Trade In
I recently traded out my Bluetooth-glitchy LG V30 for a Samsung S20.
There were things I liked about the V30. Mostly, its 24 bit DAC and headphone jack, decent camera, and nice OLED screen. It was too small, but until the Bluetooth became downright wonky on it, It was fine.
Not Big
I know some people think phones are getting too big, etc. Why there are things like S10E's and iPhone SE's. There are plenty of tiny screen phones out there. I wanted big. I wanted the equivalent of a tablet computer in my hand, and I was willing to use two hands if need be,
The S20 Ultra is not that. Every review I have read that talks about the screen being 'ginormous' are a complete and utter lie on that point. It's slightly bigger than the V30. Barely. The same width more or less. A half-inch taller. Big deal.
No DAC
I had some apprehension about losing that lovely 24 bit DAC the V30 has. I use the phone in a car that requires a headphone jack to pump sound through the stereo. No Bluetooth connection.
Why not a V60? LG has stayed the course and still has headphone jacks. The reason being is that when I bought the V30, we bought three of them. Two others went out to other family members. Mine was the last LG standing, and the other two died in less than a year. Why mine lasted when theirs did not I cannot say. They all ended up with Samsungs after that and were happy. The general consensus being that Sammy's are higher quality. This from one person that destroyed a Galaxy Active.
Maybe that is why my V30 lasted longer...
I had to choose between a headphone and reliability. I decided I could use my Bose Sport headphones (in one ear) when I am driving the car, and then later snapped awake and I bought a USB-C adapter that lets me charge the S20U and gives it a headphone jack. 32 bit DAC. Problem solved, other than now I am in the same Dongle place I am with my Mac. Oh well: I am used to that.
Do I Like?
So: Do I like the S20 Ultra, even with its not-huge screen and its audio shortcomings?
In a word? Yes.
The in-phone speakers are really good, for such tiny things. Better than the V30.
The screen is nice. Samsung does OLED like no other. The Tech21 case I bought for it has saved its bacon 3 or 4 times already. I am a klutz. Also, I like that the screen is less curved on the edges. I had an S7 and I did not like the curved / distorted screen part.
The Bluetooth syncs quickly and easily to things. My Bose headphones for daily and the gym work fine.
Android Auto / Waze work WAY better than the V30 ever did.
The phone is fast, the Snapdragon 865 buzzes along nicely. The 12 GB of RAM means no stuttering or slowdowns. I run Nova, so all the Samsung skin garbage is hidden. I have never liked the Samsung skins. I never even looked at the new one because when I copied over the data via USB first thing, Nova went right in. I do not know why Samsung thinks skinning a phone is a value add.
Nova warned that gesture stuff is not going to work because Google had not exposed the API's they needed. I was like 'Good'. I want my 'back' button. One really nice thing about virtual home / back / tasks is that I can put them in the same order the LG has. I want 'back' on the left, thank you.
Camera
The one hundred percent main reason I went Ultra though (other than it had the biggest of the still small screens) is the camera. It has not disappointed. I did some macro stuff on a bud on a tree I just planted, and got into the 100x zoom to pull my grandaughter in and up close on a horribly gray rainy day, while she was standing out there looking miserable on 2nd base. There is a cool night photo of a cat I did.
Mission accomplished.
5G
Up in town, I get 5G. It makes the hotspot work better for my Mac. Other than that, not really seeing the difference, because the choke point is the web page on the other side. The 865 renders quickly. Firefox Focus (my default browser) filters off the cruft. Page loads are not that different, so its something 'out there'. Render speeds look the same speed as my Mac Pro, give or take, and subjectively. All that matters.
It is real 5G though: Not that AT&T 4G relabeled stuff. Since I have an Ultra, I am not sure WHICH of the two T Mobile bands it is though it is probably Sub 6? I do not see my city on the current mmWave maps.
Button Placement and Fingerprint Reader
I am still getting used to the volume rocker switch being on the right. LG had that on the left, and that fit my hand better. fell right to my thumb. It's annoying but not throw it across the room bad.
Another negative I have read about on this phone is the in-screen fingerprint reader. I have not observed the issue. It's every bit as accurate as the LG V30 one is, and I never had an issue with it. If there is an issue at all, I would prefer the LG V30 placement on the back of the phone, and for the same ergonomic reason as the volume rocker placement. That is where my finger goes naturally. On the front is awkward. Also, the indention for the scanner / button gives you a tactile place to know where the finger goes. The in-screen one, I have to look. It works though, so I have no complaints there.
Cruft
More annoying is all the garbage I can't uninstall or on some cases, even disable. AR Zone and Bixby for example: Icons in the app drawer taking up space. At least I don't have a Bixby button. That would suck.
I love Android 10's more granular permission structure, and at least I can deny a lot of these annoying, useless things the ability to see or do anything. Some stuff I can trash though, like 'YT Music'. Spotify, Pandora, Aha, and Amazon cover my musical needs, thanks. I still also prefer to buy my music and have the CD's, but I'm old school. If I like an artist, I support them. I have heard over and over from Artists how little they get from Spotify. In fact, it is sort of a running joke in the music community.
Facebook was another thing I was glad to see would go. I deleted my Facebook account a while back. The app is a famous battery burner. It's bad enough to have Google tracking me all over the place. At least with Android 10 I can set many, many apps to only get my location while I am using them.
Wear
Wear works better, but that seems (to me) to mostly be about the speed of the phone. One of the big review things I read over and over is how crappy Wear is relative to Apple WatchOS. Those same people said the screen on the S20 is ginormous. They are numbskulls.
Like the back button, the killer app of Wear is customizable watch faces. WatchOS has various faces, but they are all from Apple, and NONE of them are ByssWeather. I love the weather radar watch face. I have had it for YEARS. Apple ... not so much. The one thing WatchOS has that Wear does not that I care about is August. I wish I could unlock the house from my watch. not enough to give up ByssWeather, or the back button on my phone screen. I have written August about it several times to no response, so I guess they don't see the market. Too bad. I'll take Wear over WatchOS all day long every day.
I'll stick with August because they aren't Ring. Ring's privacy negatives make it so I'll put up with August's ignoring me.
Android Auto
Android Auto works well (again, better than the V30, again probably the faster processor / bigger RAM) and now there is a phone-only version of it called 'Android Auto for phone screens'.
Oddly, this in-Phone version is far better than the one that shows up on my in-car screen (on the car that has that: the Subaru with the garbage fake shifts). It is tempting to just use it and have the car run its built-in maps program for comparison to Waze. I don't because I can't as easily reply to Whatsapp and SMS messages that way. But it is tempting. The new and not at all improved Android Auto on the head unit is really 'meh'. Not at all the fault of the S20 though.
Battery Life
Battery life is really good. Two full days, easy. But I turned off/deleted stuff. Took away tracking permissions from tons of things. Don't use the 120 hz screen because why? It's smooth enough as it is. If I was playing games on the phone that might be different, but I don't, unless I load up Solitare once in a blue moon. Come to think of it: I don't think I even had that on the V30. It's on my iPad. even if I DID? It does not need 120 hz screen.
Dex
Dex is an interesting idea. I am not sure how well it might work with Windows, as I don't have that right now: My last Windows system was upgraded to Linux a while back, so I am Windows-less. I am kinda sorry I did that because it was handy to be able to test Windows stuff I read about, but it's so much faster now I also do not regret it. Point is, Dex is interesting but very slow on the Mac. Speed demon phone, speed demon Macbook Pro... slow Dex. It's fun to goof around with. It's easy to see how Android could be a desktop replacement. But... slow. I'll be watching that space.
Is it Worth It?
Is it worth the 1,400? well... I paid 100 less than that for starters, and my example is unlocked and has zero interest financing. It also came with Galaxy Buds, which I gave away. The recipient loves them. I do not like earbuds. I like my Bose Soundsports.
So: is it?
It depends upon the use case. I wanted that camera and was willing to pay to get to it. I wanted a bigger screen, but it is what it is. No one makes a big-screen phone. A while back I bought a CHUWI Hi9 Pro 8.4" 4G LTE Tablet that I hoped would be that. My T-Mobile sim worked fine. The problem was the tablet could not run 10 minutes without rebooting itself. It was fast and beautiful and ultimately useless.
The S20 U camera is fun and interesting, and I am still playing with all its settings and effects. If I could set the default camera mode to 'pro' that would be better. I like having the EV and focus control in my hands because I never take pictures it seems where I do not need that.
Example:
Not holding that out as spectacular: it was, however, easy even with the massive backlighting, and that is the point. It's also a screencap, not the original.
It's worth it to me.
[update: how to crash your Mac. Install Samsung Dex. Every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Every time I plug in the phone. Every traceback showing Dex last thing loaded. Take off Dex, stable. Bummer. It WAS interesting. Insert your favorite conspiracy theory about Samsung and Microsoft's new business partnership here. I do not have Windows so I have no way to know if Dex works better there or not.]
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