Design and Features
The Samsung Galaxy S20 is a slightly larger departure from the design we’ve seen Samsung gradually iterate from the Galaxy S8 through the Galaxy S10. The new phone is still a sandwich of glass with an aluminum frame in the middle, but it’s all Gorilla Glass 6 now. Samsung has dramatically toned down the curved glass edges of the display. The rear glass also shimmers delightfully. All that glass presents a drop risk, but Samsung includes a basic screen protector pre-installed on the front of the device. It’s not as rugged as some other protectors (such as the one pre-installed on the OnePlus 5), as the edge of my driver’s license was able to etch a small groove into the protector after a couple weeks pressed together in a folio case. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=best-smartphones&captions=true"] Samsung has kept protection of the device's internals from water and dust intact, though, backing it with an IP68 rating that should be good for dunks up to 30 minutes in water as deep as 1.5 meters (just under five feet). Sadly, for all the things that Samsung has kept from generation to generation, the 3.5mm headphone jack had its last hurrah on the Galaxy S10. Samsung includes a pair of USB-C earbuds with the phone, but not a USB-to-3.5mm adapter. For those that like flexibility, at least Samsung hasn’t done away with the microSD slot for expandable storage. Samsung’s screen has received an upgrade this year. While the S20 maintains tight proportions and a light 163 grams, it fits a 6.2-inch display. The hole-punch camera also takes up less of the screen space compared to the Galaxy S10, and it’s more wisely positioned in the center, where it can divide the notifications and system info that display in the Android status bar.
The display isn’t just bigger but also sharper at 3,200 x 1,440. It supports HDR10+ and gets plenty bright. For videos, this makes for a stunning experience only made better by the contrast ratio offered by an AMOLED display. A few HDR videos and a playthrough of Cosmos Laundromat show how much the screen is capable of, and it’s aided along by a decent set of stereo speakers that can offer a sprinkling of surround sound. The screen’s brightness also translates to usability, as I had no trouble using the phone even in direct sunlight. Samsung has also introduced a 120Hz refresh rate, available by turning down the display’s resolution to 2,400 x 1,080. This smoothes out animations, scrolling, and games, but I was surprised that it didn’t feel as noticeable as the switch to a monitor with a high refresh rate. Samsung’s fingerprint reader also is embedded in the display, though the facial recognition is often so quick to unlock the phone that I don’t get a chance to use my fingerprint. The most noticeable departure in design is the new camera setup on the rear of the phone. The Galaxy S20 has a three sensor array all tucked into the corner of the phone. This makes for a large, rectangular camera bump. Samsung has also shifted the power and volume buttons to the right side of the phone and ditched the Bixby button, though the power button defaults to launching Bixby if held down. One of the most important features for the Galaxy S20 is the inclusion of 5G, which is made fairly clear by the official name: Samsung Galaxy S20 5G (though other countries have an non-5G version available). The new connectivity standard is an upgrade from 4G, and mobile carriers are slowly rolling it out around the country. The Galaxy S20 supports low-band and mid-band (Sub-6) 5G connections, lacking the mmWave support offered by its two bigger siblings. 
Software
The Galaxy S20 comes out of the box with Android 10 and Samsung’s One UI 2 running on top of that. Samsung’s iteration of Android 10 is fairly straightforward, and I’m impressed by the considerable customization that’s available. By default, there’s an excess of software, and a page called Samsung Daily tries to snag a prominent spot right next to the home screen. But, almost all of the pre-installed software can be uninstalled or disabled. I was only stuck with an extra Calendar and Contacts app, as I couldn’t delete them after installing Google’s versions. Samsung also goes a long way toward letting the phone behave however you might want. I prefer the classic navigation buttons, and was able to use those instead of Android 10’s gesture navigation. I could also swap the positions of the Back and Recent Apps buttons. By default, a swipe up or down anywhere on the home screen would bring up the app drawer, but I could change the down swipe to bring the notification shade down, making one-handed use easier.
The control can go even more granular than that, with many options for power savings and even recharging rates – no need to use the 25W fast charging if you only ever charge overnight. Also on special offer here is Samsung’s Dex utility, which effectively turns the phone into a computer. I tested this out simply plugging the phone into a random Aukey UBS-C hub I had lying around, and as soon as I connected that to a monitor the Galaxy S20 activated Dex mode. That let me turn the phone into a touchpad and power a desktop PC environment. It worked right away with a USB keyboard and mouse, and I could still use the phone's camera, making it a plausible big-screen option for video chats.
Gaming and Performance
The Galaxy S20 is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset with 12GB LPDDR5 and 128GB storage. That makes it a potent animal when it comes to performance. Throughout my testing, I let the phone run on its Optimized power mode so I could get the best sense of how it would balance speed and battery life, and rarely saw so much as a hiccup. It breezed through Asphalt 9, running smoothing and sharp. All that memory meant I was able to switch out of the game right as a race was starting, check my texts, send a photo of something I’d seen earlier in the day, and switch back to the game without having to reload a thing. Mobile gamers will find few shortcomings here. The phone can run a bit hot, as I found out after a 90-minute video call with the screen running bright. But, that’s fairly reasonable considering the strain a call like that can put on the processor and battery at the same time. In general use, I haven’t noticed the phone throwing much heat.
The Galaxy S20 packs an admirable, 4,000mAh battery. The only times where I was worried about not making it through the end of the day were when I hadn’t charged it the night before. I frequently found my charge above 50% at the end of the day. That 90-minute video call I had was in the evening of the second day on a single charge. That’s a testament to how the phone can hold up to general use in the Optimized power mode. It also means Samsung’s inclusion of Wireless PowerShare makes more sense, as there’s definitely enough juice to share with other devices. Granted, most of this battery performance was with the display at Full HD+ and running at 60Hz, though switching to 120Hz didn’t suddenly see the battery fail to survive a full day’s usage. Let’s not forget the 5G. As it stands, there’s only so much of it to go around. I tested the Galaxy S20 in Chicago on T-Mobile’s network, which has wide 5G coverage. But most of the time, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the difference between it and 4G LTE. I saw one speed test exceed 56Mbps, but that’s a far cry from Gigabit speeds. While Mid-band connections like those available on Sprint’s network can be much faster, it’s largely a question of regional (even down to neighborhood-level) availability.
Camera
The Galaxy S20 includes a 10MP front-facing camera, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, 12MP wide-angle camera, and a 64MP telephoto camera. Between the four of them, I struggled to find a shot I couldn’t take. The wide-angle sensor offers a 120-degree field of view which generally let me get even more in the shot than I intended. That’s a good problem to have, as cropping is a quick fix. The default (1x) sensor offers a good balance of crispness and field of view. The telephoto lens can snap great pictures at a 3x zoom, and even offers workable images at 10x. But, when dialed all the way up to the max 30x zoom, it’s all but clear that Samsung has just sprinkled a little magic dust onto an otherwise straightforward digital zoom. While the other camera modes work for art, the 30x zoom is strictly utilitarian. So much processing goes into the photo that it’s hard to be sure you got the shot you want until after you’ve taken it. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=samsung-galaxy-s20-camera-samples&captions=true"] That minor disappointment carries on into Night Mode. Just as Space Zoom is a clever rebranding of digital zoom, the Night Mode here feels like clever rebranding of a long shutter speed. It has interesting results if you have a stationary subject and steady hand, but a three-second shutter is far from point-and-shoot. There’s a bit going on for video on the Galaxy S20. It supports 4K at 60fps on both the front and back cameras, or up to 8K on back. The phone seems to be optimized with 4K/60 in mind, as that’s where I saw its features perform best. Compared to Full HD+ with HDR10+ enabled or 8K, the 4K60 setting performed far smoother when taking advantage of the zoom capabilities. Switching sensors in a single recording was clunky when using a non-60fps video format, but it was perfectly smooth otherwise and even avoided sudden shifts in color. HDR10+ video recording is supported, but Samsung grays out the option in the settings, letting me fruitlessly tap at the toggle without explaining or directing me to info on why I couldn’t turn it on. This is just about as frustrating as the camera settings on LG’s phones, albeit not as widespread. The phone requires reducing the resolution to Full HD (or Full HD+) at 30fps before HDR10+ can turn on, so no 4K/60 in HDR10+.Purchasing Guide
The Samsung Galaxy S20 retails at a starting price of $999 while the upgraded Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus and S20 Ultra cost $1,199 and $1,399, respectively. All three phones come with a base spec of 128GB of storage and 12GB of memory.from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/3f0uQDS
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