Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, BIG numbers!
I get a chance to test out the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, a device that is at the peak of Samsung smartphone game. Samsung throw everything they've got into a single device, everything packed into this candy bar shape smartphone is the best of what Samsung can offer now.
As usual, I'm interested in the camera system. Sitting at the back of the phone is a big camera module which consist of 12MP Ultra Wide Camera, 108MP Wide-angle Camera, 48MP Telephoto Camera and also DepthVision Camera that assist with depth sensing of a scene. What is more interesting to me is Samsung have packed the largest sensor they have ever put into a smartphone this time. If you imagine the photodiode of the sensor to be buckets and lights to be water, the bigger bucket the more water it can collect at a given time. More informations collected leads to cleaner and higher dynamic range.
I'm going to touch on features that I felt will be useful to photographers like me, that is 108MP resolution, "Night" mode and amazing display.
Capture what you see
The first time I start up my S20 Ultra 5G, I immediately notice the difference in quality of the display. It's really stunning to see in person and is way ahead of anything I've ever seen. Samsung have been at the forefront in display technology and it's not hard to see why.
Colour accuracy and display luminance is important to me as I want to be able to see exactly what I am capturing and If I want to edit on my phone I can trust the output is as accurate as possible. S20 Ultra 5G deliver both in high standard and makes my workflow easier to photograph with a smartphone.
108MP, Big numbers
We are back to the megapixel war again... but this time I think we are given pixels that are much useful. Coupled with AI that Samsung develops, what we are getting is a more cleaner and usable high megapixel image with a smaller sensor.
To give you an idea, this photo below is a 6.6MP photo that is cropped from a 108MP photo shown on the next one. Try to do that to a regular 12MP photos from any smartphone is it's just quite impossible to get such details.
Not every photographer crop their photo to this level but to have this amount of details to start off with is really an advantage during post process.
Night mode, more latitude
Another feature that I really find it useful is "Night" mode. The concept is similar to other smartphone manufactures that used to produce a cleaner image in low-light photography. But for S20 Ultra 5G, there seems to be more latitude for post process. My guess is due to that physically larger sensor that lets in more light. In fact, it is 2.9X bigger than Galaxy S10, which is quite a big jump.
Conclusion
Samsung doesn't hold back when it come to Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, especially in the camera department. They have really push the boundaries when it comes to the limitations with smartphone camera by combining bigger sensor size with smart AI.
Samsung Galaxy S20 series which includes: Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G will launch on 6 March 2020 in Singapore, you can pre order here now.