Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G – Review and specs

Samsung Galaxy S2 was the first smartphone I bought. I was in 2011, the 3rd year of college and the first time I saw it in someone. I was using a Sony Ericsson W902 at the time – I was a fan of Sony Ericsson phones starting with the K750i, then the W810i and the last one I had was the W902.

Coming back to S2, at that moment it gave me back: 1GB RAM, Dual-Core processor, 8MP camera and Full HD shooting.

Samsung won me then as a fan and I don’t think I can call myself a bad fanboy, although since then I have only Samsungs, I do not shy away from criticizing them and accept the perspective of others as long as it is argued.

The phone is built around an aluminum frame, with the glass front and back protected by Gorilla Glass 6. Finally, the 3.5mm port and the S series were dropped, the Galaxy S10 being the last to have, and annoying and useless. Bixby’s button disappeared in turn.

The power and volume knobs are located on the right-hand side in a comfortable position. The edges of the phone were reduced compared to S10 + and the curvature of the screen was in turn reduced, which I consider a good thing. The fingerprint sensor is integrated into the screen.

Android 10 with the One UI 2.1 interface of Samsung we find on the S20 Ultra out of the box. One Ui 2.1 is not much different from 2.0 or even 1.0 in terms of look, so if you have used a Samsung product after 2017 you have no idea if you like it or not.

One Ui has become my favorite interface after the clean Android. Most Samsung brand preinstalled applications can be uninstalled or deactivated, the only ones you can’t give up are Bixby and Galaxy Store. The interface can be customized to your liking, even put Pixel icons in the theme store.

Unfortunately Europe is still receiving the S20 variants that those who know little about Exynos history do not want. The S20 Ultra comes with the Exynos 990 octa-core processor built on a 7nm technology, Mali-G77 MP11 graphics card, 12GB RAM and 128GB for storage – a version tested by me.

We also have version with 16GB RAM and up to 512GB internal memory. The phone is very fast, and this is due to several factors: the processor, RAM, internal memory type UFS 3.0 and the refresh rate of 120hz of the screen.

S10 + looks old over S20 ultra and in basic activities. Instead, once you give up those glorious 120hz and move on to 60hz, things start to get closer to an S10 +.

The S20 Ultra’s screen has a 6.9-inch diagonal, is AMOLED and has a maximum resolution of 1440 × 3200 pixels. I say the maximum because at 1440 × 3200 pixels the phone works in 60Hz mode.

To get 120Hz you will need to move to 2400 × 1080. I used it one day on 60Hz and the maximum resolution was enough.

Once you see what a 120hz mobile screen looks like, it’s like I tell you … the girls have it: “once you go black, you should go back”. It’s about the same with 120Hz. Probably some will complain that it does not reach the maximum resolution – I did not see any difference.

You probably wonder where the name “Ultra” came from, wasn’t an S20 + enough? Why did I still need an Ultra? Marketing and numbers, which usually impress.

Just as I was impressed with S2 in 2011, when I didn’t know much about smartphones. What does Ultra have and does not have S20 or S20 +? It has a 108MP photo sensor, is the second phone with a 108MP camera after Xiaomi Mi Note 10.

The 48MP telephoto sensor used for zooming over 4x to 100x takes great pictures when you can’t physically approach the subject, but I honestly don’t see the sense of zooming over 30x. The 100x is really just a marketing campaign. Pictures obtained even in good light are unusable. I think you realized how high up they are :).

The major upgrade that the One Ui 2.1 brought is for Night mode – Samsung was the last one here, and now it looks like they’ve revised it. The problem is that in some scenarios the pictures do not seem natural at all.

On the video side, the Galaxy S20 series was the first to offer 8K shooting at 24 frames per second. Like 100x zoom, this technology is now a “show-off”.

It is possible that someone with a little film school will make some extraordinary short videos, such as those for the advertising campaign. We the rest, ordinary mortals, will use maximum 4k @ 60fps.

One Galaxy S20 Ultra did not convince me to buy it. Not only does the price make me stay away from it, but also the weight and bumper of the camera. The 108MP sensor and 100x zoom are some marketing tools that do well on paper, and in reality do not have an extraordinary utility, at least not at the present time. I think the Galaxy S20 + is a better option.