Samsung Galaxy S20 – Review: This is it

While the Samsung Galaxy S20+ offers more of an incremental upgrade over its predecessors (review coming soon), the only question that remains is: what about the S20? Now, coming from someone who uses the Galaxy S10e for the longest and loving the phone so much for being the best smallest flagship smartphone to exist, if you still want a smaller form factor phone – the Galaxy S20 is still something to consider, thanks to Samsung Malaysia for gracing us with the smartphone to review, let us talk more about it.

Look and Feel

1/8

If you were to compare the phone’s design over its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S20 has a lot of new design cues going on. On the back, the camera has been moved to the side instead of their signature middle position. Other than that, it comes in these chic looking colors – there’s a Blue and Pink S20 and in our case, we got the Grey S20+. Other than that, the phone does have pretty much the same feel as the S10 but there are two noticeable changes – the front facing camera is now in the middle and the display is no longer curved as it was like the S10 or even the Note10 Series. The phone feels quite alright in the hands but surprisingly light. One thing to take note is that – the phone is covered in all-glass and this is one slippery phone I’ve ever used in my life – like it even slips off my Qi Wireless Charger with a rubberized top. I’d suggest, pick up a case to make sure it doesn’t slip out of your hands.

Display

#The Samsung Galaxy S20 rocks a 6.2” QHD+ Display on a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel respectively. The display now has the front facing camera positioned on the top middle portion as compared to the off-centered position in its predecessor. The display is no longer curved as its predecessor, but it has a slight curve that still gives it an illusion. That said, Samsung’s display has never been a disappointment because their AMOLED Display produces real nice colors and viewing angle, real black to give a much immersive depth to it. That said, the only new addition to the existing display is the 120Hz High Refresh Rate which users have been so desperate about.

The phone comes with 60Hz at default and you can use it in FHD+ or QHD+ but the moment you toggle the 120Hz High Refresh Rate, the phone switches to FHD+. If you ask me, this is fine. Despite the smooth experience, the other department that’s going to take a huge hit is the battery. When the phone already eats up half the battery due to 120Hz at FHD+, imagine how power hungry the phone is going to be on QHD+. But getting back to the whole 120Hz experience, it’s great and there’s nothing much to say because we have seen other brands execute it first and were amazed then – I am just glad that it’s here and if you ask me, 90Hz display is plenty enough for what I do.

The fingerprint sensor is not only at the same spot – in-display; but it has no improvement and honestly, feels a little too slow for today’s standard.

Specification and Performance

As a flagship device, the specification is great – rocking the following under the hood:

• Samsung Exynos 990 Processor (Octa-core)
• 8GB RAM | 128GB Internal Storage (can be expandable)

Geekbench V

AIDA 64

Antutu Benchmark

With the following specification, you can only expect the phone to perform good. That said, the phone does perform well. Throw any applications at it and it handles like a champ. During our time using it, we hardly came across any issues such as lag or glitch in their very own custom UI. The phone does get a little toasty while playing some games or even running the display at 120Hz and if you use the phone consistently, it feels warm to the touch. We benchmarked the device with: AIDA64, Antutu and Geekbench 5 for the score and that said, these scores don’t necessarily translate to real time use case scenarios but it’s more of a test to see how capable a phone is. The phone runs the new One UI 2.1 and its clean, offers pretty good experience overall. Other than that, you do get some extra features to kick things up a notch.

Camera

The phone got a bit of upgrade in the camera department – it still rocks a Triple Camera setup:

• Ultrawide 12MP Sensor
• WideAngle Primary 12MP Sensor
• Telephoto 64MP Sensor

Looking at that setup, you noticed that Samsung went for a higher megapixel count for their telephoto lens. There’s a reason why they did that – so, one of the feature the brand is boasting about: it’s the Space Zoom where it has an Hybrid Optic Zoom 3x and has a Super Resolution Zoom up to 30x. Truth be told, the camera is great at the normal Telephoto range and anything beyond that, honestly – its more of a party trick than a functional camera because the pictures lacks a lot of details and the camera software sharpens the image to make it as clear as possible. You can take a look at the images below.

0.5x

1.0x

2.0x

4.0x

10x

20x

30x

The primary Wideangle 12MP and Ultrawide 12MP sensors work just fine and the colors are great. They have improved the low light performance and one feature that caught me off guard is their Night Vision where it takes picture in the dark and depending on how dark it is, it uses the long exposure technique to get an impressive image. We couldn’t take enough pictures with the phone because right after we were done with the S20+ and jumped over to the S20, the Restricted Movement Order kicked in – so, when this is all over, we will provide with more samples.

1/3

The front facing camera is a 10MP AF Shooter that takes alright selfie. Just one thing to note, make sure to turn of that beautify mode if you are not a fan of fake smooth skin.

Battery and Charging

Another big upgrade on the S20 is the battery life – coming in at 4000mAh for the smallest S Series smartphone. Its finally upon us where we can get a small flagship device with a huge battery to get through the day. That said, the battery life on the Galaxy S20 is quite alright – with a screen on time of 10 Hours with at least 35 percent battery to come back to is fine. If you are planning to use the phone on 120Hz all the time, expect it to eat up the battery much faster – like 3-4 hours less SoT than the average. The phone comes with a 25W Adapter for charging and does have support for a 45W Charger – which is sold separately, but with the included charger the phone hits 10% to 100% in about – give or take 1 hour 10 minutes approx.

Conclusion

If you are one of the consumer who wants a practical option when it comes to the big three flagship device from Samsung, I’d say go for the Galaxy S20 because – not only the phone is small and nice to use, the battery is as big as the S10+, has a great camera, good display to go along with. Its quite the all-rounder. The Samsung Galaxy S20 is perfected to its core in offering the best experience in every possible way but they have reached the limit in pushing their S Series boundary and this is it – I mean that in a good way. We will talk about that in another article/video.

We here at The Adventures of Vesper recommend and award the Samsung Galaxy S20, Gold for being an all-rounder flagship smartphone.