Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra revisited - The good and the bad, six months later - Android - Canadian apps and news

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra revisited - The good and the bad, six months later - Android

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We had never seen anything like the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra at launch. Six months later, does it hold up?

Credit: David Imel / Android Authority

For years now we’ve seen Samsung launch two versions of its Galaxy S flagships — a regular model and a Plus model. That changed in 2020 when Samsung one-upped the Plus model with the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Theoretically, this was the best of the best — the king of all phones.

The very launch of such a phone was a gutsy move. How would consumers take to spending a ton of cash on a phone with few compromises? Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic squashed Samsung’s hopes for big sales. Now that the dust has settled, the question remains: is the Galaxy S20 Ultra worth its price?

Our original review: Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra review: Too much of a good thing

In this Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra review revisited, I’m going to discuss what’s held up about the phone over the past six months. I’m also going to point out some of the things that I haven’t enjoyed about the phone over this time. I’ve been using the Galaxy S20 Ultra on and off since it launched, so I have a pretty good grasp on its pros and cons.

Ultimately, I intend to answer the big question: should you buy a Galaxy S20 Ultra today?

The good stuff

In a word, the Galaxy S20 Ultra is awesome. It’s not without its flaws — which I’ll get to in a bit — but the phone is still pretty incredible if only for the audacity of its existence. Here’s what’s held up well over the past six months.

General specs

Overall, the Galaxy S20 Ultra still sits near the top of the totem pole when it comes to raw specs. Sure, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus has come along, which is technically better than the non-Plus version in the Galaxy S20 Ultra. There are also 2020 phones with bigger batteries and higher refresh rate displays. As a full package, the past six months haven’t significantly dented the Galaxy S20’s reputation as a specs beast.

In my time using the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, I haven’t once felt that it wasn’t powerful enough. It’s handled everything I’ve thrown at it, even faring incredibly well with my emulator tests. If nothing else, Samsung has earned the “Ultra” moniker when it comes to specs, and it will likely stay that way for quite a while.

Battery life

Our objective battery tests here at Android Authority placed the Galaxy S20 Ultra within the top ten of every device we’ve tested in our mid-year Best of Android comparison. It lands in the top ten in three metrics: overall battery life, battery life mixed testing (Wi-Fi, video playback, etc.), and wired charging speed (mAh/min). Keep in mind that it doesn’t hit the top slot in any particular category but landing in the top ten of all three is terrific.

The battery life on the Galaxy S20 Ultra is good enough that I don't even worry about it.

Subjectively, I never worry about battery life on the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Anytime I take it out of my bag to do something it’s always ready to go. I don’t really think about charging it. Every now and then I’ll notice the battery is low and throw it on a charger, but this happens very infrequently since I’m not using it as my daily device. Basically, the battery life on the Galaxy S20 Ultra is so good that I literally don’t even think about it.

Display

As with battery life, the Galaxy S20 Ultra sits comfortably in the top ten of all our display testing categories. It doesn’t have the overall best display of the year so far — that honor goes to the OnePlus 8 Pro — but it’s still pretty incredible.

The display also has a 120Hz refresh rate. This makes everything you do on the phone look as smooth as silk, albeit only at Full HD resolution and not the full Quad HD the device is capable of. Since the launch of the Galaxy S20 Ultra, I’ve also been using the Asus ROG Phone 3, which has the option for a 144Hz refresh rate. Honestly, I can’t tell the difference between those two, so I’d ignore the number disparity. However, I absolutely can notice a difference between a 120Hz display refresh rate and a 60Hz refresh rate, and the Galaxy S20 Ultra slays in this regard.

Software

Samsung’s Android skin known as One UI is one of the best available. Samsung takes the “kitchen sink” approach by including an option for nearly everything you could ever want to do. This might be overwhelming and chaotic for some — I certainly think so — but you can’t dispute the power and control it gives you.

Related: Samsung One UI 2.5: Features, availability, and everything you need to know

Since the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, Samsung has delivered a major update to the Android skin known as One UI 2.5. This brought the Galaxy S20 Ultra some of the best features of the just-launched Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Samsung has also committed to delivering three years of Android upgrades, which means we should expect Android 11, Android 12, and possibly even Android 13 to land on the S20 Ultra.

Simply put, the software experience on this phone has few rivals. Yes, One UI is a bit bloated for my personal taste, but I am more than satisfied with its smoothness, features, and dependability.

The not-so-good stuff

Many would argue that for the price of the Galaxy S20 Ultra there should be zero flaws. However, in the real world, nothing is perfect, and even something as mighty as this phone comes up short. Here’s where I feel the Ultra model needs work for the inevitable Galaxy S30 series.

Camera

For my day-to-day usage, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra camera is terrific. It’s fast, accurate, and I’m generally pleased with every photo and video I capture.

However, this phone is hella expensive and the camera is probably its biggest selling point. That should mean that the camera should be perfect — and it’s not.

Related: Galaxy Note 20 Ultra camera vs Galaxy S20 Ultra camera: Sibling rivalry

The biggest complaints about the camera revolve around focus and zoom. To be blunt, focus on this phone is bad. Period. If you’re very close to the subject of the photo you’re going to have a hard time getting it to focus. Even when you’re at an ideal distance you will inevitably face problems. For a phone that costs this much, I shouldn’t have these issues.

Similarly, the 100x zoom here — branded as Space Zoom — is all but useless. Once you get past a certain threshold the clarity of your photo looks awful, making the entire system pointless. The fact that Samsung left Space Zoom out of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra should be all the proof you need that it wasn’t up to snuff.

Samsung spent so much time figuring out if it could that it didn't stop to think if it should.

Finally, the ability to record video in 8K is also overkill. For starters, 8K video takes up massive amounts of storage space, which is a problem. You don’t really notice the difference in quality because the phone’s display isn’t 8K and the other screens in your life likely aren’t either. This might be more useful years from now, but today, it’s nothing interesting.

Regardless, I want to reiterate that the camera experience here is overall great. It’s just not perfect, and that’s not good enough when you consider the Google Pixel 4a delivers incredible footage at a literal fraction of the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s price.