degree angle, the Z Flip will use this split-screen mode, where certain apps will use the two sections of the display as two separate displays. To give you guys a better idea, you can use this in the camera app and prop it up on a table and take a selfie, which is pretty cool. You can also use it in the gallery app and have a preview window of your photos on the bottom section of the display and the main photos on the top. It’s pretty much just a gimmick but at least they are making some good use of it even when the phone is half folded. Really good job Samsung.

11 - Secondary Display

On the back of the Z Flip we do have a small secondary display, which is very small actually. It’s a 1.1” AMOLED display, with a resolution of 300x112. It’s mostly there to show you the time and the date.

12 - Selfie Display

However, if you close the Flip down, and press the power button, you can actually use this display as a viewfinder and take a selfie with the main camera module – which is pretty cool! The display is indeed extremely small, so it’s quite hard to position yourself, but at least it’s something.

13 - VS Razr

How does the Z Flip match up to it’s main competitor?

Now, in case you’re wondering how the Z Flip compares to the Motorola Razr, which is really the only other vertically foldable phone on the market right now, the Z Flip is better in almost every single way.

It has much better specs, much better cameras and it has a glass display vs the plastic display on the Razr. The display is bigger, 6.7” vs 6.2”, it has a higher resolution as well, you get 4K60 video recording vs 4k30 on the back. You get 4K30 on the front vs 1080p 30 on the Razr and you get Android 10 vs Android 9 on the Razr. The Razr has a gigantic chin too so the Z Flip is the foldable phone to get, in case you’re looking for one that folds vertically.

14 - Fingerprint

Next up, compared to the S20’s, there are a few areas in which the Z Flip is a downgrade, aside from just the Display. For example, while the S20’s have an in-display fingerprint reader, the Z-Flip does not and instead it uses a fingerprint reader that’s embedded into another button.

15 - No 8K

Also, unlike the S20’s which can all record 8K video, the Z Flip maxes out at 4K30.

16 - S10 Cameras

Speaking of the cameras, the Z Flip actually uses the same exact main camera as the S10 did, from last year. The means a 12MP main module, with 1.4 µm pixels.

17 - Goodbye Variable Aperture

Unfortunately, we no longer get that f/1.5-f/2.4 variable aperture lens that the S9 and S10 had. Instead, we now get a fixed f/1.8 aperture, so low light performance on the Z Flip is actually worse than on the S10 from last year. The S20’s all get brand new sensors which larger pixels, but the Z Flip does not.

18 - S20 Wide

But luckily, we at least get the very same 12MP ultra-wide angle module that we have on the S20.

19 - No Zoom

However, since we only get two camera modules on the back, both with 12MP of resolution, we cannot really get the same level of zoom that we get on the other three S20 models. In fact, we don’t really get any Optical Zoom at all, so even the 2x or 5x “zoom” that we’ll get will be purely digital.

20 - Front Camera

Also, the front facing camera is very similar to the one on the S10. It’s a 10MP sensor, only with a smaller f/2.4 aperture, down from the f/1.9 aperture that we had on the S10. It’s actually a bit worse than the S10 one, however, the front facing camera cutout is actually smaller than on the S10 and Note 10, so at least that’s a plus.

21 - Water Resistance

In case you’re thinking of taking the Z Flip to the pool, don’t even think about it! That’s because the Z Flip doesn’t have any water resistance whatsoever. So avoid using it in rain as well.

22 - CPU

While the CPU is actually a flag-ship level CPU, unlike the Moto Razr, the Z Flip still uses the Snapdragon 855+ processor. Interesting enough, there is no Exynos version of the Z Flip at all. The 855+ is actually just a slightly overclocked 855 so the CPU performance is very similar to the S10’s from last year. The S20’s all get brand new 2020 processors with the Snapdragon 865 for the US & Canada versions and the Exynos 990 for the international version.

23 - RAM

Another downgrade of the Z Flip over the S20’s is in terms of the RAM. While the S20’s come with 12GB and even 16GB of RAM, on the highest end 512GB version of the S20 Ultra, the Z Flip comes with 8GB of RAM and that is the only option that you can get.

24 - Free Case

Back to some positives for a bit, the Z Flip does come with a free case in the box, which is pretty useful considering that cases for foldable phones are definitely not the easiest thing to find.

Credit: Samsung (left)

25 - WiFi

If you recently bought a brand new WiFi 6 router, you’re out of luck because the Z Flip doesn’t actually support WiFi 6, or Wifi 802.11ax like the S20’s and even the S10’s do, so that’s quite strange.

26 - Slow Charging

Something else that you’re missing out on, is fast charging. The Z Flip supports 15W charging which his still pretty good, but comparing this to the 25W charging that we have on the S20’s or the 45W charging that we have on the Note 10 and the S20 Ultra, you can see that the Z Flip is lacking behind again.

27 - Battery Life

Speaking of the battery, I’m a bit concerned when it comes to the battery life of this phone. It has a massive 6.7” display but the battery size is only 3300mAh, which is actually smaller than the 3400mAh that the regular Galaxy S10, that had a much smaller 6.1” display, had last year. So I’m quite concerned in terms of how long this phone will actually last.

28 - Goodbye DeX?

We’ve tried finding any notes about DeX support on the Z Flip and we haven’t found a single thing that mentions that DeX is supported on the Z Flip. In fact, even on the S20’s, DeX support isn’t listed anywhere on the Specs sheet. You have to go on the main web-page and it is indeed listed there in the Galaxy Essentials app list.

29 - Concierge

Now, since the Z Flip is a very expensive phone, and I’ll get to that in my last point, it actually does come with a Premium Support service. It is called the Galaxy Concierge and you get 24/7 customer support, 7 days a week plus 1 year extra of free accidental damage cover. This is something that the Galaxy Fold also features.

30 - Screen Replacement

Also, in case you do need to get your screen replaced, it would cost you £99 in the UK for the Z Flip or £115 for the Galaxy Fold which is crazy low. I wasn’t expecting Samsung to only charge this much, considering that Apple chargers £326 for the iPhone 11 Pro Max’s display replacement, which has a more standard, non foldable display.

31 - Don’t buy it

And finally, the last thing that we want to mention is that you really shouldn’t buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip. That’s because it’s very expensive. At a price of $1400 or £1300, it costs more than your laptop probably does and it’s still just a smartphone.

In many ways, the S10 from last year is actually a better phone. You get a zoom module as well as a better front facing camera and also a better main camera module, alongside a larger battery. Sure, it doesn’t fold in half but the thing is, this is the only reason why the Z Flip is so expensive. It’s because it folds in half and it’s still a brand new technology that’s very expensive to manufacture. If you took all the folding away, what you would be left with would be a Samsung Galaxy S10e, with a larger 6.7” display and that’s it.

Sure, if you do have some cash to burn and you just want a cool phone and you don’t really care about having the best specs and the best camera, then go for it. Otherwise, either go for a regular phone or go for the Galaxy Fold as that’s essentially a tablet that folds in half, so it’s actually much more useful than the Z Flip is.

ZONEofTECH

March 11, 2020

Things You Didn't Know

Samsung Galaxy S20 - 40 Things You Didn't Know!

ZONEofTECH

March 11, 2020

Things You Didn't Know

The Samsung Galaxy S20 is now here. This is, by far, one of the biggest changes that Samsung has ever made to their line of smartphones. We now have things such as a 100x Zoom camera module, 8K video recording, a massive 5000mAh battery as well as a an extremely fluid 120Hz display.

But, there are a few things that Samsung didn’t tell you about the S20’s, here are 40 of them!

1 - Our First Samsung Event!

Even-though this is not related to the S20’s directly, we got invited to the event ourselves, meaning that we attended the Unpacked 2020 Event in London. This was our first ever Samsung event, so huge thanks to Samsung for having us.

We did get the chance to see all S20’s in person and play with them for quite a bit, which is the reason why we do have some personal thoughts to share in this article as well.

2 - 120Hz Limit

Honestly, this 120Hz refresh rate makes the S20’s feel years ahead in terms of performance. We could definitely tell that it was more fluid than even the OnePlus 7T Pro, which has a 90Hz display.

However, there is one catch. You cannot use the new 120Hz refresh rate when the display is running at full resolution. You have to switch to FHD+, otherwise you’ll have to stick to 60Hz, which is a shame.

3 - 240Hz

Aside from that 120Hz panel, the touch input actually samples at a whopping 240Hz. Meaning that touch inputs would be twice as accurate as before.

4 - Haptic Engine

Next up, all three S20 models use the new Haptic Engine that the Note 10 introduced. This means that you can essentially feel a response back, for example with the Alarm Wheel in the Settings or when you take a photo. This basically makes your phone’s software more like hardware in a weird sort of way.

5 - Charge Time

The S20 Ultra now gets the extremely fast 45W charging that the Note 10+ introduced. So, even with that enormous 5000mAh battery, the Ultra will still be able to fully charge in just over an hour, which is pretty nuts. The other S20’s still get improved Fast Charging, up to 25W from the S10’s 15W. Which will get you up to 50% in just less than 30 minutes.

6 - Actual Zoom

Now, one of the most unique new features about the S20’s (especially the Ultra) is that unbelievable 100X Zoom camera. There is quite a lot of confusion on this so to clarify, the 100x Zoom is not optical zoom, it is digital.

The S20 Ultra essentially has 10x “Hybrid Zoom” and around 5x Optical Zoom which is still a big improvement from the 2x that we had before. The remaining zoom up to 100x is done digitally, thanks to that massive 108MP main sensor. The other S20’s still have an impressive zoom level as well. They both have 30x Digital Zoom.

7 - Periscope Camera

The reason the S20 Ultra can achieve 5x Optical Zoom is thanks to a new camera module called a Periscope Camera. Essentially, Samsung added a bunch of lenses that can heavily magnify the image. The only problem is that the camera module would stick out about 1cm from then entire phone which no-one wants. So, to fix that, they positioned the camera module horizontally, on its side and then they’re using a mirror to reflect the light from the outside of the phone, through the lenses and finally to the sensor. This works in the exact same way that a periscope from a submarine works. Pretty cool stuff!

8 - Actual Picture Size

Now, taking a 12MP photo on a phone, usually takes up about 2MB, or so of space. This means that taking a photo with that massive 108MP image on the S20 Ultra, should take up close to 20MB, which is a considerable amount, especially if you’re the kind of person that takes loads of photos. Well, luckily this won’t be the case, because the photos taken with that 108MP sensor will actually be 12MP photos.

9 - Pixel Binning

This is because Samsung will be using something called Pixel Binning technology and essentially combining nine pixels into one. (108MP/9 = 12MP). Samsung also claims that this will provide better low light performance and we did get to experience this in person, and we have to say, the S20 Ultra’s low light is miles better than what we have on the Pixel 4.

10 - Improved Low Light

While we’re speaking about the camera, the low light performance will be improved substantially on the regular S20’s. This is because, even-though they only have a 12MP sensor, as opposed to the massive 108MP sensor of the S20 Ultra, they are indeed newer sensors with larger pixels of 1.8μm. On the S10, they were 1.4μm pixels.

11 - Biggest Camera Upgrade since S7

Ever since the Galaxy S7, Samsung has been using the exact same sensor specs. Yes, they were new sensors every year with slight tweaks, but the sensor size and the pixel size has remained the same from the S7 to the S10. The only major camera improvement that we got on the main module was with the S9 and that switchable aperture camera. Most of the improvements were done through software. However, this is finally changing with all three models of the S20.

12 - Goodbye Jack

Something that’s also changing is that we no longer have an MP3 jack, which is something that the Note 10’s got rid off.

13 - GalaxyBuds+

However, Samsung has launched a new version of their GalaxyBuds headphones, the GalaxyBuds+. Unfortunately, they do not feature any crazy new features, like active noise cancellation or anything like that. Instead, they focus on improving the sound quality and improving the microphone quality whilst almost doubling the battery life to 22 hours.

14 - GalaxyBuds+ iOS

Samsung has now released the iOS app for the Galaxy Buds. So, if you have an iPhone, the Galaxy Buds will integrate much better into your ecosystem.

15 - Storage Speed

Another big improvement that will make the S20’s feel so fast is the storage speed. All S20 models feature UFS 3.0 storage, compared to UFS 2.1 on the S10’s. Therefore, as with the Note 10, we’ll get double the read and write speeds, to just over 1GB/s read, which is insane!

16 - microSD

Speaking of storage, all three models of the S20 will keep the microSD card slot. This is pretty amazing because you can actually get a 1TB microSD card and have up to 1.5TB on the S20 Ultra or 1.1TB on the other two S20’s.

17 - Storage Options

This is because, while all three S20’s will come with 128GB of storage as default, the S20 Ultra will have a second storage option of 512GB. Some might not appreciate Samsung not offering more than 128GB on the S20 and S20+. However, keep in mind that you do have that microSD card slot, in case you do need more storage for things such as apps and music.

18 - RAM

When it comes to the RAM, the standard S20 comes with 8GB of RAM, which is the same as the S10 and S10+ from last year. The S20+ comes with 12GB of RAM, which is the same as the Note 10+ from last year. The S20 Ultra comes with either 12GB of RAM if you go for the 128GB model or a whopping 16GB of RAM if you choose the 512GB storage model.

Most people don’t even have that in their laptops, so having 16GB of RAM in a phone, is just crazy! Also, all three S20 models will get LPDDR5 memory, which is the latest standard in memory with even lower power consumption than LPDDR4.

19 - No 4G

Last year the S10e, the S10 and the S10+ all came with 4G and then we had another version of the S10, the S10 5G which had… 5G. This year, things are quite a bit different. The S20 and S20+ both come with 4G and 5G variants. And there’s not that big of a price difference between the two. The S20 Ultra on the other hand, only comes in 5G, which is probably why Samsung decided to pack such as massive 5000 mAh battery in that phone.

20 - Faster 5G

If you really care about 5G, the Ultra does get mmWave 5G, which is the true next-gen 5G, while the other two S20’s get high band 5G, which is quite a bit slower.

21 - World’s First 8K

We can now record 8K footage on a smartphone for the first time, with limitations.

Now, going back to the cameras for a bit, all three S20’s have a very unique feature, the ability to record 8K video. This means that these are the world’s first smartphones that are able to capture 8K footage. Even-though the bitrate isn’t the highest and the frame-rate is limited to just 24FPS. It is still very impressive to have a phone capable of recording this.

So, if you did happen to purchase an 8K TV recently, then getting a Galaxy S20 might actually be a very good idea due to the lack of 8K content, 8K TV’s rely on upscaling 4K footage, whereas now with the S20, you’ll be able to take native 8K footage to watch on your 8K TV.

22 - 8K Requirements

Now, 8K has a resolution of 7680x4320. Meaning that if you want to shoot 8K footage, you need to have at LEAST a 33MP sensor. Well that’s fine because the S20 Ultra has a 108MP sensor but, what about the other two S20’s? How can they shoot 8K content when they only have a 12 MP sensor?

Well, it turns out that while the S20 Ultra uses the main 108MP sensor, to record 8K footage, the other two S20’s actually use the zoom module instead, which is 64MP in resolution.

23 - S20: No Optical Zoom

Because of this, Samsung actually removed the zoom lens from the zoom lens module, as they didn’t want you to only be able to shoot 8K content when you are really zoomed in. Therefore, the zoom on the S20 and the S20+ is purely digital and thanks to that massive 64MP sensor, you can zoom in quite a lot and still get a pretty sharp image.

24 - Video Pro Mode

Samsung also added a Pro-Mode for video, meaning that you can now change the aperture, ISO and shutter speed when recording video as well.

25 - New Ultra Wide Module

Now, something that needed quite a bit of improvement on the S10’s, was the Ultra Wide Angle module. Luckily, all S20’s now come with a brand new module. A 12MP module, from the 16MP that we had before, which also has larger 1.4 μm pixels, compared to the 1 μm that we had on the S10. This results in better low light performance with the Ultra Wide module.

26 - Wobble King

Unfortunately, because of that gigantic camera module, the S20 Ultra wobbles like crazy when it’s on the table. It was pretty much impossible to use while sitting flat, so that’s something to keep in mind.

27 - Chunk King

Something else to keep in mind, is just how thick the Ultra is. At 8.8mm thick, the Ultra is one of the thickest flagship smartphones on the market right now. However, the camera module is around double the thickness of the one on the iPhone 11 Pro Max and because of that, it’s much thicker than you would expect, especially if you put a case on it.

28 - Goodbye Edge

Something that we’ve immediately noticed when using these phones is that the display is now flat, unlike previous Samsung phones from the S6 Edge, which had a curved display. The Ultra does have slightly more curve to it than the regular S20, but they all have 2.5D glass now, just like the iPhone and the Pixel 4. So you can gladly say goodbye to accidental touches.

29 - Goodbye f.1.5

Also, remember that switchable f/1.5 – f/2.4 aperture that we got with the S9? Well, that’s now gone entirely on all three S20 models and we now get a smaller f/1.8 aperture.

30 - Smaller Camera Cutout

Additionally. you can say goodbye to the dual camera module cutout on the front that the S10+ and the S10 5G had. We now get a single camera cutout on all three models of the S20, which also happens to be smaller than on the Note 10+.

31 - Bezels

Speaking of bezels, it looks to us that the Note 10+ actually has a thinner chin and thinner bezels on the sides, thanks to those curved edges. Let me know in the comments if you think that’s the case as well.

32 - Goodbye Bixby

Have you noticed that the Bixby Button is now gone? Thank you Samsung!

33 - AirDrop

The S20’s all come with AirDrop now. It’s called QuickShare and you can quickly…share…items between multiple Samsung devices.

34 - New Aspect Ratio

All the S20’s now feature a noticeably taller 20:9 aspect ratio, compared to the 19:9 that we had before on the S10’s.

Meaning that even though these phones aren’t that much wider to hold in the hand, they are quite a bit taller and more difficult to use with one hand, as you cannot really reach to the top.

Right: The S20 compared to the Note 10+

35 - CPU Differences

Also, you will get a different CPU based on where you buy your S20 from.

If you buy it from the US or Canada, you would get the new Snapdragon 865, whereas if you buy it from anywhere else, you’ll get it with Samsung’s own Exynos 990.

36 - Google Camera App

They’re both almost identical CPU’s, however, if you do get the Snapdragon version, you’ll actually be able to install the Pixel Camera app and get that Google style of image processing, if you’re really into that.

37 - Weight

We have to say, the S20 Ultra is quite a heavy phone. At 222 grams, it is one of the heaviest flagships on the market, however, the iPhone 11 Pro Max is still heavier at 226 grams.

38 - All Lenses

Something really cool about the S20’s is the Single Take mode, which allows you to use all the lenses on the back to take a photo and then you can pick which photo to use at the very end.

39 - OneUI 2

Also, all the new software features, such as the improved night mode and more that we get with all the S20’s will be available on the S10’s as well, with a future software update.

40 - S20 is enough

And finally, if you’ve been eyeing up the Ultra and you think that you have to get the Ultra for the best features, you actually don’t! In fact ,the regular S20 has all of the main features of the S20 Ultra. It’s just that you don’t get that insane 100x Zoom, you just get 30x, which let’s be honest, for most people that’s more than enough.