Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra long-term review

Conclusion

This is pretty much billed as the everything phone. And for its asking price, the Galaxy S20 Ultra should have been perfect. Ultra perfect, even. Unfortunately, it just isn't. And we don't simply mean this in the "no one device is perfect for everyone" way. There are things that are objectively worse about the experience of using this phone than others that cost (way) less. And that's simply unacceptable.

The resolution limitation for when you want to use a 120Hz refresh rate, the focus hunting on the main camera, the completely irritating 'going home' gesture bug, all of these are things that you won't get on any competing device.

The S20 Ultra is the phone incarnation of the concept of "bragging rights." It focuses so much on bragging that it misses some of the basics of what makes a smartphone great. But the S20 Ultra doesn't care. It's more interested in you not forgetting that you are getting the biggest zoom from the biggest camera bump on Samsung's biggest phone.

The screen is also among the biggest on anything that can reasonably be called a 'mainstream' flagship smartphone. Unashamedly so. And in all fairness, it has an amazing image quality before you factor in ghost touches and the inability to run 120Hz at the max resolution - two issues which other manufacturers have already cracked.

SO yes, this device is bigger, badder, and, dare we say it, shouty-er than anything that came before it. It's the GO BIG OR GO HOME phone, the truck of smartphones, actually, the quintessential 'size trumps everything else' device.

It's a greatly flawed smartphone, though. For the right audience - for the people who value all of the above more than anything all else - it even has the potential to be perfectly flawed.

We're not picking on the S20 Ultra because it's bad, we're picking on it because while very good, it narrowly misses out on being 'the one.' The one to instantly recommend by default to anyone looking for a top dollar Android device.

Otherwise, the S20 Ultra is a true 2020 flagship. But just as the world has seen better years than 2020, we think Samsung can do a better job of a flagship smartphone than the S20 Ultra. The Galaxy Note20 Ultra can't come soon enough.

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