The Samsung Galaxy S20+, S20 Ultra Exynos & Snapdragon Review: Megalomania Devices
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 3, 2020 9:30 AM ESTConclusion & End Remarks
We’re coming to an end of what’s a very long review for what probably the most awaited and important Android devices of 2020. Samsung has made several promises as to what the S20 series brings, with the majority of the hype being surrounded around the new cameras, with the other key point being the 120Hz display of the phone.
Starting off with the general design updates of the S20 series, I’m actually extremely happy as to what Samsung was able to achieve with the smaller S20 and S20+ phones, and in part with the S20 Ultra. Samsung’s flattening of the display along with the larger curvatures of the back glass means that, ergonomically, the new phones are a very big improvement over the last few Galaxy flagship generations, allowing the phones to feel smaller than they are – even the humongous Ultra.
The S20 Ultra is in a class of its own when it comes to its size. It’s bigger, thicker, and just feels heftier than anything else Samsung has brought to market in the flagship category. I’m sure there’s plenty people will very much welcome these devices as they’re willing to use bigger and bigger phones, though I’m more prone to stick with the S10+, as I feel the Ultra is just a tad too large.
The other drawback of the Ultra is the camera bump. It’s not that I have anything against camera bumps, it’s just that I feel Samsung could have implemented it with better design elements – particularly the “gasket” – and the gaps around the camera protrusion feels cheap and is very prone to collecting dust. I didn’t have the same reservations about the S20+’s camera design, as that one's perfectly fine and reasonable in my opinion.
The screens of the S20s are all excellent in terms of their quality. The highlight feature of the phones here is simply the 120Hz ultra-high refresh rate. It’s an amazing feature that by itself is able to differentiate the experience of the S20 series, bringing you a much smoother device experience than ever before.
The performance of the S20 series is also excellent. Both the Snapdragon 865 and the Exynos 990 are able to deliver top-notch system performance on the new phones, although the Snapdragon does have a slight edge. Together with the 120Hz refresh rate, these are the snappiest, most responsive devices on the market right now – no contest.
However, the 120Hz refresh does come with quite the battery life cost. Expect a 20-25% reduction in battery life when you use the feature. Here even though the new phones come with extra big batteries, going up to 5000mAh on the S20 Ultra, it’s not sufficient to counteract the high refresh rate power draw. And if you’re coming from a previous generation flagship phone, the net result will be a battery life downgrade. It’s possible that Samsung could improve things with firmware updates and actually introduce a switching refresh rate mechanism to improve the current inefficient system – but we don’t know if and when they’re going to do that.
The power efficiency differences between the Snapdragon and Exynos are acceptable in everyday usage, however if you’re a power user, particularly in gaming, the Exynos 990 won’t fare very well. The M5 CPU is a disappointment and isn’t competitive with the Cortex-A77 cores of the Snapdragon. But at least it’s the last generation of Exynos SoC having to live with such a disadvantage. The GPU performance of the SoC is also very disappointing, as the long-term performance will only be around half of the Snapdragon models.
Then there’s the cameras. Samsung put such an emphasis on the camera capabilities of these phones that frankly we expected the most amazing results ever. In my mind in particular I had expected for Samsung to compete with Huawei in terms of picture quality, both in daylight and in low-light.
In daylight, the one strength of the phones that does materialize is the S20 Ultra’s telephoto module. The sheer hardware prowess of this camera is leaps ahead of other devices in the market right now. Sure, Samsung went a bit too far with proclaiming it’s able to achieve up to 100x zoom – those pictures are just a blurry mess. But it does fare very well at 10-20x magnification, and provides some shots that you normally wouldn’t think possible out of a phone.
The main camera sensors on the other hand I feel fall short of the high expectations. Yes, they are better than what we see on the S10 series, however Samsung here is still falling short of proving the same quality that Apple achieves on the iPhone 11 – and it’s also optically inferior to Huawei’s newest devices. I just don’t quite see why the 108MP sensor on the S20 Ultra had to be an 108MP sensor, as I don’t feel that number of pixels translates in anything meaningful in any of the camera usages of the S20 Ultra. In fact, more often than not, the S20+’s 64MP camera unit is able to take more detailed pictures.
The S20+’s 12+64MP combination is I think more versatile than that of the S20 Ultra, and the area where this shows the most is in the 1.2-3.5x zoom range, where the Ultra just falls apart, but the S20+ still is able to take perfectly detailed pictures. The ultra-wide-angle’s reduced resolution from 16MP to 12MP is a straight downgrade for daylight pictures, it does however make this up with better low-light pictures.
Then there’s low-light, which is just a massive mixed bag of results. Here it’s clearly a matter of the software not being optimized, as sometimes all the S20 perform worse than the S10 phones. Yes, in the perfect conditions the phones are able to shine – particularly the Exynos models, which currently have much better low-light camera calibrations and processing – but even in that best-case scenario Samsung is far behind the results that Huawei is able to achieve.
Megalomania Devices - But Still Good Phones
I've taken to calling the S20 series megalomania devices because, $1400 price tags and all, they’re overpromising and underdelivering – however that doesn’t mean they’re bad phones. Other than the display size and the excellent zoom module, I don’t really see the value in the S20 Ultra over the S20+. The 108MP camera in particular feels underutilized. Given the steep price premium over the S20+, I’m having a hard time rationalizing this phone over its smaller siblings.
The S20+ I feel is a proper successor to the S10+, and I’m even willing to switch over to it as a daily device. The 120Hz screen remains incredible no matter the battery life impact, and the cameras are still plenty good, even if not class-leading. The users in Snapdragon markets in particular end up with a device that makes very few compromises and is seemingly worthy of being a top class 2020 flagship. I just hope that Samsung will be able to resolve the camera discrepancies between the different models, as well as generally improve the camera picture quality over the coming months. If they achieve this, then I feel that the new phones would warrant their release price tags.
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crimson117 - Friday, April 3, 2020 - link
$1400 is absurd. There's no way they're worth more than twice as much as a brand new S10.Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, April 3, 2020 - link
Probably one of the reasons Samsung still continues to sell the S10 series. They're really excellent value right now, and you're not missing out on too much.cha0z_ - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
You are literally getting just one more year of software support going for s10 series... samsung software support policy is abysmal with less than two years of real support and from there just security. I got both iphone 11 pro max and exynos note 9, if I put aside the cr*ppy 9810 - it will not receive even the oneUI 2.1 as an update, while samsung will soon release it for s10 line. Enough said, note 9 is year and a half old.How can you recommend someone 1000 euro or 1400 euro phone if it will be supported for 1.5 years and from there 1.5 more security updates next to apple with 5 years FULL support with major, minor, day one, betas + security update for old iphones like 4s and 5 (2011 and 2012 respectably)?
goatfajitas - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
You do realize the phone doesn't stop working when it doesn't get an OS update right? TBH, neither Android or IOS has added a whole lot in the past few years, its just a yearly cadence of very minor updates and not getting them means almost zero in actual use.Featherinmycap - Monday, April 6, 2020 - link
I think there have been a lot of added features to IOS in the last 3 years that I use a great deal. Not saying that Android didnt already have some of these features, but for IOS users we got with IOS 11; a file manager (finally), Messages sync with iCloud, screen recording, useful improvements to Siri and ApplePay. IOS12; lots of performance improvements (lots), Screentime, Shortcuts (scripting), CarPlay, Animoji Memoji, Tracking prevention, IOS13; Single Sign on, external storage, Dark Mode, better support for keyboards, trackpads/mice, etc.Famorcan007 - Tuesday, April 7, 2020 - link
I think it's because Android mostly has offered those features(file manager,screen recording, external storage,support for mice etc.) since way back compared to iOS' slow but steady trickle of features that's why iOS users feel every OS update is huge and significant. I'm using a Note 4(my backup device) right now to comment which doesn't feel too crippled compared to my Android 9 P20 pro.cha0z_ - Tuesday, April 7, 2020 - link
Let's not find an excuse - software support is software support. Security is security - some of us keep all their personal info on their device (most of us) + bank accounts and whatnot, risking compromise on your phone is not that innocent compared to what was like back in the days. IOS adds rapidly more features for sure compared to android that recently starts to look more and more like IOS (and I personally totally don't like that), but still added some good stuff under the hood and some new features.It's not serious to sell 1400 euro phone that is supported for one year and a half. I own exynos note 9 - it's 1.5 years old and already samsung dropped the support, s10 line received oneUI 2.1, note 9 will not. How is that for my 1000 euro phone + double served with that cr*ppy exynos 9810 in it. Now it's in my GF and I am rolling iphone 11 pro max. I prefer android and love oneUI, but I am tired to be a second hand customer.
s.yu - Tuesday, April 7, 2020 - link
Don't know what you're talking about. My Note8 just got another update days ago, one that I preferred not to have because each update comes with a risk of bricking the device while potential changes to the UI are not always welcome either. I also got it ~30% off retail a few months after release, such has always been the state of Samsung, at least for S and Note.I'm no longer buying Samsung but the main reason is lack of the 3.5mm port, if I have to name another then it's between the questionable choice of telephoto in the smaller variants or the oversized device with a mediocre battery(I regard 5000mah to be mediocre for the size). I still do like the UI but I'm willing to look around.
Psyside - Tuesday, April 7, 2020 - link
"It's not serious to sell 1400 euro phone that is supported for one year and a half. I own exynos note 9 - it's 1.5 years old and already samsung dropped the support, s10 line received oneUI 2.1, note 9 will not. How is that for my 1000 euro phone"Very easy, with those "very old software features" Samsung can do what MAC can't, and don't get me start it on the utter crap IOS.
Also don't spin it, Samsung offer 4 (four) years of security updates, so do your research before you type something.
cha0z_ - Wednesday, April 8, 2020 - link
fanboy. Security update hahahahah iphone 4s and 5 still receives security updates - 9 years old phone for 4s. What you will say now?iphone receive FULL support with MAJOR ios versions, updates, minor updates, BETA versions, DAY ONE as their newest and most expensive phone - for 5-6 years and you are talking about 4 years of security updates roflmao. Samsung released note 9 with android 8 when android 9 was already released from more than a months. Oooo, it's enough time, because you can dev your skin and features on top of the dev previews, especially the later ones that are closer to final (for the more tricky/deeply integrated code) - so no excuse for what they did. Basically they gave me one major update - android 10 as android 9 should had been on the note 9 from the start. Even if we count 2, how is that next to 5-6 versions of ios?
And before you talk some more fanboy bs that never used recent years iphones - ios brings a lot more in every new versions (adding features that was missing for no reason, like external USB flash support, file browser for the files on the phone, etc) while android 10 brings you what? More lockdown ios style, iphones gestures and pixel device that is a cheap iphone wannabe.
Because of people like you samsung don't want to change their software support policy. Why should they? It costs money or now you will start with the argument how the phone hardware is not supporting oneUI 2.1 (for the note 9 that is 1.5 years old, but will not receive it most likely ;) ). Or maybe android 11 will be too much for the phone, right? :D
Also I agree - my note 9 can do more than my iphone 11 pro max, but everything that the phones do both (and that's 99.9% of what you will end up using constantly) - the iphone 11 pro max makes the exynos note 9 look like a total utter joke - faster, smoother with NOT A SINGLE frame drop no matter what you do, gaming is insanely good with surprise - NOT A SINGLE frame drop, battery life is x3 times better, apps have MORE features and runs super smooth and great, speakers destroys the note 9 one, camera too is times better, materials are a lot better too, faceid is super good and fast - feels like I don't have any security on - never failed or gave me any issue. Fun fact, note 9 came with fortnite and recommended as gaming phone for that game. My exynos variant can't run smoothly the game even with 30fps cap medium settings and !1080p! while iphone XS max runs it 60fps high 2688x1242 without a single frame drop. Same goes for the 11 pro max, obviously.
As for ios - it improves massively and adds more and more missing features/drops restrictions with every version. ios 14 is already known to drop more. I prefer android, because I can do more + I love oneUI, but that doesn't change the fact that in my country I will receive exynos and 1.5 years of decent support. And in the end of the day - I spend my time in apps, not in the settings menu and apps on ios are better, with more features, smoother, a lot of them exclusive to the platform. Can you play dead cells on your android device? No? Yeah, the port is expected around the end of the year, I have it from June 2019. Full blown civilization 6 on your android device? Yeah, will never come, I have it and it's 1:1 port that runs great. Can go on and on and on. If you spend your time tweaking settings, options, UI - good for you, I spend my time in games and apps.