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

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.