SAMSUNG GALAXY S20
With a slick 120Hz AMOLED screen and an impressive range of cameras, the S20 is a true Android powerhouse
The company’s new affordable flagship has Ultra-esque features at a more accessible price
At 6.2 inches the Samsung Galaxy S20 is hardly the biggest phone in Samsung’s lineup. With the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus and S20 Ultra looming over it, it’s not even the biggest in its own range. Nevertheless, the practically bezel-less screen, interrupted only by a tiny punchhole, is more than enough for everyday tasks and looks great, even if it’s not the sumptuous widescreen movie and gaming experience you could find on the S20 Ultra.
However, at 6.2” it’s almost unfair to compare it to the massive Ultra. The S20’s AMOLED screen is crisp and clear, displaying HQ YouTube videos, movies and games alike with no softness. Likewise, the speaker offers great power with very little of that “tinny” nature smartphone speakers can so often have.
Although it’s not as expansive as the rest of the range, the screen more than holds its own. The 120Hz refresh rate provides clean, silky-smooth
movement as we swipe through the phone’s home screen options. It’s hard to describe just how good this is: the slick motion almost feels tactile as you slide through screens and scroll through apps.
The big picture
Samsung has placed great stock in the camera equipment of all three devices, and they don’t disappoint.
The 12MP ultra-wide and wideangle lenses and the 64MP main camera present a combination that’s clear and responsive with excellent colour balance. The wide angles proved great when capturing group shots and scenery snaps.
Even without the S20 Ultra’s massive 108MP, exceptionally fine points can be captured in mid-range shots, with the time-of-flight sensor conveying depth as well as detail.
While its 8K video functionality is a technical marvel, most people (those without an 8K TV) won’t get to enjoy it to its fullest extent.
The punch-hole selfie camera’s 10MP sensor is a far cry from the Ultra’s massive 40MP front-facing camera. Consequently, you’ll find it difficult to pick out background details. However, we’re nitpicking: the excellence of the rear-facing camera module more than offsets these slight discrepancies.
Now comes the guts. The three models in the Samsung Galaxy S20 range are all equipped with the same processor, the Exynos 990 CPU (a Snapdragon 865 in the US), and an Adreno 650 GPU. It’s a powerful pocket rocket, able to process complex files without breaking a sweat. With less work to do in the S20 than the S20 Ultra, the phone whistles along at lightning speeds.
The phone packs a 4,000mAh battery, which will do at the very least a full day of moderate use, but it’s not quite the 5,000mAh workhorse of the S20 Ultra. Given that the S20 has a lot of the S20 Ultra’s most premium features, battery life does suffer as a result of this.
The phone also includes the now-familiar underscreen fingerprint sensor and facial recognition of its predecessors. However, the fingerprint sensor is quite sluggish, sometimes even taking three or four tries before unlocking effectively.
Audio on calls usually came out crystal clear on both ends, but we did have issues with the speaker phone functionality, as the mic struggled to pick up our voices clearly from more than a metre away, while indoors.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 is, without a shadow of a doubt, an excellent flagship smartphone. Is it perfect? No. Is it too much phone for some? Yes. Is it awesome, packed full of great features, with a really enjoyable design and UI? Yes.
For users that want an awesome Android flagship and either don’t care about 100x zoom cameras or don’t want to shell out over a lakh for a phone, the Samsung Galaxy S20 is among the best phones on the market.