Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Review

The first Ultra was Samsung deciding the top of the line should cost $1,399.99 and be judged on its camera, then shipping a camera that hunted. The 108 megapixel HM1 sensor relied on phase detection alone, with no dual pixel and no laser assist, so it lost focus on anything closer than arm's length, faces included, and months of firmware improved it without fixing it; the laser autofocus on the S21 Ultra a year later was the admission.

The 100x Space Zoom, a 48 megapixel 4x periscope cropped and upscaled, made a good demo and a smeared photograph. The 40 megapixel selfie camera and 8K video were headline specs nobody needed. And yet the phone underneath was strong: the 6.9-inch QHD+ panel at 120Hz was the best screen of 2020, though you could not have both at once and the 120Hz mode brought a green tint at low brightness that took updates to tame; the 5000 mAh battery lasted a comfortable day on the Snapdragon 865.

Outside the US, buyers got the Exynos 990, which throttled harder, ran hotter and gave an hour or two less screen time, and that year's petition demanding Samsung stop selling Exynos phones drew tens of thousands of signatures. Some units cracked their rear camera glass on their own, and Samsung replaced them. Support was decent: Android 11, 12 and 13, with four years of patches. The S20 Ultra is where the Ultra name began, and it is the one Samsung had to live down.