Samsung’s first Galaxy Unpacked event of the year has just finished up and with it we have the newly announced Galaxy S20 series of devices. The heavily leaked devices before the official announcements did include some outlandish specs, but it turns out most leaks were spot on.
Without any delay, let’s take a look at the new Galaxy S20 lineup from Samsung. Ohh, and if the naming is confusing, yes these are still the successors to the S10, Samsung are just lining up the naming with the year to make it easier for marketing.
The new lineup of devices are set to be a decent upgrade over the S10 series from last year. We of course have better performing chipset, new displays with high refresh rate capabilities, bigger batteries, and a big upgrade on Camera side of things. Samsung have done a lot to make the S20 series a worthy upgrade and have pretty much touched on every component in the devices.
Design wise the only real change is the how the camera bump looks and feels, and we now have an almost flat display and no longer feature that slight curve on both sides of the device; something many found more cumbersome than feature worthy the last few times around. All devices are also P68 water resistant as well. Again, most of the design is very similar to the S10 series. Glass front and back, with aluminium frame.
The Galaxy S20
The base model Galaxy S20 will be the cheapest device of the new bunch, forgoing the “E” version of the S10 we got last year. The S20 will offer a 6.2-inch AMOLED display with 1,440, x 3,200 resolution. The panel also supports 120Hz refresh rate, but only when used with FHD Mode. It’s also Gorilla Glass 6, HDR10 and has 240Hz touch response – all of this is to same it is very very responsive.
The internal specs include a Exynos 990 chipset with Octa-core processor and Mali-G77 MP11 GPU. The US and other regions will includes the Snapdragon 865 chipset with Octa-Core processor. None the less both versions include’s 8GB of RAM, but there is versions with more storage and 12GB of RAM avaialble.
The camera side of things is a main attraction for Samsung and the included 3 sensors on the S20 read pretty well on paper. First up we have the main 12 MP sensor with f/1.8 aperture, and 26mm (wide) lens. The second shooter is a 64 MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture and 3x hybrid optical zoom lens. Lastly we have a 12 MP sensor with f/2.2 aperture and 13mm (ultrawide) lens. Both the main and telephoto support OIS. The phone also supports up to 8K video recording – which is simply insane on a smartphone. However, it’s worth nothing that this is done via the Telephoto sensor, which means a pretty zoomed in shot.
Other specs for the S20 include 10MP front facing camera, 4,000mAh battery with 25W fast charging and 15W wireless charging. Bluetooth 5, WiFi 6,USB type-C, MicroSD slot, 128GB storage and reverse wireless charging.
The Galaxy S20+
The S20 Plus shares a great deal of the same specs as the smaller S20. The Plus includes a larger 6.7-inch display with same 1,440 x 3,200 resolution. It includes the same 120Hz capability when running in FHD mode and of course HDR10 support.
The S20 Plus gets an additional depth sensor on the rear of the device for adding more depth information to photos for better software added bokeh. Otherwise it has the same 3 other senors as the S20.
Being a larger device also means a larger battery as well, and the S20 Plus includes a 4,500mAh battery. 500mAh over the standard S20.
Basically the S20 and S20 Plus are nearly identical like with past devices with the same nomenclature. The S20 simply has a larger display with the same resolution, a larger battery, and the added depth sensor.
The Galaxy S20 Ultra
The S20 Ultra is the new king in town, and newly named addition in the series is Samsung’s way of saying they have added another flagship nomenclature – we guess S20++ was out of the question, or like last year, S20E, S20, and S20+ simply wouldn’t work – this device needed a new name.
Truth be told the reason there is a new naming convention this year is because the Ultra comes with those outlandish specs on paper. Oh and the pricing for the Ultra is the highest from Samsung device yet (Galaxy Fold not withstanding). Let’s talk about the specs before the eye-watering pricetag.
The S20 Ultra has huge 6.9-inch display with the same 1,440 x 3,200 resolution as it’s smaller siblings. We have 120Hz support at FHD, with HDR10 and Gorilla Glass 6 both present. The even larger device that weighs a pretty hefty 222g includes a whopping 5,000mAh battery, which makes sense for large device.
The camera is again the main focus for the S20 Ultra and Samsung have gone pretty much all out. The main shooter is a 108MP sensor with f/1.8 aperture and 26mm (wide) lens. The secondary is a 12 MP sensor with, f/2.2 aperture and 13mm (ultrawide) lens. Next we have the impressive 48 MP Periscope sensor with f/3.6 aperture and 102mm (telephoto) lens; offering up to 10x hybrid optical zoom and 100x digital zoom – something Samsung are calling Space Zoom – the word insane gets thrown around regarding these sensors. Lastly the S20 Ultra also sports the same 0.3 MP, TOF 3D TOF sensor as in the S20+, making for a total of 4 sensor.
The S20 Ultra is surely set to break some records in terms of camera performance and it will interesting too see just how well they all perform. The S20 Ultra also supports 8K video recording, but using the main 108MP sensor and recording@33MP video – again, insane stuff, and even better with the main lens and not the telephoto like on the S20 and S20 Plus.
Availability
The new Galaxy S20 line up is already avaialble for pre-order and arrives March 6th. Pricing is detailed below for the respective models, which include 4G and 5G variants where theory will be avaialble. The S20 Ultra coming in at €1,349 for the base model is a pretty huge ask, and will be interesting to see if consumers want to start dropping even more money on flagship devices. The full Galaxy Unpacked event is included below, along with official launch video for the S20 Ultra.
| Samsung Galaxy S20 | Europe | US | UK |
| 4G 128GB storage | €899 | N/A | £799 |
| 5G 128GB | €999 | $999 | £899 |
| Samsung Galaxy S20+ | Europe | US | UK |
| 4G 128GB storage | €999 | N/A | N/A |
| 5G 128GB | €1,099 | $1,199 | £999 |
| 5G 512GB | €1,249 | $1,299 | N/A |
| Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra | Europe | US | UK |
| 5G 128GB | €1,349 | $1,399 | £1,199 |
| 5G 512GB | €1,549 | $1,599 | £1,399 |
