Hands on: Samsung Galaxy S20 review

The Samsung Galaxy S20 is going to be the first 5G phone for a lot of people, and it comes with a 64MP camera and 3x optical and 30x digital zoom to boot. It’s a leap ahead of the S10, but it also carries a price hike and is outclassed by two bigger phones: the Galaxy S20 Plus and S20 Ultra.The Samsung Galaxy S20 has now been unveiled to the world at Unpacked 2020 in San Francsico (which also saw the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, foldable Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus shown off)The Galaxy S20 is the cheapest handset from Samsung in the new range, and while it's not the most affordable phone that the brand has launched, it does bring significant improvements to the camera, battery and offers 5G by default in many places.This is the phone if you want to try out the new tech that Samsung has to offer - sure, you could go for the Ultra if you want more storage or a 108MP camera, but for day-to-day use, the S20 is going to be fine for most people. It's the same story with the S20 Plus and S20 Ultra, and it's the first time Samsung has dropped the feature from its S range.The Galaxy S20 has a lot of things going for it: a sizable screen with a fast refresh rate, a new triple-lens camera with a lot of promise, and solid specs headlined by faster 5G speeds. Read on below:Brace yourself: you’re going to pay more for the Galaxy S20 than last year’s flagship Samsung phone due to its 5G upgrade, bigger camera sensors and larger 6.2-inch 120Hz display.In the US and UK, the Galaxy S20 price is $999 / £799 with 128GB of storage – if you want 512GB of storage, you’ll have to buy the S20 Plus or Ultra. It doesn’t dramatically change the overall size of the phone, and its max resolution remains the same as recent Samsung Galaxy S models at WQHD+ (3040 x 1440).Samsung is still offering a default resolution of Full HD+ (2220 x 1080), which looks more than sharp enough for most tasks and saves battery - giving power users and option if they want to push things harder.Here’s another reason to keep the screen locked to 1080p: the new 120Hz refresh rate isn’t WQHD+-compatible, and the jump from 60Hz to 120Hz is significant in offering a more fluid experience when gaming or surfing the web, as we’ve seen on the ASUS ROG 2 and Razer Phone 2, even if this phone has to be in 1080. Again, it’s a net plus overall and we also get a 3x lossless zoom and 10x digital zoom thanks to the new telephoto camera specs.The Galaxy S20’s 12MP ultra-wide camera has changed the least, but it too has a bigger sensor, larger pixels (1.4 microns over last year’s 1 micron), and the same f/2.2 aperture. That should make your ultra-wide photos a lot better, even if the S10 had a 16MP ultra-wide camera.We’re going to have to test this triple-lens rear camera setup a lot more during our full review process, but we already know that the Galaxy S20 won’t be quite as powerful as the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which has four cameras on back, a 108MP main senor, and 10x optical/100x digital zoom.The Galaxy S20 breaks new ground with the introduction of 8K video recording and anti-roll correction (up to 60 degrees) as part of its Super Steady stabilization feature. We’ll have a lot more to say about the Samsung Galaxy S20 cameras in our full review when we’ve had more time to try out the various features, but we’ll leave it at that for now – okay one more: you’ll be able to easily clip 33MP photos from video, which should prove handy.The Galaxy S20 is the best first chance for mainstream consumers to get 5G on their smartphone. This is the phone Samsung needed to fend off Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro camera advancements… and it’s raised the price accordingly to try and achieve that.5G and better technology add to that surcharge too – and there’s no cheaper S20e to bail you out here, as there was a surprise Galaxy S10e a year ago.