Samsung’s new flagship, the Galaxy S20 Ultra, is here—and if you’re wondering what happened
to the S11 through S19, well, isn’t it obvious?
This phone ate them.
It’s... a monster, with a camera bump to match.
Inside that camera bump you’ve got a 108-megapixel sensor, and another camera with a hundred
ex zoom, which is pretty useful...
I guess.
All the hardware specs are insane, but our favorite has to be this screen with its 120
Hz refresh rate.
Here it is next to the iPhone 11 Pro Max, slowed down to about one-fifth speed.
Additionally you’ve got an advertised five thousand milliamp-hour battery, and...you
know what, we’re not convinced all of these features can physically fit in here.
Let’s take it apart, just to make sure.
A giant phone like this requires giant tools: we start with hefty helpings of heat from
our heat gun and some power lifting from our Heavy Duty Suction Cup.
The adhesive holding this back cover down feels slightly more difficult to remove than
recent galaxy phones, but it looks about the same, so it’s probably just our minds playing
tricks on us.
The giant Mahi driver from our Manta kit will help us remove all the screws holding the
antenna and metal shield in place, however may need a better view to see it happen.
Frustratingly, some of these screws are in wells, making them a little tricky to dig
out once they are unscrewed.
We disconnect and lift up the wireless charging coil to remove one last screw and the antenna/shield
combo lifts free.
Next we peel back the rest of that wireless charging coil and get our first clear view
of how this thing is put together.
It looks… pretty much just like a Note10+5G, minus the stylus.
Instead you get a lot more battery.
We pop out the lower frame and speaker just because it’s there and then we tackle the
giant motherboard.
This stacked motherboard is a monster!
It’s thick and home to not only the giant camera assembly but also this 5G millimeter-wave
antenna, resting on its own little heat sink.
The camera assembly features a 48MP Telephoto Camera, a 12MP Ultra Wide Camera and the monster
108MP Wide-angle Camera which has a sensor about double the surface area of the iPhone
11 Pro/Max’s primary 12 MP wide-angle sensor.
There's one other item of interest found in the camera assembly, this light bending periscope
. At one end is a prism with its own optical image stabilization, which redirects the image
90-degrees through this sliding 4x zoom lens.
That combined with some sensor cropping and digital zoom gets you to 100x magnification.
It’s pretty unusual hardware for a smartphone, allowing for true optical zoom at the expense
of a little extra interior space.
As usual with Samsung phones, the battery is cemented in place, and once again alcohol
is the solution to all our problems.
Well alcohol and a little patience.
The alcohol softens the adhesive and constant pressure from our heavy duty suction cup allows
us to remove this ultra large battery.
This thing packs in 19.30 Wh and is a huge increase in capacity over its contemporaries
like the iPhone 11 Pro Max which is 15.04 Wh, and the Galaxy Note 10+ 5G which is 16.56
Wh.
We spot two more millimeter-wave antennas along the edges of the S20 Ultras frame and
with those removed we’re left with the display.
For the most part we hate removing Samsung displays.
They’re fused on tight, time-consuming and precarious to pry off, but maybe this display
is different?
No, it’s not.
This 6.9" AMOLED Display may have a super fast refresh rate, but it’s still painfully
slow to replace if you crack your screen.
For all the amazing advances in this phone, about the only thing Samsung didn’t level
up is the repairability: we’re scoring it a 3/10, which is pretty average by Galactic
standards.
Samsung has the means to do better here, but they’ve stuck with the same glued-together
design that’s frustrating to open and makes basic screen and battery repairs frustratingly
difficult.
The S20 Ultra is not without some positive points though: you’ll only need a single
screwdriver, and unlike S10 models, the charging port isn’t soldered to the main board.
If you could repair the last Samsung phone, you’ll be able to fix this one.