Announced alongside the Samsung Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+, and Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G on February 11, 2020, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra went on sale starting March 15, 2020. This is one of the latest Samsung smartphones that belong to the Galaxy S high-end product line of the Korean tech giant.

The Galaxy S is one of the two high-end smartphone lineups of Samsung, the other one is the Galaxy note series. For years, Samsung has always given the S series the latest, most advanced technologies and features, and hefty price tags too.

The Galaxy S20 Ultra is larger and more expensive than its cousins, the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S20+. The S20 Ultra is priced at Rs 97,999 while the standard S20 costs Rs 69,000 and the S20+ costs Rs 77,999. The most expensive device of this lineup is the Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G with a price of Rs 99,890.

Display

Similar to the S20 Ultra 5G, this smartphone features the largest screen ever on an S-series phone, a Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with 6.9-inch screen size. Besides, it has a screen resolution of 3200x1440 pixels and a pixel density of 511 ppi, with the Infinity-O design that boasts the front-facing camera at the top-center of the display, in a punch hole. All the Galaxy S20 devices come with this display design.

Dynamic AMOLED 2X is the second generation of HDR10+ compatible display technology developed by Samsung. The first-gen version of this tech was used on the Galaxy S10 series last year. Dynamic AMOLED 2X allows for a refreshing rate of up to 120 Hz, which is also the most impressive thing about the Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G screen, ensuring smooth swipes and images on the screen as well as an excellent viewing experience.

The screen on the S20 Ultra also supports 240Hz touch sensing that’s currently available on only the ROG Phone II as well as a few Black Shark 2 phones in the world. While the difference in the sharpness between 60Hz and 120Hz is not easily noticed by the naked eye, the refresh rate is more apparent.

Overall, it has one of the brightest screens on the market with an 894-nit adaptive brightness mode, around 70 nits higher than the iPhone Pro Max. In terms of gaming, the screen is generally smooth, according to gaming tests, the frame rate mostly maintains at 60 frames per second. However, you will notice several frame drops to 59 fps or even 57 fps, but even then the images in the game still look and feel smooth.

Chip

The Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G is powered by the Exynos 990 processor for the global variant and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 in the US market. Both of these are 7nm+ chipsets with an external modem, which theoretically affects the phone’s efficiency. This turns out true, at least for the Exynos variant. Besides, the Exynos 990 features a GPU named Mali-G77 MP11 while the Snapdragon 865 features a GPU named Adreno 650, which results in different performance between the two variants, clarified in the next section.

When it comes to the Geekbench score, we compare the single-core and multi-core scores of the Galaxy S20 Ultra and the iPhone 11 Pro Max that’s powered by the A13 Bionic processor. The Geekbench 5 single-core score of the S20 Ultra is lower than that of the iPhone 11 Pro Max, 809 points as opposed to 1,334 points. Meanwhile, its multi-core score is also lower than that of the iPhone 11 Pro Max, 2699 as opposed to 3517 points. So, it seems that the Exynos 990 doesn’t provide as much processing power for the S20 Ultra as the iPhone rival.

When it comes to gaming, reviews show that this chip is even worse than the Snapdragon 855, a predecessor to the latest Snapdragon 865. Samsung’s Exynos processors have long been outperformed by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon rivals in overall performance, especially in gaming. This is probably because Snapdragon chips often come with better GPUs.

Storage

In terms of RAM and ROM, there is a single variant with 12GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard memory.  With a capacity of 12GB RAM, this is the same as the hardcore gaming phone Black Shark 3 Pro. This much RAM capacity should handle games well. Indeed, the Galaxy Ultra S20 can let you enjoy any mobile game title you want without producing much heat.

Battery

This premium device packs a 5,000mAh non-removable Li-Po battery. With this battery capacity, the Galaxy S20 Ultra can offer a battery life of 12 hours when the refresh rate is 60Hz, but just 9 hours when the refresh rate is 120 Hz. Besides, there is support for 45W fast charging, 15W wireless charging, and 9W reverse wireless charging.

To compare, the standard Galaxy S20 phone comes with a 4,000mAh battery while the battery capacity of the Galaxy S20+ is 4,500 mAh.

Several users have reported overheating issues on the Galaxy S20 like the phone heats up quickly just by browsing social media or playing videos. However, the problem was found to be irrelevant to the battery but more likely due to the Mali GPU in the Exynos 990 processor.

Camera

In terms of cameras, the handset sports a 108MP wide-angle lens with an f/1.8 aperture, a 48MP periscope telephoto with an f/3.5 aperture, a 12MP ultra-wide-angle lens with an f/2.2 aperture, and a time-of-flight sensor. On the front, there is a single 40MP wide-angle lens with an aperture of f/2.2.

The camera system on this smartphone is like no other. One of the most impressive things about it is an imager called Nonacell by Samsung. This combines 9 pixels into one to make use of the extra data. This takes the Quad Bayer approach one step further and should benefit the noise performance along with superior HDR output.

Overall, the Galaxy S20 Ultra produces good daylight photos with high-frequency detail not rendered very pleasingly. However, solid color areas like the skies don’t interfere with noise and the reflection of the sky on the windows is beautiful.

You’ll be happy to know that this phone delivers amazing night photos as it should. It captures excellent low-light shots at 12MP resolution, displaying nice detail and the noise is contained very well. Color rendition makes another advantage for the cameras on the phone and it retains saturation in cases that other phones cannot. It also boasts a good dynamic range. Sadly, selfie photos are not as good as you may expect from a high-end device.