Performance and Software

Despite hyping it, Samsung doesn’t turn on 120Hz refresh for the screen out of the box. Go to Settings>Display>Motion smoothness and select it from there. Even if you know nothing about what 120Hz means, you will surely notice how much smoother it is. Everything about the Samsung’s One UI Android interface is buttery, and so are apps supporting that refresh rate.

It’s available on both phones and is worth using. The one catch is that it does affect battery life, so you would have to use it and gauge performance from there. To me, though, it’s worth using as much as possible.

The other missing spec is the screen’s resolution. Again, to keep battery life optimal, Samsung chose to have the 2400 x 1080 resolution as the default. You can increase that to 3200 x 1440—basically 2K—but this is one that I think is more subjective. I rarely used it other than for testing because, once selected, it disables the 120Hz refresh. That applies to both of these phones (and the S20 Ultra).

Still, these two phones are unmitigated beasts for performance. The fast chipset and ample RAM make them adept at handing just about anything thrown at them. Whether I was streaming media or editing a photo in Adobe Lightroom, I never once felt like I was wearing them out.

Battery Life
Samsung made positive strides on battery life going back to previous models, and that continues with these two devices. I never really worried about losing power on any given day because they both held up so well. On regular and steady usage, I got hours of video playback, surfing, email, messaging, music streaming and photo-editing, and still had time to spare at bedtime.

These results improved if I turned off 120Hz refresh, but I wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice all the time. If I truly got low, I would just use Battery Saver to cut down notifications and conserve until I could charge again.

Both phones come with a 25W charger in the box, capable of fast charging. You could go from zero to full in roughly one hour, but don’t bother getting a 45W charger because neither of these phones support the speed associated with that level of charge, unlike the S20 Ultra.

Wireless PowerShare is available in case you want to charge another device wirelessly through the back of the phone. It’s not going to fully charge another phone, but it is good for smaller devices, like the Galaxy Buds or Buds+, for instance. Anything that supports Qi wireless charging is compatible.

Camera

Camera performance and results are huge determining factors nowadays, and with good reason. The cameras in high-end phones are powerful, and Samsung has tried to make them resourceful, too. Look at the menu of options and settings in either of these two phones and you’ll see what I mean.

Samsung added a few new modes: Single Take, Pro Video and 8K video. Known for its share of gimmicky features, I actually grew to like Single Take for what it is, which is a fairly dependable way to capture a scene multiple ways at the same time. Its usefulness is limited because it’s largely pointless to do it with a static subject, but with some creativity, it can offer something unique and memorable. For example, if you use it just as a child is blowing out candles on a birthday cake, it will capture the child, the wider scene of friends and family, plus short video clips.

You might think you’re losing something with a 12-megapixel sensor compared to the S20 Ultra, but not necessarily. The S20 Ultra uses pixel-binning, meaning it splits a standard pixel into smaller ones to increase the overall number. The S20 and S20+ don’t do that. Moreover, these two phones have noticeably larger pixels compared to the Galaxy S10 and S10+, making them better suited for low-light and night photography.