Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Review: All You Need To Know By Nick Ackerman

So, what is up guys Nick here, helping you to master your technology and welcome to my Galaxy S 20 ultra full review now I actually waited to get the March patch for this phone for the camera, because there was some autofocusing issues with the camera before I did the review, but we're going to discuss if this phone is really worth it's staggering price point of $13.99 now I emphasize staggering, because that's quite a bit compared to you, you know previous Samsung phones and even the s20 line and the S 20 plus line, so you're going to pay the premium to get the Galaxy has 20 ultra, and it does give you quite a lot of premium stuff, we'll discuss it here. We're going to begin with the key specs that matter with this phone. First, with the Galaxy S 20 ultra, you are getting yourself a six point. Nine inch, dynamic, AMOLED display. Now that's almost seven inches. If you think about how big a lot of tablets are, that's a big display right there.

So if you're looking for the most display you can get in the phone, the s20 Ultra is offering you that three 3200 by 1440 Fires is gonna. Give you also a very good resolution on the display, and this thing has a hundred and eight megapixel camera on the rear that allows you to zoom up to a 100 X. Now, yes, it's digital, but it can be useful for some memories, maybe not for posting on social media, but still useful for some memories. Now this does have 12 gigabytes of RAM. You can also get 16 gigs of ram with this phone, depending on if you go with the more storage version and 5,000 William hour battery okay.

So let's talk about the body of the galaxy s 20 ultra now. First, you can see that the display is relatively flat compared to past Samsung phones like the Samsung Galaxy S phone. So if you've been wanting a flat phone, you'll, definitely I like this, a little more if you're used to liking the Galaxy, S, 10 plus s9, plus those phones have a little more curved panels. This one slightly on the edges, but not bad. Now there is a camera bump on the rear of this phone.

That's massive, so you will be needing a case if you want that to go flush with the body or else it will definitely rock on a table. As you can see right, there definitely gonna rock on a table with this one now very tall six point. Nine inch display means that if you don't big hand, you're going to have trouble handling this one without two, so definitely a two-handed phone for most people or at least hold it in one hand and use your other hand to swipe through and do things that Samsung does have a one-handed mode, but that's still going to be a little of a juggle with this size of a device. It's just a big device. Now at 222 grams, this phone for its size doesn't feel that heavy, but it still got some weight to it.

So it's its not it's not a light phone. It's got some weight, and it's just for its size. I think it's a pretty good way: I pee sixty-eight dust and water resistance on both. So if you do splash on here, you should be fine with the s20 ultra. It's like it's yeah on the left side.

There's really nothing on this phone to speak of on the top. We do have the SIM card tray right here, as well as a microphone hole right there, and we also do have you know SD card storage slot in there as well now on the right side of this foam. I do like that. They brought the power button a little further down in Prior Samsung galaxies, that's good because at least he can still reach that power button right there. Now, it's not quite as large as what you'll see on something like an iPhone, but it's still right there.

Now you can see you do have volume rockers up here as well. Some people like this I kind of like this because I like that, it's both on the same side. Some people think it's a little annoying. You can't do a screenshot quite as easy. You have to kind of do this, whereas before you can just hold, you know the button over here and a button on this side, and then you'll be able to quickly take your screenshot, but you do have the swipe to screenshot on Samsung.

So that's pretty easy as well and again, we do have our speaker grille down there with a USB-C port, another microphone for talking, and there is and integrated you know audio up here in the top as well. Overall, this body is massive. Some could say it's beautiful, I think it's rather conservative and I. Don't think it's Samsung's like most flashy work, they've done, but I think for the person who just wants it: sleek, professional and clean. This is a perfect phone overall you're not really buying this phone for the design.

I think you're buying it for some other factors, we'll begin with one of them and that's the display this display at six point. Nine inches is not only large, but it can do a high refresh rate at 120 Hertz. Now this is not unique to the s20 ultra. It's also on the s20 plus and as twenty, so you don't have to pay this much to get this, but having it on this large of a display with 120 Hertz is such a joy to use? Now you cannot put it in you know HD just yet. Maybe Samsung will do an update where you can do HD and 120 Hertz, but it's not here right now, so you have to be in 1080 to do HD resolution.

However, I don't really find the need to have it in who that often I would rather trade to have the super smooth display, as it does really give this phone a feel like no other. This is the smoothest phone you can buy right now in terms of displayed hardware. It just is now I'm not seeing Samsung's software is the smoothest on the market, but because, if it's hardware, it's up there with the best only thing I think comes close to this. Are things like the Ralf phone? Those gaming phones with those super high hertz displays raise your phone like this as well and, of course, like previous Samsung phones, you still have the ability to go ahead and tweak that display a little more. So if we go over here to screen mode, you have vivid, if we go into vivid, you can change the white balance of this display, so lots of display functionality here for the Samsung phone.

Obviously watching videos is a joy on here. Yes, you do have a little punch hole up there, but it got even smaller. It's really not a nuisance. You can see bezels very thin, some of the thinnest you're gonna, get on the market and pinching ? zooming. If you pinch it back down, you do have no interruptions whatsoever.

This display also supports HDR, 10 plus so yeah and again, and having this ability to bring this video down and just kind of multitask while you're watching a video is pretty unique feature. That's awesome for this phone. Also, that's not the only thing if we go over here into settings, and we click always-on display this one hasn't always on display, like most Samsung phones, so you definitely have the ability to show your notifications. What I've been turn your phone on all the time, so you can turn out and tap the show you can put on show. Always you can schedule your always-on display if you're worried about battery overnight, you have different clock styles with this display, so I mean this thing.

Is the display King right now? Alright? So let's move on to the operating system. So, of course we do have the one UI 2.1 on here, and it did get an update just a couple of days ago before the camera, I'm on this patch right here, the g98? U 1u e? U 180, CH a really long number, but still this is the latest with the new focusing update for you, know the camera and that's when the ultra having those issues. I really wanted to wait for that before I did the full review. If we go into settings here, you're going to see, if we scroll down to. Let me see advanced features here, there's so much on this one.

You could do you could change a side key. You have different accessory features, I mean direct share, reduce animations motions and gestures. I mean this thing is loaded with features. I think Samsung is done a good job of reducing a lot of the junk they used to have on there, but there's still a lot with this phone and there's still a lot. You need to learn if you don't know how to use a Samsung Galaxy phone and there's a lot up here.

I, don't think it's the simplest phone on the market, but it's the phone for people want everything in their phone. You have the focus mode from Android 10. You have Dolby Atmos features. Furthermore, you have a kids' mode. Furthermore, you have a secret folder on here.

Furthermore, you can use secure folder, you have NFC on board. Furthermore, you have link to Windows, you just link it to your Windows computer. Furthermore, you could start text messaging people with your phone screen right on your laptop reverse wireless sharing. Decks mode is available for this, as well with just a simple cord right into a monitor the ability to do things like pop view on this phone. So if I just go over here, I've talked about this multiple times and Samsung videos before it's a key separator between this and a lot of other phones on the market is that it can just do these multitasking things, so you can see right here having two apps at one time now it seems like it's a little cramped.

Sometimes what I have to do is lower the DPI scaling, and you'll have more space. You also have the ability to go ahead and put this thing into landscape mode. Use it like a little tablet. If there's a feature you could think of for the Samsung Galaxy s, 20 ultra. It's probably here on board, there's not a lot that this phone doesn't offer, and one thing I really like is that say you want to put some apps on the home screen.

It's really simple. All you have to do is grab one: let's go and select items. This is kind of for all the Samsung phones, but you can just grab a bunch and just say: let's go ahead and create folder, we can create a folder inside the folder, but also, if I take these right here. Let me select them one more time select items you can go ahead and grab these like so bring it out of the folder, let's bring it out of the folder and let's bring it home boom. All your apps in one place.

It's that simple I mean stuff like this. Just makes this a customizing beast over here, and not only that if I take these out of here, let's go to themes really quickly. You have the entire galaxy theme store. We have wallpapers everywhere icons ever where we have teams everywhere. I mean this phone is unique to you.

If you want to take the time to customize it so like. Why are you using those Dwyer using those navigation keys? That's because I wanted to wait to show you the gestures onboard here, so you have full screen gestures. In addition to that, you can use the Android ones from like the Google Pixel, or you can use Samsung's gestures either one you want. I prefer the Google version you can go hold up like that, or you can use this and then, when you go into an application like whether, for example, you can just go back like that or you can go from the side to get to your multitasking. So lots of customization lots of different ways to use this phone.

It can be overwhelming, sometimes, but I think for the person who's going to buy this phone. It's not going to be and remember that stuff is there for you. You don't have to use it. You can just use this phone, however, you want, and if we go on the home screen settings over here, you can see that we have the ability to swipe down for a notification panel, so you can just swipe down your notification panel if it's too big and if we go home screen settings once again, you can make this more like an iPhone. If you don't want, have an app drawer.

So it's really up to you. This is the total customized phone. Just do what you want. The only thing is: isn't it's not really? The only thing is: is you're still going to have the one UI UX on here, so you might not like that. It's really up to you.

I've to say, though, overall from the software standpoint, this is like giving you almost every feature. You could think of. Ok guys. So here we are with the performance. How does this thing perform in the day-to-day and, as you can see just in this quick example, everything is fast like there's, there's zero lag, it's also not only fast.

It's extremely smooth, and it's already been beaten on some other phones that are on the market right now, so yeah. You would expect for 1,400 to get a Top, Dawg performer and guess what you're getting a Top Dawg performer. So don't even think twice when you're, like you know what Nick I'm looking for the fastest phone for money right now. This is it. This is gonna, be it no really different from the know, the s 20s 20 plus, but still it's still the fastest phone.

You can get 16 gigs of ram available on this beast. Snapdragon 865, yes, now OnePlus with their lighter software, I do think is going to make this phone is gonna. Look a little faster, I think because there animations are usually quicker, we'll see what happens, but right now, Samsung Galaxy has 20 altars sitting on the top of the hill, a quick warning before we go any further. If you don't want your eardrums to explode out of your head, you might want to turn your volume down right now, because we're gonna check out the audio here now you can cover at the bottom you're, not gonna, stop it because it's a dual system so very loud performance, especially on the ringers. Let me go ahead and show you the ringers, okay, so yeah, this phone is loud.

Let's just put it that way, it's probably the loudest phone I've heard in a while. So if you're looking for an extremely loudspeaker phone, this one's it, this one's gonna blast at nighttime, if you're trying to play a video or something bring em back to you, please turn that down and not only that you do have the ability to take this thing over into Dolby Atmos and raise it more to whatever like. You have movie music voice. You pick it's really up to you. Now, let's move on to battery a 5,000 William power battery when I first got this phone, the first few days I was like.

Why is this thing draining so quickly and then I realized that it's just kind of working itself in this optimizing kind of learning, how you use the phone- and this thing has been crazy good ever since then, this thing can give me a day and a half easy, and I'm talking heavy use, don't use it heavy. It can get you two days. So this phone is a beast and battery life. You don't have to worry. What's up I'm, getting like seven or eight hours screen time, maybe even more.

It's insane the battery life on this phone now, what's not insane as a standby time, it still does creep down. That's typical Samsung creep in the standby. It's annoying. You can go to bed what a hundred percent wake up with ninety-seven, ninety-six or like what the heck I didn't even touch the phone. Yes, that will happen on this phone, but in terms of actual usage using a day-to-day you're, not going to get out of work and be like I have no battery life, you're going to be just fine and because it uses USB see this thing.

Charges like a monster like it's super, quick, so battery rest assured it's gonna, be fine. You're going to be actually quite happy with this. Just don't be afraid when you first get it the first couple of days. It's not the greatest. It does learn how you use it, and it gets way better.

And yes, if you are using this thing in that whole, you know 120 Hertz mode, it does trade off, maybe like an hour or so battery life. I have noticed that, but I'm willing to make that trade-off because 120 Hertz is just butter like it is smooth as butter and like I, don't want to go back to the 60 Hertz, so I'm leaving it there I'll sacrifice the battery life. Okay. So talking about this camera, this thing is loaded. I mean there is a novel on how much not there's not, but there I'm joking there's a huge amount of specs on here.

It's like reading a novel here, 108 megapixel camera. We have F 1.8 on that camera, also a periscope 48, megapixel, 103, millimeter telephoto. In addition to that, a 12 megapixel ultra-wide and a 0.3 TOF sensor like wow. This is just wow, but that should explain it all. There's a lot going on here on the front.

We do have a pretty simple 40, megapixel camera. They can do 4k 60 on the front. So, yes, we are talking great specifications. Also, a k, video recording. Now the issue with this at first was that it couldn't really lock in the focus, but they kind of fixed it with that update.

So you can kind of see as I'm bringing the s10 Ian it can lock in the focus now I still notice that if you switch to video mode sometimes the focus is a little off and honestly Samsung. Switching to this whole phase, detection autofocus and just putting it on a flagship phone right now when it's like their first attempt in a while they've, been doing dual pixel autofocus, it's working I think was a mistake. I would have much preferred to have the dual pixel AF on this camera, but at the same time it does when you get dual lock it in you, get incredible results on this phone now, also, not only that, if you do go over here to the bottom, you can see there are features everywhere. You got that ultra-wide. You got that telephoto, you can go up to 100 X zoom I mean this thing is packing the heat when it comes to the photography on here, Pro modes of panoramic modes, and the results to me on here turn out fantastic.

If you get it in focus over here food, a live, focused, Pro, video super slo-mo, slow-motion hyperlapse. They got the stuff here and up here you do have your typical Samsung features onboard. If we go in the settings a lot to talk about here as well, I mean you could change, you can change out things like the rear video size up to 8k video 4k at 60. Here's my overall results, though, from this phone I'm gonna, show you a couple samples in a minute, but my overall opinion on the results are that you get good background blur with a hundred and eight megapixel and able. It just gives you and with the F 1.8, it's a good background blur without even needing live focus. Second thing: I notice about this phone is that you kind of gotta tap it a few times to get things to lock down now.

Samsung's going to be improving, but the results that come out of here are extremely sharp. However, I don't think they're great. This is not a great consumer camera compared to like the s 20 Rs 20, plus, because it just takes a little more work and I think that if you're willing to put that work in and do the pro mode and do the pro video, this is a phone. That's going to be better on a tripod for professionals, but even then, why would you want to your know, mess around with all of that? It's just not the snappiest to lock things in focus, go ahead and take a look at some of my photos, and let me know your thoughts on this camera and on the selfie. Camera Samsung also decided to go with a non-dual pixel camera.

So you know it's just not going to be as quick to focus. It's still phase detection autofocus here on the front. I find this one to not have really major focus issues, but when you bring things in to the frame it kind of struggles to get stuff. So if you want to do those shots, where you're like trying to show something really close, it kind of struggles to get that thing locked in sometimes so. Overall, the selfie camera still very good.

You can back out 40 megapixels, very good resolution. It can do you know 4k at 60 on the front, but I still think the one on the s20, the smaller version, even on the front, is better than the one on the s20 Ultra, alright discussing phone call, quality and connections now 5g on board yeah. That's going to be really separating this phone from other devices, but the phone call quality itself has been pretty phenomenal good reception across the board. Good overall, you know speaker performance when you do have a speakerphone on due to the loud audio and very good overall earpiece performance as well. Everyone can hear me clearly on this phone.

This is a great phone for this aspect. I've actually loved this phone for this and yes, the 5g speeds on here actually like twice as fast as LTE, even with the T-Mobile that I tested it on I, can only imagine when you get on like the Verizon network, and you get that four hundred megabytes per second, that's insane, so yeah connections phone calls thumbs up here. So let me just talk about a couple pros and cons. I didn't discuss this phone. The ability to just put a USB in their go DEX to your laptop DEX to a monitor.

That is an amazing feature for this phone. One of the cons of this phone I. Think for $1400 and, having you know, 128 gigabytes of storage for 1400 I think is a terrible value. Samsung 256 gigs minimum at 1400 like are you serious I know we have to buy and SD card separator. We can make a lot more, but $1400 for 128 gigs I'm not buying it.

It's not acceptable. We need to get more at that price point. So that leads me to my conclusion of this phone. This phone I think is a pass for a lot of consumers like everyday people are not going to need all the specs of this phone offers. I.

Think if you're, you know super in the specs you're going to love this phone I. Think, if you're into results, you know you're doing in this camera because of the spec sheet is gonna, be amazing, I think you're going to be a little disappointed by how it doesn't just snap a picture and always locks in the focus all the time, even with the update. It's still not as good as the s20 in terms of the know, autofocus again. This is an earlier review. This could improve on future updates with Samsung and I actually expect them to improve it, but as of now, it's unanimously across the internet, most people are agreeing that this one is not the best pic.

If you just want a simple to every day, you use consumer camera on a phone, so for me, I think, unless you're just really into the big beast phones with all the specs, this one's a pass. For me, however, however, if your geeky like me- and you really just love having the best specs on a phone and the latest and greatest thing, you'll be able to overlook some of those little, you know, annoyances with the camera focus stuff, you'll be fine. You'll love the battery life. You'll love this big, crazy, 120, Hertz monster display. That's super smooth.

You love watching movies and media you'll love this phone I think for $1400. This one has got all the stuff you would expect, but as much as I keep repeating myself to camera, if the camera had produced better results right out the box, you know with the focusing stuff- and you know it's almost unusable- sometimes in video, this phone would have been perfect. So let me know your thoughts on the galaxy s.20 ultra, that's my final review on this. For now, I will update this review of Samsung does improve on these things. I was talking about in this video I'm, not gonna, just sit here and say.

This is a final review forever. We'll talk about this phone down the line, but this is it for now on ES 20 ultra. Let me know your thoughts on it. Are you picking one up? Did you already? Did you return it? What is your story? Do you not care, as it's way out of your league you're like I, don't buy them things up by $400? Phones I just like watching these videos, though thumbs up I'll catch you all in the next episode and Nick care up in you to mess to your technology, stay safe out there and peace.

Source : Nick Ackerman