Samsung will finally match Apple with the Galaxy S20 Ultra build materials
Galaxy S20 Ultra render
By choosing not to follow up on last year’s Galaxy S10e with a flat-screened and “affordable” member of the fast-approaching Galaxy S20 family, Samsung risked making it even harder for consumers to distinguish between three exceedingly similar high-end phones.
Let’s hope Samsung delivers the goods this time around
The Note 10+ comes with an aluminum frame and glass back
That was obviously not the case, and Samsung quickly edited its advertising copy, replacing “high-polish stainless steel” with “high-polish metal.” Steel is not technically a metal, but an alloy of iron and carbon, while stainless steel is rarely used on smartphones. Instead, most handset manufacturers nowadays combine glass with aluminum, which is a metal often used in its own combination with various other metals, creating pretty strong alloys.
Galaxy S20 Ultra vs S20 Plus – all the differences rumored so far
Because stainless steel is heavier than aluminum, the S20 Ultra is tipped to weigh in at 221 grams vs. 188 grams for the S20+, 175 grams for the S10+, and 196 grams for the Note 10+. But if you also consider the massive 6.9-inch display of the S20 Ultra (compared to the 6.7-inch S20+) and its gargantuan 5,000mAh battery (compared to 4,500mAh capacity for the S20+ cell), that number almost starts to feel small. Especially when the 6.5-inch iPhone 11 Pro Max tips the scales at 226 grams in a similar stainless-steel-and-glass combo.
Still, the main thing expected to make the Galaxy S20 Ultra stand out from its siblings is an absolutely bonkers rear-facing camera system comprised of a 108MP main shooter, a 48MP telephoto sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and a pair of Time-of-Flight sensors enabling neat 3D effects and advanced AR experiences. The 40MP single selfie snapper of the S20 Ultra also sounds pretty exciting, compared to the same old 10MP front-facing camera on the other two S20 variants as on 2019’s Note 10 and S10-series devices.
What we don’t know just yet is whether or not Samsung also has a ceramic version of any of its S20-series phones in the pipeline. The S10+, remember, comes in Ceramic Black and Ceramic White flavors in addition to white, black, blue, and pink glass models, but two special editions with two special build materials is probably a little too much to ask for just one flagship generation.