Big. Bigger. Biggest. With the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra — the baap of all Android phones — in your pocket, one thing is for sure, you will certainly take more pictures than ever before. Yes, we all have smartphones and we carry them all the time. In fact, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter probably wouldn’t exist without smartphone cameras. What the S20 Ultra does is take things a few notches higher to the point of ‘space zoom’. Yes, the feature that lets you zoom up to 100x. And yes, you read the figure right. Besides, it has a 108MP camera. Let’s get to the experience part.

108MP of awesomeness

The feature that’s at the heart of the phone is the new camera system, which uses a new kind of technology. The S20 Ultra’s camera unit boasts high megapixel counts: 108.0 MP + 12.0 MP + 48.0 MP + VGA (F1.8 , F2.2 , F3.5 , F1.0) while the front camera has a resolution of 40MP (F2.2). What does it mean?

The main camera can take 108MP photos, which is absolutely enormous. But Samsung is using something called ‘nona binning’, which basically combines nine pixels into one pixel. If you take a picture in the default mode, you are actually going to get a 12MP shot. It uses a 3×3 pixel binning rather than a 2×2 pixel binning, which allows one to shoot amazing pictures. If you are in the sun, you will be able to capture many more details and achieve better quality photos with cropping while capturing at 108MP. In low light or uneven lighting, move to 12MP and nona binning. It will take snaps that have very little noise.

So, why do you want to take photos that are big in size? The idea is you take a picture and then crop into it. This way you get many more details. Suddenly, I am able to get close to the grains on my shirt or the fur on the cat looks really like fur and not a blur. For the ideal shot, take photos in the mid distance or little bit further out and then crop into it. To get the super-high-resolution 108 megapixel mode, you have to select it from the aspect ratio setting on the main camera screen.

Let’s not also forget the selfie camera. This 40MP snapper is the best in the market. It turns it up to 11, yes 11, to give perfect selfies.

To the space and back

Taking the camera feature further, let’s get into ‘space zoom’. Yes, the phone’s rear camera announces this in no subtle way. But then, why not?! It’s the best there is in the market. With the new zoom feature, you can go as much as 100X. Take a close look at the lens, which appears to sink further into the case than the 8.8mm thickness would allow. With a periscope-style design, most of the lens elements sit perpendicular to the phone’s back. Suddenly you have flexibility in composing a shot.

In way of user experience and practicality, till 20X zoom the pictures are great and till 50X, it’s good. But we suggest you start using a tripod at 30X, otherwise it would be virtually impossible to get a great shot. What Samsung has done very well is software stablisation, which makes shooting very easy. What Samsung is doing differently from Huawei and Oppo is using higher-resolution sensors for both the S20 Ultra’s periscope and main cameras.

You can become a detective with this one feature. We are not kidding. Capture your boyfriend putting on a face pack from a window opposite to his house! Ya, things like that and much more, like a photo of the Howrah Bridge from the rooftop in Maniktala and something more serious, like roadside incidents.

The idea is to get shots that you wouldn’t ordinarily get. If the phone had launched a few weeks ago when we were not cooped up at home and attending a concert like that of U2, one would have captured that perfect shot to make your friends jealous. Capturing extraordinary moments is all that counts.

There will always be a section of users who complain about the blurry photos at 100X. What Samsung is telling us is that the point which divides optical and digital zoom is blurring, thanks to software and engineering tricks. The enhanced digital zoom is for situations when you find yourself at a distance from the main scene, like at a concert or sporting event. On the other side of the coin is paranoia, of getting snapped when you are not looking. Truth be told, surveillance systems are all over the place and these are doing that already. The Ultra shows how far we have come with the cameras on the phone.

8K magic

Space zoom is an option you wouldn’t use every day but you know it’s there in your arsenal. The same goes for 8K video recording. There are few devices that play 8K video and on the Internet, there are few resources for 8K videos. But shooting in 8K is about capturing a moment which is very important; something you would playback years or decades later, like a birthday or marriage video. Yes, it takes up space and yes, when you upload these videos on Twitter and the likes, the resolution gets lowered to 1080p. That shouldn’t stop you.

Once you shoot in 8K, you can zoom in while editing, which is a great help. There is great video stablisation, which helps. You can capture 33MP stills from your 8K videos, which is a big bonus. In other words, it’s one of those technological wonders that make up a flagship experience.

That one feature

Samsung has added something called Single Take, a very helpful mode. Basically, you hold down the shutter button for like 10 seconds and it takes a series of photos and videos. The idea is to get multiple photos. It’s pretty useful if you have one chance at capturing something important.

Getting a combination of shots and videos are very important when it comes to seeing your baby walk for the first time, or your better half blowing out the birthday candles on the cake or seeing the mixologist make a drink, complete with fire and smoke.

Top-level performance

The first thing one notices while taking the phone out of the box is the size — 6.9 inches (full rectangle; 6.7 inches, rounded corners). That’s big and it’s deliberate. Ultra is the device one would watch videos on and edit videos and photographs on. Samsung is telling us that we don’t really need to switch between devices to do certain things.

As soon as I took the phone out of the box and had finished the set-up process, I turned on the 120Hz refresh rate. Look, this feature is something one has to experience. It’s like watching 4K or 8K TV. Once you see it for a few days, you can’t go back to any other format. Same here. The animations look extra fluid, scrolling becomes extra smooth and playing video games becomes, well, extra fun. This one feature spoils the user!

We also liked the powerful stereo speakers, which are way better than those now found on competitive Android phones and also a step up from the Galaxy S10 series. No, the 3.5mm headphone jack is not there but we are not complaining. It’s time to move to wireless options, which can be costly but if you are buying a phone that’s flagship, why not the same for sound. Get the Galaxy Buds+.

The only problem I faced is holding the phone in one hand. It’s a big screen but the Dynamic AMOLED 2X is worth having. In way of process, it’s the latest octa-core option that’s available in the market. It’s faster than most phones out there. Needless to say, it runs Android 10 and Samsung’s custom UI. The phone is responsive and bug-free, thanks to 12GB of RAM. Battery life? With the screen refresh rate set at 120Hz, I still managed to squeeze a day’s worth of use from the 5,000mAh battery.

Verdict

So, here’s a phone for which one is paying quite a bit. Doing justice to the price is an incredible checklist of features, one that the competition would find hard to beat. What the S20 Ultra represents is a shift in strategy and philosophy for Samsung. If flagship is on your mind and your choice is Android, Ultra doesn’t have any competition. In the US, the only option to the iPhone would be the new Galaxy S20 series, especially the Ultra model. It has all the features that one expects in a smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is the superhero of Android smartphones. Period.

The Telegraph