Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra first take review: Beastly camera block, widespread 5G, immersive display

February 22, 2020

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A couple of weeks ago ZDNet Editor-in-Chief Larry Dignan and I attended briefings with Samsung to get our first look at the Galaxy S20 lineup and yesterday a Cosmic Gray 128GB Samsung S20 Ultra arrived for testing. We will have plenty of articles checking out this new phone in detail, but today pre-ordering launches with US wireless carriers so here are some initial thoughts as you decide whether the phone is worth at least $1,400.

Larry mentioned after his briefing that the phone was a beast, but since I’ve been carrying around a Note 10 Plus for the last month or so I didn’t think it felt that big when I first saw it. The S20 Ultra is 1.2mm narrower than the Note 10 Plus, but it is 4.6mm taller and 0.9mm thicker with 26 grams of increased weight. However, the massive camera bump on the back that houses the array of cameras is what currently bothers me and if I was to upgrade to the S20 Ultra I think a case would be necessary to help even out the back.

Also: Galaxy S20 Ultra vs. Note 10 Plus: Which Samsung phone is best for business use?

The Galaxy S20 Ultra offers all you could want in 2020 with 5G functionality that makes it a contender for the best smartphone in 2021 as well. It is packed full of the latest mobile technology and is going to take a bit of time to fully explore by various contributors here at ZDNet.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G specifications

Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
Main display: 6.9 inches, 3200 x 1400 pixels resolution (511 ppi), Dynamic AMOLED Infinity-O with 120Hz refresh rate
Operating system: Android 10
RAM: 12GB LPDDR5 (16GB available)
Storage: 128GB internal storage (512GB available), UFS 3.0
Cameras: 48MP rear f/3.5 telephoto with 10x optical hybrid zoom, 108MP f/1.8 wide-angle camera, and 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera (120 degrees field-of-view). A DepthVision camera is also found on the back. 40MP f/2.2 front-facing camera.
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax (2.4/5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0 LE, ANT+, GPS/Galileo/GLONASS/Beidou, NFC
Sensors: Accelerometer, Barometer, Ultrasonic Fingerprint Sensor, Gyro Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Hall Sensor, Proximity Sensor, RGB Light Sensor
Dust/water resistance: IP68 rating
Battery: 5000 mAh non-removable with fast wireless charging. Wireless PowerShare is also available.
Dimensions: 166.9 x 76 x 8.8mm and 222 grams
Colors: Cosmic Gray and Cosmic Black

The two primary focus points of this phone are the cameras and 5G capability. The 48MP and 108MP cameras perform pixel binning (labeled nona binning by Samsung) via a 3×3 (9-in-1) binning process to end up with an effective pixel size of 2.4 micron. This binning process of combining nine noisy pixels into one should enhance low light results.

In regards to 5G, the S20 Ultra supports Sub6 (low-band), mid-band (Sprint is currently using it), and mmWave (high-band) networks so it is a universal device capable of supporting a range of 5G networks. It’s being sold by Samsung as an unlocked model that will work with 5G on all US carriers so that’s worth some value right there.

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Also: Galaxy S20 Ultra vs. iPhone 11 Pro Max vs. Pixel 4 XL: We compare specs, prices, and features

Hardware

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is a gorgeous piece of hardware with minimal top and bottom bezels, no side bezels, and an even smaller hole-punch centered front-facing camera. It looks to support an amazing full-screen work and play experience with sides that are not as curved as previous S-series devices. This is a good thing as there is less likelihood of incidental screen activation.

The Super AMOLED display is obviously stunning and I’m sure will earn the highest title of any smartphone display soon. It’s a hefty device at 222 grams and quite long so it’s not going into jeans, shorts, or shirt pockets.

I am very pleased to see the power/Bixby and volume buttons on the right side with nothing on the left side. The Note 10 Plus has the buttons on the opposite side, which has caused me much angst. The stainless steel sides provide a solid feel to the phone as well.

There is a USB-C port on the bottom with a mic and speaker while the SIM/microSD card tray and another mic are on the top. Initial tests indicate the speakers sound great, which was not something we could say about the Note 10 Plus.

The back is really hard to get over initially. The camera module is huge and protrudes quite a bit, causing the phone to rest on the back at a tipped angle. I get that space was needed for the periscope lens design, but I’ll need more testing to see if this trade-off was worth the size sacrifice.

The 48MP rear camera with 10x hybrid optic zoom has a camera design similar to what we saw on the Huawei P30 Pro with a periscope arrangement using mirrors and then lenses oriented athwartships in the phone. Samsung uses AI multi-frame processing to help improve results.

Software

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra launches with Android 10 and Samsung One UI 2.1. One UI is a very capable user interface and my favorite non-Pixel flavor of Android. One UI offers a clean user experience with gesture-based navigation options too.

Thankfully, Samsung still includes its own apps, such as calendar, contacts, image gallery, music player, and web browser software. All of these offer more than the stock Google apps, and while others move to purely stock Google apps, there is still a ton of value in these Samsung applications for the enterprise.

The camera interface has been updated to support the various new cameras. If you want to enable the full nona binning functionality you can tap in the top row of the viewfinder and then select 3:4 108MP to get a 12MP shot with more details.

Pinching to zoom will also initiate quick zoom buttons for 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 4x, 10x, 30x, and 100x. When the 108MP mode is selected the zoom tops out at 6x.

It is also interesting to see that you can start recording a video and then switch between the rear and front cameras without interrupting the video. This could be useful for sharing moments with employees in the field or family on the road.

Initial usage experiences

The Cosmic Gray color may not be as flashy as the Aura colors we saw with the S10 and Note 10 devices, but it’s an excellent color option for business people. It is a professional looking phone and even though it is glossy the fingerprints aren’t terrible on this color.

After a few hours with the device, I noticed a few new functions, features, software that are worth exploring. These include:

120 Hz refresh rate: So far I love having the 120 Hz screen refresh rate and since every Samsung phone I’ve used in the past couple of years was always set at 1080p the restriction for 120 Hz at this resolution is not an issue.
Single Take: This is what I cannot wait to test out right away. I tested Single Take at the briefing and I see this as something consumers may love. Shooting and capturing various forms of content without having to make shooting choices in advance of the recording.
Samsung Daily: The Bixby Home far left panel has been replaced with a Samsung Daily panel. It looks very similar to the Bixby Home panel, but there are some different cards and it may be more useful for me.
Space zoom performance: Don’t be fooled into thinking space zoom refers to astrophotography as I think the term is just a reflection of using space smartly to create a periscope lens design. Maybe it refers to a view from space zooming into earth. Initial tests show zooming to extreme levels requires something more stable than my hand as photos were quite blurry. It may just be a good parlor trick, but I’ll try the phone on a tripod to see if there is any value in the advertising.
Low light photography: With the high level of pixel binning, we should see good low-light results from the S20 Ultra. I’ll test it against the Pixel 4 and iPhone 11 Pro this weekend.
Google Duo integration: Video calling in the phone app has always been rather useless with carrier and phone compatibility issues. Google and Samsung worked together to get Duo embedded in the phone and I look forward to trying out this seamless experience.

While the phone supports 8K video recording, I don’t have an 8K TV/monitor (or even a 4K one) so I can’t really test out this capability. I’m sure this capability will be covered in depth by the rockstar YouTubers we all follow.

Like all Samsung devices, there is a lot to explore here. After using a device with a S Pen for a few months, I’m not sure all of the improvements will trump the S Pen experience and I’m likely holding out for the Fold 2 or Note 20 with S Pen support.

Full review testing plan

My T-Mobile SIM is in the Galaxy S20 Ultra and it will be my daily driver for the review period. Here’s what I plan to focus on, but please leave comments and let me know what to add to this list for testing.