A few of months in the past ZDNet Editor-in-Main Larry Dignan and I attended briefings with Samsung to get our very first glance at the Galaxy S20 lineup and yesterday a Cosmic Gray 128GB Samsung S20 Ultra arrived for tests. We will have a good deal of content articles checking out this new cell phone in detail, but nowadays pre-ordering launches with US wireless carriers so here are some first views as you make your mind up regardless of whether the cell phone is value at least $one,400.
Larry talked about right after his briefing that the cell phone was a beast, but given that I’ve been carrying close to a Note ten Additionally for the past thirty day period or so I did not think it felt that major when I very first noticed it. The S20 Ultra is one.2mm narrower than the Note ten Additionally, but it is four.6mm taller and .9mm thicker with 26 grams of amplified fat. However, the enormous digicam bump on the back that houses the array of cameras is what at the moment bothers me and if I was to up grade to the S20 Ultra I think a case would be required to assistance even out the back.
Also: Galaxy S20 Ultra vs. Note ten Additionally: Which Samsung cell phone is finest for organization use?
The Galaxy S20 Ultra presents all you could want in 2020 with 5G features that will make it a contender for the finest smartphone in 2021 as well. It is packed entire of the most up-to-date cellular technological know-how and is going to choose a bit of time to entirely investigate by various contributors here at ZDNet.
Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G technical specs
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
- Primary screen: 6.nine inches, 3200 x 1400 pixels resolution (511 ppi), Dynamic AMOLED Infinity-O with 120Hz refresh amount
- Operating process: Android ten
- RAM: 12GB LPDDR5 (16GB available)
- Storage: 128GB inside storage (512GB available), UFS three.
- Cameras: 48MP rear f/three.5 telephoto with 10x optical hybrid zoom, 108MP f/one.eight vast-angle digicam, and 12MP f/2.2 extremely-vast digicam (one hundred twenty levels field-of-look at). A DepthVision digicam is also observed on the back. 40MP f/2.2 front-facing digicam.
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax (2.four/5GHz), Bluetooth 5. LE, ANT+, GPS/Galileo/GLONASS/Beidou, NFC
- Sensors: Accelerometer, Barometer, Ultrasonic Fingerprint Sensor, Gyro Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Corridor 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.
- Proportions: 166.nine x seventy six x eight.8mm and 222 grams
- Hues: Cosmic Gray and Cosmic Black
The two major concentration details of this cell phone are the cameras and 5G capacity. The 48MP and 108MP cameras conduct pixel binning (labeled nona binning by Samsung) via a 3×3 (nine-in-one) binning process to stop up with an helpful pixel dimension of 2.four micron. This binning process of combining 9 noisy pixels into a single need to greatly enhance very low light final results.
In regards to 5G, the S20 Ultra supports Sub6 (very low-band), mid-band (Sprint is at the moment utilizing it), and mmWave (substantial-band) networks so it is a universal gadget able of supporting a variety of 5G networks. It is getting sold by Samsung as an unlocked product that will operate with 5G on all US carriers so which is value some price correct there.
Also: Galaxy S20 Ultra vs. Iphone 11 Professional Max vs. Pixel four XL: We evaluate specs, charges, and options
Components
The Galaxy S20 Ultra is a magnificent piece of hardware with nominal top rated and base bezels, no side bezels, and an even scaled-down hole-punch centered front-facing digicam. It seems to be to guidance an incredible entire-monitor operate and perform experience with sides that are not as curved as former S-sequence products. This is a good issue as there is less chance of incidental monitor activation.
The Tremendous AMOLED screen is naturally amazing and I am guaranteed will get paid the greatest title of any smartphone screen quickly. It is a hefty gadget at 222 grams and very very long so it really is not going into jeans, shorts, or shirt pockets.
I am very happy to see the electrical power/Bixby and volume buttons on the correct side with practically nothing on the still left side. The Note ten Additionally has the buttons on the opposite side, which has brought about me much angst. The stainless steel sides offer a solid sense to the cell phone as well.
There is a USB-C port on the base with a mic and speaker even though the SIM/microSD card tray and yet another mic are on the top rated. Initial exams point out the speakers seem terrific, which was not some thing we could say about the Note ten Additionally.
The back is definitely challenging to get about initially. The digicam module is large and protrudes very a bit, leading to the cell phone to rest on the back at a tipped angle. I get that room was required for the periscope lens design and style, but I am going to need far more tests to see if this trade-off was value the dimension sacrifice.
The 48MP rear digicam with 10x hybrid optic zoom has a digicam design and style equivalent to what we noticed on the Huawei P30 Professional with a periscope arrangement utilizing mirrors and then lenses oriented athwartships in the cell phone. Samsung uses AI multi-body processing to assistance enhance final results.
Application
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra launches with Android ten and Samsung A person UI 2.one. A person UI is a very able user interface and my favorite non-Pixel flavor of Android. A person UI presents a clear user experience with gesture-dependent navigation choices also.
Fortunately, Samsung however contains its individual apps, these as calendar, contacts, image gallery, songs participant, and internet browser program. All of these offer far more than the stock Google apps, and even though some others move to purely stock Google apps, there is however a ton of price in these Samsung applications for the enterprise.
The digicam interface has been up to date to guidance the various new cameras. If you want to enable the entire nona binning features you can tap in the top rated row of the viewfinder and then find three:four 108MP to get a 12MP shot with far more aspects.
Pinching to zoom will also initiate speedy zoom buttons for .5x, 1x, 2x, 4x, 10x, 30x, and 100x. When the 108MP mode is picked the zoom tops out at 6x.
It is also fascinating to see that you can begin recording a movie and then swap concerning the rear and front cameras devoid of interrupting the movie. This could be beneficial for sharing moments with staff in the field or loved ones on the street.
Initial utilization experiences
The Cosmic Gray shade may well not be as flashy as the Aura colors we noticed with the S10 and Note ten products, but it really is an great shade possibility for organization individuals. It is a qualified seeking cell phone and even even though it is shiny the fingerprints are not terrible on this shade.
Immediately after a couple of several hours with the gadget, I seen a couple of new features, options, program that are value discovering. These consist of:
- one hundred twenty Hz refresh amount: So considerably I really like acquiring the one hundred twenty Hz monitor refresh amount and given that just about every Samsung cell phone I’ve used in the past few of many years was usually set at 1080p the restriction for one hundred twenty Hz at this resolution is not an issue.
- Single Consider: This is what I are unable to wait around to test out correct absent. I tested Single Consider at the briefing and I see this as some thing buyers may well really like. Shooting and capturing various types of content devoid of acquiring to make taking pictures options in advance of the recording.
- Samsung Each day: The Bixby Home considerably still left panel has been replaced with a Samsung Each day panel. It seems to be very equivalent to the Bixby Home panel, but there are some different cards and it may well be far more beneficial for me.
- House zoom overall performance: Never be fooled into wondering room zoom refers to astrophotography as I think the term is just a reflection of utilizing room well to develop a periscope lens design and style. Possibly it refers to a look at from room zooming into earth. Initial exams show zooming to extreme levels demands some thing far more secure than my hand as photographs were very blurry. It may well just be a good parlor trick, but I am going to check out the cell phone on a tripod to see if there is any price in the marketing.
- Lower light pictures: With the substantial degree of pixel binning, we need to see good very low-light final results from the S20 Ultra. I am going to test it from the Pixel four and Iphone 11 Professional this weekend.
- Google Duo integration: Online video calling in the cell phone application has usually been somewhat ineffective with carrier and cell phone compatibility problems. Google and Samsung labored alongside one another to get Duo embedded in the cell phone and I glance ahead to attempting out this seamless experience.
Though the cell phone supports 8K movie recording, I don’t have an 8K Television set/keep an eye on (or even a 4K a single) so I are not able to definitely test out this capacity. I am guaranteed this capacity will be included in depth by the rockstar YouTubers we all comply with.
Like all Samsung products, there is a good deal to investigate here. Immediately after utilizing a gadget with a S Pen for a couple of months, I am not guaranteed all of the advancements will trump the S Pen experience and I am probably keeping out for the Fold 2 or Note 20 with S Pen guidance.
Entire review tests prepare
My T-Cellular SIM is in the Galaxy S20 Ultra and it will be my day-to-day driver for the review period of time. Here is what I prepare to concentration on, but please go away responses and enable me know what to incorporate to this record for tests.
- 5G overall performance and comparison to the OnePlus 7T Professional 5G McLaren on T-Cellular
- Camera overall performance in comparison to Iphone 11 Professional, Pixel four, and far more
- Velocity and responsiveness
- Mobile reception
- Battery life
Experience cost-free to interact with me here or on Twitter as I operate on the entire review and other S20 Ultra content articles.
