and these are 10 things you need to know

about the brand new Galaxy S20.

Number one is a big one, the price.

So the brand new Galaxy S20 starts at $1,000,

and that's for the base model.

So the Galaxy S20 starts at that $1,000 price point.

If you want to go up to the S20 Plus it's $1,200,

although it can go higher

based on if you want more storage

and then to top it all off you have the S20 Ultra at $1,400.

And then it also has a higher end model.

Now to help counteract this

they do actually have the standard S10e, S10,

and S10 Plus from last year still around,

and they are all getting a $150 price cut.

But when you put all this together,

there's certainly nothing wrong with an expensive phone.

I mean the iPhone 11 Pro is a great example of that,

but when we're talking about $1,000 plus

for these new flagships,

they had better bring some serious features.

Thankfully they do, but I mean,

you better be prepared to pay (laughs).

Number two is actually a legitimate feature

that does help justify the price,

and that is the 120 hertz display.

Now by default, all three of the Galaxy S20's

will run at full HD resolution and 60 frames per second,

very much like last year.

However, you do have the option of bumping all of them up

to that full 120 frames per second.

After spending a lot of time

with the OnePlus phones of last year

with their 90 hertz displays,

it does make a big difference.

Now, yes I will completely admit

that going from 90 to 120 frames per second's

probably not gonna be a big deal,

but considering that pretty much everyone

who's going to be upgrading to these S20's

is coming from a a standard 60 frames per second display,

it is so much smoother.

Although, it's not necessarily that straightforward.

The issue is that you can't have your resolution

and your frame rate at the same time.

So all three devices have QHD displays, which look great,

but if you want to run it all full resolution

you have to run it at only 60 frames per second.

The 120 option only exists

when you're running at full high definition.

Now 1080p is not bad on say the S20,

which has actually a fairly nice 6.2 inch display.

Once you jump up to the S20 Plus, and specifically the Ultra

with it's ridiculous 6.9 inch display,

HD just doesn't quite cut it.

It is noticeably softer,

and while I personally love that super smooth

120 frames per second action,

you're actually making a legitimate sacrifice with that.

Now is it something that I will personally do?

Yeah, probably,

but it really shouldn't be the way it is

on a $1,400 phone.

Now if I can just shamelessly plug something for a second.

My brand new podcast went live this morning

called The Test Drivers.

In it we talk a lot more in depth

about the Galaxy S20 as well as lot of the things

such as the screen which are slightly nefarious trade offs.

So it's co-hosted by my good friend Mike Hurley,

and on The Test Drivers, what I really want to do

is go much more in depth than I can

in a 10 minute YouTube video, right?

So the podcast is really there

to not only talk much more in depth about technology,

but also about what it means

to actually daily drive something, right?

'Cause these S20's seems very interesting,

and as you'll see later in the video

there's a lot of really cool features.

But at the end of the day,

it's one thing to do a hands-on

it's another thing to actually spend time

really living with these devices.

So if that sounds interesting to you

or you just want to be a supporter,

please go give The Test Drivers a try.

It's available at the link in the description,

Spotify, Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, wherever,

or you can just go check it out at relay.fm/TheTestDrivers.

Reason number three is 5G.

So well this is technically not new this year

there was an S10 model with 5G last year.

However, it was very limited

and only a few people actually bought it.

However, this time every single Galaxy S20 you can buy

has 5G built in.

Well, technically.

So right now there are a couple of competing 5G standards.

There's one known as Sub-6

as well as there's mmWave.

So Sub-6 is becoming fairly popular

specifically here in the United States thanks to T-Mobile.

So they've actually already turned on their full 5G network

and this is essentially an evolution

of the 4G speeds that we have today.

Coverage is very similar,

and the speeds are better

but say it's the difference between like

40 and 80 megabits per second.

It's good but it's nothing completely revolutionary.

Other carriers such as AT&T and Verizon here in the States

are focusing on their mmWave 5G.

Now this is where you get those crazy speed tests

of a gigabit per second or more,

however it comes with a major downside.

The coverage is incredibly limited.

Like literally, you can walk around a corner

and go from a gigabit down to like nothing with this.

So really the best case scenario for 5G

it to have a phone which supports

both mmWave and Sub-6.

Sort of the best of all words,

and that is what you get

except not on the standard S20.

So the way it breaks down is like this,

the standard Galaxy S20

only supports Sub-6 5G, which is fine,

and it's really enough for most people.

However, when you go up to the S20 Plus

as well as the Ultra,

they support not only Sub-6

but also that mmWave

which means that you can get way, way faster speeds

but in very limited situations.

It's really a future proof play,

but that's I think a legitimately really big selling point

for that new S20 Plus and S20 Ultra.

Really what you're getting here

is something which should look much better into the future,

but you also have to deal with the fact that

well you spend $1,000 you get 5G

but it's not full 5G,

'cause that's not confusing right?

Now with a 120 hertz display and standard 5G

my next favorite point

is a really obvious one, battery life.

So while, yes the S10 had decent battery life,

the S20 bumps it up in a big way.

At least on the battery size of the equation.

So the S20 has a 4000 mAh battery.

The S20 Plus has 4500 mAh.

If you go up to the S20 Ultra it's a thick boy

with 5000 mAh of battery capacity.

Now that sounds really impressive.

It's much better than what we got last year,

but the issue is is that with that power hungry screen,

and a 5G radio inside,

you're probably gonna need that.

So while I haven't had enough time

to actually do any kind of real battery life tests,

I will be surprised if the battery life

is actually anything all that impressive.

I really do feel like these bigger batteries

are probably purely there just to power

all these new features,

but we'll have to wait and see on that one.

That said though,

I'm glad they at least decided to increase the battery size

and not just throw these fancy new things at you and go,

"Oh yeah, charge it in three hours."

Ah, what a beautiful fountain

to go onto our number five point, the zoom.

So cameras of course are a huge component

of every modern smartphone.

When it comes to the S20 things get a lot closer,

a lot more zoomed, we're zooming in on the truth.

So the standard S20 as well as the S20 Plus

have a three times telephoto zoom

which is much better than the two times of last year.

However, what really takes the cake is the S20 Ultra,

with a massive 10 times optical zoom.

Yes, 10 times.

That's a lot of times.

Now funnily enough,

Samsung actually claims this to be 100 times space zoom

on the back of the camera.

Now this is a slight exaggeration,

as to get to 100 times zoom

they're making a combination of that 10 times optical zoom

as well as a lot of digital zoom.

It's not exactly as great as it sounds.

However, you can get some super, super tight shots with it.

Now unfortunately, I can't actually show you

any of these shots

because the phone I was testing

was using pre-released software

so I can't actually pull any images off of it.

The results were good,

certainly not as good as a full 100 times zoom camera,

but this is hands down

as far as like standard flagships of today

the best looking zoom lens I've ever seen.

A big reason for that is actually because

they flip the entire thing on its side.

So when you look at this zoom camera,

it's actually looking through a prism

so the camera lens is actually sideways in the phone.

This actually has some other sort of effects

that I'll talk about a little bit later.

But essentially what you're getting here

is a zoom which is pretty much unmatched by any iPhone

or Pixel, or LG,

or Asus, or wait no Asus actually has the Zenfone Zoom.

It's a really good zoom.

Number six is a big one.

It is 8K video

which Is standard across the board for the S20.

Now there's actually something really impressive about this.

While yes it is certainly not as good

as the 8K video that you would get on say a Red camera,

but what it is is a major step up

at least in actual real pixels.

When you consider that 4K is eight megapixels

and 8K is 33 megapixels

that is a lot of data to process on a phone video camera.

Now there are some limitations.

So the 8K video only records

at a maximum of 24 frames per second,

which is the correct frame rate anyway

but that is a little bit of a downside for some people.

But I think the bigger downside

is the fact that you can only record on certain cameras,

because you'd have to have enough megapixels

to do it in the first place.

So, on the S20 and the S20 Plus,

you have to use the three times optical zoom lens,

the telephoto camera to actually be able to record

since those are the only cameras

with more than 33 megapixels.

That's fine, although honestly it's a little bit

of a major downside

just because when you're trying to record 8K video

you are very, very zoomed in.

However, when you go up to the S20 Ultra

the main wide-angle camera has a ridiculous 108 megapixels

and I'll talk about that in a second.

But you can use that main wide-angle camera

to record 8K video,

which personally I think looks a lot better.

The downside here though

is that when it comes to recording 8K video,

you really have major limitations.