1
00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:07,440
i know this title concept has been done to death but i have actually never done

2
00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:11,360
it because i believe that if a product pretty much does what it says on the box

3
00:00:09,599 --> 00:00:16,880
there is someone out there who will love it otherwise why would they make it

4
00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:21,600
and there is a lot that i have found to like about the samsung galaxy s20 ultra

5
00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:25,840
over the last two weeks i'm not gonna skip over that stuff but the truth of

6
00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:30,800
the matter is i'm gonna be shelving this phone as soon as i am done filming this

7
00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:32,239
video let's talk about why

8
00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:36,320
today's video is brought to you by ifixit ifixit's mahi driver kit includes

9
00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:41,680
their quarter-inch aluminum screwdriver handle with a magnetic bit socket knurled grip and swivel top plus 48

10
00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:52,000
driver bits check it out at the link in the video description

11
00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:57,920
my immediate impressions of the s20 ultra 5g were mostly positive it's

12
00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:03,760
generally chunkier than the iphone 11 pro max despite being a little bit

13
00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:06,080
lighter but it is superbly balanced as

14
00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:10,560
all things should be and the slimmer 20 by 9 display makes it easier for me to

15
00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:15,119
wrap my fingers around it the materials are also great and remind me more of an

16
00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:19,680
iphone 10 or 11 series than anything else that i've held today

17
00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:24,799
but with all the right samsung flair added to it the bezels are much thinner

18
00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:29,439
than apples and i think samsung has finally perfected both the curve of the

19
00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:33,200
edge of the display and the width of their bezels so that distortion and

20
00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:37,680
reflections around the edges of on-screen content are non-existent and i

21
00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:41,439
almost never managed to accidentally activate the touchscreen with my palm

22
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:46,640
while i was reaching across it even the hole punch display which i

23
00:01:44,079 --> 00:01:51,520
still hate and would immediately trade for a pop-up selfie camera like oneplus

24
00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:54,960
pro series is obviously better than apple's now very

25
00:01:53,439 --> 00:01:58,399
for head notch i did miss having the earpiece a little

26
00:01:56,799 --> 00:02:02,719
bit lower down i find it more comfortable to hold against my ear but

27
00:02:00,399 --> 00:02:06,960
if the mandate at samsung is maximum screen coverage

28
00:02:04,719 --> 00:02:11,520
i prefer a proper grille even if it's a weirdly positioned one to a vibrating

29
00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:15,680
screen like on the lg g8 even though i normally use my airpods pros these days

30
00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:19,440
when i do want to listen out loud like in the bath it makes a big difference

31
00:02:17,520 --> 00:02:23,520
for watching movies and videos on the go to have an amplified earpiece speaker

32
00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:27,680
that doesn't vibrate your phone as a quick aside by the way guys i get a lot

33
00:02:25,599 --> 00:02:31,840
of flack for constantly bringing up the movie watching experience in my phone

34
00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:35,519
reviews and i'm finally at the point where i'm just not going to take it

35
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:40,800
anymore i've got to defend that look guys not everyone has the income or the

36
00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:45,280
lifestyle to allow them to settle down for two hours at a time on the couch

37
00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:49,120
with their big screen HDR tv and watch a movie

38
00:02:46,319 --> 00:02:52,319
so yeah the phone is small and there's going to be directors and filmmakers out

39
00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:57,200
there that are going to give you a hard time for watching their movies on it but

40
00:02:54,560 --> 00:03:01,440
given how awesome phone screens have gotten this one in particular i don't

41
00:02:59,599 --> 00:03:07,040
think it's much of a stretch to say that a galaxy s20 ultra is probably going to

42
00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:09,120
be the best HDR display in the house of

43
00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:13,360
most of the people who end up buying one the white point of the natural mode is a

44
00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:17,840
little warm for my preference but after a short adjustment the s20 ultra screen

45
00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:22,400
looks great under basically any conditions at night in bed all the way

46
00:03:20,239 --> 00:03:27,360
to under direct sunlight so yeah if your close-up vision is still

47
00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:33,200
good i see nothing wrong with throwing on a pair of like drop thx pandas and

48
00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:37,519
firing up a movie on your phone i had no difficulty even streaming my heaviest

49
00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:41,080
blu-ray rips from my plex server over wi-fi and the good news about the screen

50
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:46,400
gets even better 120 hertz support is basically the icing

51
00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:50,159
on the cake here sweet delicious long-awaited icing it was

52
00:03:48,959 --> 00:03:56,080
actually kind of funny seeing the reviewers who obviously mostly use

53
00:03:52,799 --> 00:03:57,840
mainstream phones heralding 120hz says

54
00:03:56,080 --> 00:04:03,439
the next big thing guys it was the last big thing like to

55
00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:08,239
be clear it's great but here's some kid back in 2011 explaining how it improves

56
00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:11,840
the smoothness of game animations and makes your device feel snappier and more

57
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:17,120
responsive but hey at least we finally got there right so gamers and

58
00:04:14,239 --> 00:04:22,400
performance enthusiasts rejoice i have seen some complaints about poor

59
00:04:19,519 --> 00:04:26,720
battery life particularly with 120 hertz enabled and especially on the exynos

60
00:04:24,479 --> 00:04:31,040
models as well as about the lack of support for high refresh rate at the

61
00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:34,639
native resolution but samsung's full hd plus mode didn't

62
00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:38,560
bother me at all and i managed to get through the last two weeks with

63
00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:42,479
everything enabled no dark mode everything at 120 hertz always on

64
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:46,960
display and that includes one really long day with over seven hours of screen

65
00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:51,360
time love it the only thing i ended up not loving about the screen is the

66
00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:55,680
in-screen ultrasonic fingerprint sensor it's much better than when it first

67
00:04:53,440 --> 00:05:00,479
launched on the s10 series and most people probably won't notice or care but

68
00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:05,120
when it comes to raw quick draw speed apple's face id and competing

69
00:05:02,560 --> 00:05:08,800
fingerprint unlocks are still a hair faster something people are noticing and

70
00:05:07,199 --> 00:05:13,440
caring about is the significant differences this time around between the

71
00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:17,520
exynos and snapdragon versions of the s20 ultra

72
00:05:14,880 --> 00:05:21,440
i have seen outlier results for both with users reporting more than 10 hours

73
00:05:19,759 --> 00:05:26,720
of screen on time with various optimizations but for the most part the

74
00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:31,600
ones who are complaining about really bad battery life are only exynos users

75
00:05:29,840 --> 00:05:36,000
as for how to explain the difference andre from assani's preliminary

76
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:40,320
reporting on inauth.com seems to contain some strong clues

77
00:05:37,840 --> 00:05:44,960
users who predominantly watch video which uses efficient fixed function

78
00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:50,800
decoding hardware or who browse the web might see just a 10 deficit while users

79
00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:58,080
who occasionally run heavier apps could fall behind by 25 or more due to

80
00:05:54,800 --> 00:06:00,960
exynos's inferior power efficiency now i

81
00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:04,800
get it there's a reason everyone does it the cost saving and supply chain

82
00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:09,680
management rationales behind dual sourcing parts for a high volume product

83
00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:13,199
like this make a lot of sense but the issue is that they have to be built to

84
00:06:11,759 --> 00:06:17,360
the same spec and right now with the state that things

85
00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:20,560
are in if i'm a customer who's in an exynos region

86
00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:26,720
this kind of battery life performance makes samsung's entire s20 lineup a

87
00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:28,560
no-go for me right out of the gate and

88
00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:31,840
downright embarrassing honestly when you consider samsung's all-day battery

89
00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:38,000
marketing as for the camera it's cool i it nope

90
00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:41,919
it's super cool it's still a samsung camera so the colors might lean a little

91
00:06:39,919 --> 00:06:46,240
on the cooler side especially side by side against an iphone which tends to

92
00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:52,160
lean warmer and their over sharpening is ever present but at reasonable zoom

93
00:06:49,039 --> 00:06:53,600
levels like 5x there is no doubt that

94
00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:58,080
you are going to end up with images that contain a lot more detail than if you

95
00:06:56,080 --> 00:07:02,880
were just trying to use software to punch in on a 2x zoom shot on an iphone

96
00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:07,039
combined with the 12 megapixel wide angle you've got a lot of shooting

97
00:07:05,199 --> 00:07:11,599
options and i think most people are gonna find something to love about it i

98
00:07:08,880 --> 00:07:16,000
do wish they hadn't quite hyped it up as hard though video recording quality is

99
00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:22,240
still way behind apple and some of the touted features like the

100
00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:24,240
100x zoom and 8k recording are honestly

101
00:07:22,240 --> 00:07:28,960
useless as anything other than a party trick the 100x zoom adds so much

102
00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:33,520
processing that i would rather move my face closer to my phone and let my brain

103
00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:39,199
do the guesswork and the 8k video recording mode isn't so much bad like

104
00:07:35,759 --> 00:07:41,280
it's fine it's just entirely unnecessary

105
00:07:39,199 --> 00:07:44,960
with the sensor and processing power that can be crammed into a cell phone

106
00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:50,400
you're just better off with decently encoded 4k than with 8k and as for

107
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:56,080
samsung's assertion that you can pull 33 megapixel stills out of their 8k video

108
00:07:53,599 --> 00:08:00,400
that is laughable even the example they show on the website looks like hot

109
00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:05,120
garbage because of the motion blur that's inherent NVIDIA capture

110
00:08:02,720 --> 00:08:09,360
why would anybody do that especially when the camera app supports just taking

111
00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:13,840
a still while you're recording video i also didn't find myself using the 108

112
00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:18,960
megapixel mode at all under ideal circumstances indirect

113
00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:22,479
sunlight it might be worth switching to but you better hope there's absolutely

114
00:08:20,639 --> 00:08:26,879
no shadows in your shot because its dynamic range is much worse compared to

115
00:08:25,199 --> 00:08:32,080
when you allow all of the cameras to work together even though both modes

116
00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:36,159
support HDR onto software samsung's Android skin has improved so much that

117
00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:39,839
people rarely complain about it and in fact when we did our recent video

118
00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:43,919
highlighting the top new features of Android 11 the comment section got

119
00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:49,200
absolutely flooded with people who apparently didn't realize that

120
00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:53,839
yes i get it those features are already built into your samsung phone but they

121
00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:56,000
are not yet part of the stock Android experience

122
00:08:54,880 --> 00:09:01,360
i've actually even been uncharacteristically happy with the software support that i've gotten on my

123
00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:04,959
daily driver note 9 which is coming up on 2 years old now

124
00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:09,200
however notifications have been and continue to be a problem for me

125
00:09:06,959 --> 00:09:13,519
samsung in general needs to expose notification order controls either by

126
00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:17,200
allowing app priorities to be manually tuned or by enabling an option to just

127
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:21,360
put everything in in reverse chronological order because i am

128
00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:25,200
constantly getting pings on my phone that are for like my garage door opening

129
00:09:23,920 --> 00:09:31,120
and then i need to scroll all the way down through a list of messages people have sent me to find out what buzzed my

130
00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:34,560
phone not to mention that most of the notifications don't have a time stamp on

131
00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:39,200
them for some reason also nothing that i did made my

132
00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:43,680
microsoft teams notifications come through on the s20 ultra now this could

133
00:09:41,680 --> 00:09:47,680
easily be microsoft's fault since teams is a hot pile of steaming garbage but it

134
00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:54,320
does mean that i'm going to have to dump this phone immediately no matter how much i like it because i use that for

135
00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:56,240
work bottom line then the s20 ultra is

136
00:09:54,320 --> 00:10:00,800
great in a lot of ways the quality of the materials the specs the performance

137
00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:06,000
all top notch and i'm not usually one to complain about a

138
00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:08,160
price customer for anything remember

139
00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:12,640
but the thing is it starts at fourteen hundred dollars that is three hundred

140
00:10:10,480 --> 00:10:18,320
dollars more than the base model and just fifty dollars less than the top

141
00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:19,680
spec iphone 11 pro max with four times

142
00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:24,720
the storage that would be fine if it was utterly

143
00:10:21,920 --> 00:10:29,279
flawless or if it had some space-age new technology that needed an early adopter

144
00:10:26,959 --> 00:10:31,600
subsidy remember guys i defended the fold

145
00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:38,000
but it's not and it doesn't at this price where literally anything

146
00:10:36,079 --> 00:10:40,959
else is in play if you want a head turner get a fold if you want a status

147
00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:46,399
symbol buy an iphone if you want to take pictures get a pixel or an iphone if you

148
00:10:45,200 --> 00:10:51,360
shoot a lot of video get an iphone if you actually work for

149
00:10:48,959 --> 00:10:55,040
your money here's the thing i didn't notice a significant day-to-day

150
00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:59,680
difference in experience between this and my old daily driver note 9.

151
00:10:58,079 --> 00:11:02,480
if however you're a rich kid and you want to play with the zoom something i

152
00:11:01,279 --> 00:11:07,760
can pretty much guarantee you'll get bored of within a few days hey for you

153
00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:09,680
though there's the s20 ultra

154
00:11:07,760 --> 00:11:15,200
and it's brought to you by dbrand dbrand is making me say this the

155
00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:19,279
dbrand grip is super grippy you will never drop your phone again even if

156
00:11:16,959 --> 00:11:22,800
you're me haha see is that so that'll show you dbrand where'd it go it

157
00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:26,079
includes military grade impact protection absorbing technology it's

158
00:11:24,720 --> 00:11:30,560
ultra low profile at just two millimeters thick it's got super tactile

159
00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:34,160
buttons with their springy polymer and full compatibility with dbrand skins hey

160
00:11:32,800 --> 00:11:38,880
check this out dbrand i improved your skin i put an Linus tech tip sticker on

161
00:11:36,079 --> 00:11:42,959
top of it so check out dbrand.com Linus drop tips we're gonna have that linked

162
00:11:40,399 --> 00:11:46,160
below to check out their lineup if you want my impressions of the z flip by the

163
00:11:44,399 --> 00:11:49,760
way check out our ShortCircuit channel where i unboxed it i am not going to do

164
00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:53,120
a full review on here because i didn't want to use it for that long so i sent

165
00:11:51,279 --> 00:11:57,839
it back to dbrand as soon as i was done i'm going to link that video down below

166
00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:57,839
make sure you subscribe by the way