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00:00Hey what's up guys, MKBHD here and this is the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and it is Samsung's
00:12attack of the numbers.
00:27So this is it, this huge phone here, this is Samsung's highest and most expensive flagship
00:32phone ever.
00:34And there's a lot of words Samsung could have chosen to use here.
00:36They could have gone plus or max, they could have gone pro.
00:42But they went ultra, ultra, ultra, extremist, radical, yeah I think that's actually pretty
00:50accurate.
00:51So if the question is how can you possibly justify a new phone that expensive, Samsung's
00:55answer is by throwing all the hardware at you, all the specs, every single big number
01:01they can possibly think of, they're going into this phone.
01:03It looks on paper like a great idea.
01:06How could a phone with Snapdragon 865, 16 gigs of RAM, 512 gigs of UFS 3.0, 108 megapixels,
01:16100x zoom, 8K, 5000 mAh, 120Hz, 1440p, 5G, how could this phone be anything other than
01:28the best?
01:29Well I'll tell you.
01:30But let's start with the design though, just because I think it's actually the least ultra
01:34thing about this phone and it's pretty simple actually.
01:37It's a massive phone, glass sandwich with a gigantic, recognizable, double camera bump,
01:43expandable storage at the top, speaker at the bottom, RIP headphone jack.
01:48You know on one hand it kind of blends in with the smartphones of today, especially
01:51in Samsung's lineup, but on the other hand there's no mistaking it.
01:55Actually remember when smartphone displays were getting bigger and bigger and then they
01:58first crossed over 5 inches like average and then they sort of evened out at 5.3 inch and
02:04people thought it was kind of getting crazy.
02:06And then Samsung, because who else, came out with the Galaxy Mega.
02:13That's really a phone they came out with and named that had a 6.3 inch display.
02:17It was just hilarious, like no one else would try that, but this phone was the size of
02:20a tablet with the form factor of a phone.
02:24It really was the mega phone.
02:26Yet here we are now today with Galaxy S20 Ultra, bigger than any Galaxy Mega or any
02:30Galaxy Note even has ever been with a 6.9 inch display.
02:35It's huge.
02:36For me it still fits in my pocket and it's usable for me, but it might not be for everyone.
02:40Clearly giant phones aren't for everyone.
02:42I gotta say though, for an ultra phone, the color options of glossy black, glossy gray
02:48are a bit underwhelming.
02:50Of course channel sponsor dbrand will gladly step up and customize the look on the back
02:54and you can get as wild as this robot camo skin, but don't let that be a cop out Samsung.
02:59I'm hoping for a little more variety next time.
03:02Till then, I'll link that skin below.
03:04One thing you do get from a huge phone though is a huge display, so just to give you the
03:06numbers 6.9 inch diagonal, 120 hertz, 1440p.
03:11Stop me if you've heard this before, but Samsung has once again made the best display
03:16in any smartphone.
03:17Best brightness, colors, contrast, best viewing angles of any smartphone display I've ever
03:23seen.
03:24I feel like I'm starting to sound like DisplayMate.
03:25It's the highest A plus I've ever given.
03:28Just you'll know when you see it and it's not just the high end spec and big numbers.
03:32They've also flattened out the edges of the display so it doesn't spill over the sides
03:36anymore and I appreciate that from a usability perspective and I hope they keep that trend
03:41up throughout the rest of their lineup.
03:43Love that.
03:44And if I have any gripes really, it's that the ultrasonic fingerprint reader underneath
03:47the screen is basically the same as last year.
03:50There's no real substantial improvements and that's fine.
03:52It's still a decently fast and responsive one.
03:56Once you learn where it is with muscle memory, it's kind of quick.
03:58But I was hoping these would get bigger and faster from generation to generation and that
04:02hasn't happened yet.
04:03Now it is worth noting you don't get all the big numbers straight out the box.
04:07This phone is actually 1080p, 60hz out the box, pretty basic.
04:13And you can either notch it up to 120hz or 1440p.
04:18But not both at the same time.
04:20Personally, I'm picking 120hz every single time.
04:23I was waiting for or asking for the high refresh rate from Samsung and we finally got it and
04:28it's great.
04:29The difference between 60hz and 120hz, in like 90% of what you're doing on your phone
04:35which is scrolling, it's fantastic.
04:38And then the display also has a 240hz touch sense refresh so no matter what resolution
04:43you're in, it keeps it feeling snappy and responsive as expected which is just what
04:47we've seen in these gaming phones that came before it.
04:50Now do I wish they would let us use this phone at 120hz and 1440p full resolution at the
04:55same time?
04:56Yeah, I wish they would allow it.
04:59Right now that's disabled.
05:00I originally thought it might be a Snapdragon 865 limitation but it turns out it's not.
05:04They just don't enable it because they probably think it would crush battery.
05:07But I say, if you're paying $1400 for this phone and you know what you're getting yourself
05:12into, you can still put it at 60hz, 1080p, out the box, but let us enable it if we really
05:18want to.
05:19Maybe they can enable that with a software update and just put a little disclaimer, hey,
05:23you turn these both on, it'll crush your battery but you paid for the phone so you get to turn
05:27it on.
05:28Alright, so let's talk about that battery.
05:295000mAh on the S20 Ultra and this is one of those specs that usually translates pretty
05:34well from paper to real life.
05:37The bigger the battery, the better and this one's getting two big thumbs up from me.
05:40We know 5000mAh is huge but I was just a tiny bit worried about how well it would do powering
05:45a giant, bright, 6.9 inch, 120hz display.
05:50Turns out, it's perfectly fine.
05:51I've been getting consistently 6 plus hours of screen on time at the end of every day,
05:56with battery to spare, heavy stuff, gaming, a lot of navigation while driving and I've
06:01never killed it in a single day so I don't even worry about it anymore.
06:04To be honest, I was thinking that I was going to have to take a few extra days of testing
06:08to flip it down to 60hz and see how much battery that saves me but yeah, I don't have to.
06:14This is an all day phone at 120hz which is dope.
06:16But alright, let's just face it, the big numbers that you guys are probably most curious about
06:20and how well they translate is around the back of this phone and that's the cameras.
06:24So that's that 108 megapixels, that's 8K video and that's even printed on the back of this
06:30phone, the 100x space zoom.
06:33But as we've hopefully learned by now, numbers on the spec sheet for cameras don't always
06:38translate super well to real world performance.
06:40I've seen about a million 64 megapixel cameras that are worse than the 12 megapixel cameras
06:46in the Pixel and the iPhone.
06:47So for me, seeing how hard Samsung was leaning into this camera upgrade for the S20 Ultra,
06:52my real question at the beginning of this was, hey, can Samsung actually make the best
06:57camera in any smartphone?
07:02I have a lot of thoughts about this camera.
07:04So right off the bat, I'm going to say this is better in some ways than their previous
07:08cameras, but worse in other ways actually.
07:11So it still falls solidly in third place for me.
07:13I still prefer photos from the Pixel and the iPhone more often than images coming from
07:18Samsung, but that doesn't mean the numbers mean nothing.
07:21By default, this main camera is doing binning that kicks out a 12 megapixel photo.
07:27And it is the sharpest, most detailed 12 megapixel photo out there, which I love.
07:32That's one of the things that's my favorite about it.
07:34And these are classic Samsung, bright and colorful, usually bringing up shadows and
07:39smoothing out faces, the whole thing.
07:41That hasn't changed.
07:42There's also the ultra wide camera, which is the softest of the three cameras, but I'm
07:46still glad it's there.
07:47It's giving us that first person, the fun perspective, and it even has Samsung's much
07:51improved night mode in ultra wide, which some others just straight up don't do.
07:56And then there is, of course, the full 108 megapixel mode that can be toggled on.
08:00And yes, that did produce a bit more detail, which is useful, especially if you're planning
08:05on zooming in and cropping after you take that big photo.
08:09But for the difference in file size and the inconvenience of always having to turn it
08:13on, I ended up not really feeling like I needed it most of the time.
08:17I was happy with the 12 megapixel shots.
08:19But if you pay a little bit more attention to that main camera, especially with close
08:22up subjects, there's a little bit more to notice there.
08:25So keep this in mind.
08:27The main 108 megapixel camera is massive, like it's physically much larger than most
08:33other smartphone camera sensors.
08:35And for the most part, it's a general rule, the larger the sensor, the better.
08:38You're letting in more light, you get bigger pixels.
08:41It's just a typical good thing to have a larger sensor and that's fine.
08:46But for those of us familiar with large sensor photography and video, larger sensors have
08:51a look.
08:52Like that's when you start to get this naturally blurry foreground and background and this
08:56shallow depth of field.
08:58In this case, the sensor on this phone is so big and that dual aperture feature that
09:02they've shipped in a couple of previous Samsung flagships is now gone.
09:06So it is wide open at F1.8 all the time.
09:10These things combine to make a razor thin plane of focus.
09:14And so things that aren't in that plane of focus by even a couple of inches are out.
09:20So when I took photos of closer up subjects, which I do, I guess more than normal, but
09:24enough to notice this, you would not only see that the background was naturally blurred
09:29without portrait mode, but really only part of the subject is actually in focus.
09:34And you can see the rest is falling out of focus, but in this smeared fringe, bad looking
09:40bokeh.
09:41Normally, this isn't such a weird thing because with a big high quality sensor and glass,
09:46that's just the background falling naturally out of focus.
09:49But on these tiny smartphone optics, the bokeh just isn't quite as beautiful and you really
09:55do start to notice the fringing and unnatural looking blurred background now.
09:59And I also think that this may have contributed to the autofocus issues you may have heard
10:03about on the S20 Ultra.
10:05Autofocus on this phone for me has been unusually jumpy and kind of unpredictable and actually
10:10missed focus a few times, especially with close focus and close subjects.
10:15And I just haven't had a flagship phone have issues like that in a long time and I was
10:19trying to figure out why.
10:20I think the razor thin plane of focus from not having dual aperture mode and probably
10:26some not perfectly optimized software has made autofocus on the S20 Ultra feel kind
10:31of buggy.
10:32Now, Samsung has already promised some software updates that should fix these issues and I
10:36believe they can probably mitigate a lot of these autofocus issues with software.
10:41But at the end of the day, you can't beat the physics of having a larger sensor and
10:47not so great optics.
10:48So I think that fringing and that very sharp fall off of the razor thin depth of field
10:54will continue.
10:55Okay, Galaxy S20 Ultra will also shoot 8K video.
10:59That's a new feature these Snapdragon 865 phones are getting and that should be right
11:04up my alley.
11:05Of course, I go to test it and I am very impressed with the images you can get off
11:09a smartphone sensor, the stills you can take from the video at 33 megapixels.
11:14There's some test clips out there.
11:15I've shot some of my own just for kicks and it's fun, but it's not just simply a higher
11:20resolution version of the already pretty good 4K video.
11:25There's like a laundry list of trade-offs here.
11:27Number one, 8K is locked at 24 frames per second max.
11:33You can't go above that and since we all know 30 FPS is the correct frame rate, that's
11:37just a limitation of the Snapdragon 865.
11:40It just can't quite crank out 30 FPS.
11:42Number two, it punches in a lot.
11:45So at 4K in normal video mode, it could shoot pretty wide without binning for 8K, but they
11:50use an 8K window in the middle of the sensor.
11:53So when you switch to 8K mode, you see it punch in a ton which really limits where you
11:58can frame with it.
11:59Number three, focus tracking turns off with 8K video.
12:02Again, this is a limitation of the processing you get with the Snapdragon 865, but it was
12:07already pretty bad without dual pixel autofocus to begin with.
12:10So now it's, let's be real, really, really bad.
12:14For me, it's if you don't have a clear or far enough away subject, it's going to be
12:18hunting all the time and that's really distracting and just doesn't look good on video.
12:22Then number four, because of how much data is being processed, the amount of time it
12:26takes to process from the top line to the bottom on that chip, it takes a little bit
12:31of time and that creates rolling shutter.
12:33And to me, it's super obvious and any footage where you're moving or turning at all just
12:38turns into jelly.
12:40I've never seen rolling shutter this bad in smartphone video in my life.
12:45And then five, the file sizes.
12:47It's 8K video.
12:49It's going to be huge.
12:50It's about 10 megabytes per second.
12:52So if you take a 60 second video, you're looking at about 600 megabytes, which is kind of a
12:58pain to upload.
12:59So all that combined.
13:01So 8K video on this phone, it's great.
13:03It's really cool for like sitting still and maybe capturing some slow moving or not so
13:09much turning subjects in high resolution.
13:11And if you look around, that's what most people are shooting their test clips of.
13:14But other than that, as soon as you start to move around or have to chase focus at all,
13:20I'll pass.
13:21I think I'll have another year or two of measly 4K video on my smartphone and be fine.
13:26I didn't think I'd be the one saying that, but that's the truth.
13:29Oh, and you almost let me forget to mention the zoom, the thing that's printed on the
13:33back of the phone.
13:34The 100 X space zoom comes from the 48 megapixel periscope camera sitting in the side of this
13:41phone.
13:42Okay.
13:43Just because you have 100 X zoom doesn't mean you should use 100 X zoom all the time.
13:49So my typical smartphone photo taking behavior is I almost never zoom.
13:54I zoom with my feet or I just switch to the ultra wide.
13:58But the S20 Ultra having this periscope zoom has made it easier than ever to just like
14:02punch in on subjects further away and take crisp photos.
14:06That's definitely true.
14:07This phone takes the sharpest images at 30 X zoom I've ever seen from a phone next to
14:11Huawei.
14:12Really impressive stuff.
14:13Everybody really wants to focus on the 100 X like when you zoom all the way in and it's
14:18a cool demo.
14:21But photos clearly don't look good at 100 X.
14:24You're not supposed to zoom all the way into 100 every time.
14:27Honestly, you have better luck just taking a 30 X zoom photo and cropping in later.
14:32No, seriously, just zoom in later.
14:35It's basically the same thing.
14:36But then there's of course just people trashing the 100 X zoom because, hey, you don't need
14:39100 X.
14:40It looks bad.
14:41Why'd they even put this in the phone?
14:43But here's the thing.
14:44If you're trashing the 100 X zoom because it looks bad at 100 X and you don't think people
14:50need it, but ignoring the 30 X, that's like trashing a new speaker that comes out that
14:57goes up to 100 decibels because it sounds bad at 100 decibels and no one needs it that
15:02loud.
15:04But you're forgetting that speaker will sound better at 50 decibels because it's in the
15:08middle of its range than the others that are maxing out at 50.
15:12So there you go.
15:13We can appreciate the good tech when it's there.
15:15I didn't mean to turn this whole video into a camera review, but hey, it's one of the
15:18most important parts of the phone.
15:20So the more you know, the better.
15:22So as far as numbers go, the 108 megapixel number, it's there, but it's not quite there,
15:29but it helps.
15:30The 100 X number, it's not really there all the time, even though it is, I guess, printed
15:36there all the time.
15:37And the 8K number, I actually recommend against using it.
15:41So despite all this hype, Samsung, I think, is kind of in the same place they left off
15:47last year with their camera in third place, and maybe a software update away from closing
15:52the gap, but third place.
15:54And then the rest of this phone is really Samsung doing Samsung things.
15:58If you've used the Galaxy S before, you won't be shocked by anything here.
16:02One UI and its one-handed optimizations are more important than ever because of how big
16:06this phone is, but really it's still the super familiar throw in everything but the kitchen
16:11sink strategy.
16:12There's a ton, there's a million features on this phone.
16:15So one new feature I found really interesting was the ability to pin apps to the massive
16:20amount of RAM.
16:21So in the multitasker, if you tap the icon at the top, you can keep the app open for
16:26quick launching.
16:27That loads it up into the RAM permanently.
16:29And I messed around with this a bit.
16:30I tried it with Spotify, tried it with the camera app, tried it with my Tasks app that
16:35I launch all the time.
16:36I didn't really see much of a big difference in battery, so that's nice.
16:40And the app really is truly forever open in the background, ready to launch instantly.
16:44So having that much more RAM on the phone is quite useful.
16:47Also, I feel obligated to mention, yes, this is a 5G phone, but you shouldn't buy this
16:53phone just for the 5G.
16:55I'm on AT&T.
16:56I haven't had a single second of 5G experience on this phone, but if you're on T-Mobile
17:01or any of the mid-band or millimeter wave using carriers, your mileage may vary.
17:05So the strategy of throwing all the numbers at the phone, did it work?
17:11Well, I think it mostly worked.
17:13I mean, this is an excellent phone, best in class in several ways, the display being
17:17the most incredible one, and with the battery falling right in step behind it.
17:22But as we've learned, the numbers aren't everything.
17:25And the question a lot of people seem to like asking is, do you need it?
17:30And no, of course not.
17:33Most people will do great with a phone half this price.
17:35You don't need this phone.
17:36But as a fan of tech, I am happy when stuff at the highest end is pushing things forward
17:41and it's at the bleeding edge.
17:43And for a lot of that stuff, I do like the S20 Ultra a lot.
17:47And some people who use their phone a lot won't have a big problem spending a lot extra
17:51on it.
17:52Now, shouldn't a $1,400 phone be pretty much perfect out the box?
17:55Yeah, probably.
17:57And this clearly isn't perfect, but there's a lot of really great things about it.
18:01And this is the phone I will be pocketing personally until further notice.
18:06And I guess crossing my fingers for some software updates along the way.
18:10That's been it.
18:11Thanks for watching.
18:12Catch you guys in the next one.
18:13Peace.