The Galaxy S20 Family Is Official with Universal 5G and Hefty Price Tags
Samsung is making big changes to the Galaxy S lineup this year. The consumer electronics giant just unveiled the Galaxy S20 series at its Unpacked event, and the era of 5G is now fully upon us. The Galaxy S20 comes in three flavors, all of which support 5G networks. They also come with impressively high price tags.
Samsung has done away with the “e” variant of its flagship phone, which was the one to get last year. Instead, we now have the Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra. The phones all have a 1440p “Infinity-O” display like the Note 10 with a single front-facing camera in the top middle of the screen. The S20 is 6.2 inches, the S20+ is 6.7 inches, and the S20 Ultra is a whopping 6.9 inches. The displays also adopt a super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate, which is higher than most other Android phones.
For the first time in several years, all of Samsung’s flagship phones have flat OLED panels — no curved edges. The glass does curve down slightly at the edges, often called 2.5D glass. The flat OLED might not look as fancy as curved panels, but there won’t be as many accidental touches along the edges. These displays also have ultrasonic fingerprint sensors
As expected, these phones run the Snapdragon 865 chip. Qualcomm only allows that chip to ride alongside its 5G modem, and all three Galaxy S20 variants will have at least some 5G capabilities. The S20+ and S20 Ultra will have both millimeter wave and lower frequency sub-6 5G support. However, the regular S20 will only have sub-6. Those signals travel farther, but the speeds are much slower than millimeter wave. If you pick up Samsung’s unlocked variants, you’ll have support for all current US 5G networks.
Part of the reason these phones are so big is that Samsung needed to cram in larger batteries to power the 5G modems. The S20 has a 4,000mAh battery, the S20+ is 4,500mAh, and the S20 Ultra is 5,000mAh.
The camera setup is a bit unusual this year. The S20 and S20+ both have 12 MP main sensors, but the Ultra steps up to a 108MP main camera. These phones don’t have a true telephoto camera like past Samsung phones. Instead, you get a 64MP sensor that’s cropped to act like a 3x “hybrid” telephoto camera. The Ultra, again, has a better experience with a 10x hybrid zoom camera. All three phones also have a 12MP ultra-wide camera.
Pre-orders open on February 21st with a March 6th. You’ll need to drop a lot of cash to get your hands on Samsung’s new devices, though. The base model S20 with only sub-6 5G will cost $1,000. The S20+ will start at $1,200. The high-end S20 Ultra will run you a whopping $1,400. These are all unlocked prices, but most carriers will be very close to these numbers.
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