Samsung Galaxy S20 series hands-on: 5G across the board (sort of)

Emphasis on "might." About this time every year, I play with Samsung's new stuff and say something along the lines of "these devices represent the company at the top of its smartphone-making game." It's a bit trite now, but still undeniable: The Galaxy S20 series feels impeccably well-made. The Ultra also packs a significantly different camera setup than the other two Galaxy S20s, including a 40-megapixel front-facing camera (for some reason) and a more ambitious zoom system around back -- we'll get to that, though.All of this excess comes at a cost, though: The base Ultra with 12GB of RAM and 128GB of storage will cost you $1,400, and there's an even higher-end model if you'd rather bump yourself up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. (Note: All versions of the Galaxy S20 have microSD card slots, so you won't need to fret much over running out of room.)This is the year 5G will really start to matter for regular people, so it's no surprise that Samsung is going wide with support for these super-fast wireless networks. If you absolutely can't abide the S20+ or Ultra's bigger bodies and need a new Android phone, the S20 will certainly do, but it's hard to recommend since it's not nearly as future-proof as the others.Samsung is convinced that improved cameras are the biggest reason people upgrade their phones, so naturally, that's where most of the work seems to have happened. For now, though, you'll get the best results if you don't zoom past 30X.Thankfully, some of Samsung's other new camera features are more helpful right out of the gate. (Yes, there are 8K TVs out there, but they're far from broadly accessible at the moment.) It's really difficult to get a sense for how good 8K video looks on a smartphone screen, especially one that doesn't run anywhere close to 8K resolution, and Samsung wouldn't give us the test footage we shot on-site.