Source: Andrew Martonik / Android Central

I'm old enough to remember when the four-figure smartphone was an anomaly, back in the heady days of the Galaxy Note 9. Now, at the high end, it's increasingly the norm. Look no further than the $1,400 Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, with its comma-wielding asking price, for a curious case study on the sky-high expectations for such a device. As reviews — including our own — have started to trickle out over the past few days, a consensus has started to emerge: the S20 Ultra is a great phone which nowhere near justifies its exorbitant price tag. When your starting price is so much higher than everyone else, your product needs to be damn near perfect. And the Galaxy S20 Ultra — again, while great — is not perfect. There are obvious flaws that the customer, nearly a grand and a half lighter for their S20 Ultra purchase, should not expect to see. Get protected with deals from ExpressVPN, PureVPN, Surfshark & more

Source: Andrew Martonik / Android Central

Outside of being an absolute unit of a phone, weighing in at 220 grams, it boasts a 120Hz display that you probably won't want to crank up to its full refresh rate because of its tendency to devour the phone's battery. Even at the standard 60Hz refresh rate, this 5G phone with a 5,000mAh battery delivers nowhere near the battery life of 4G phones from last year with lesser cells. That's to say nothing of the dubious value of 5G connectivity in general in many parts of the U.S. and other countries, the cost of that being baked into the Ultra's price tag. Other issues? The fingerprint scanner is no better than last year's model, which was one of the weaker biometric systems of its generation. (This, of course, is something you notice every time you pick up your phone through what might turn out to be years of ownership.) And to top it off, the Ultra's headline feature, its 108MP main camera, has its own issues. Autofocus is wonky, and our own Andrew Martonik has discovered issues with the steady video recording feature.

When you're being charged laptop money for a smartphone, it's not unreasonable to expect excellence.

Samsung is already promising a camera patch in future, acknowledging the issues reviewers have identified in recent days. But the phone itself is launching next week; early S20 Ultra adopters will likely face the same issues as reviewers — at least in the short term. Some, including Android Police's David Ruddock, have argued that the S20 Ultra is simply too much phone — that it's collapsed under the weight of Samsung's ambition. It's an understandable point of view, though let's also remember this is the manufacturer of not one but two very expensive and ambitious foldable phones.

Source: Androidcentral.com

Powered by NewsAPI.org