Review: Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus

Is the phone worth its hefty price tag? Khalid Anzar has the answer.

The line-up from Samsung has two upgrades, the S20 and the S20 Plus, and a completely new premium device, the S20 Ultra.

We reviewed the Galaxy S20 Plus to see if the phone is worth its hefty price tag.

Design: 4/5

The new Galaxy S20 Plus looks similar to previous flagships from Samsung.

It has a glass-metal build with Gorilla Glass protection on the front and back.

Though minimalistic, the design is premium and does not compromise on the phone's ergonomics.

It's one of the few big screen smartphones that can be operated comfortably with one hand.

The placement of buttons has also been rejigged to improve accessibility.

The dedicated Bixby (voice assistant) button on the left has been removed and the power key on the right doubles up as the Bixby key.

The volume rocker has been moved to the right, too.

Having all essential buttons on one side makes it easier to use the phone with one hand.

Display: 5/5

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus sports a 6.7-inch punch-hole (Infinity-O) screen of QHD+ (3,200 x 1,440 pixels) resolution.

The screen covers the entire front, leaving negligible bezels around it.

Even the most prominent bottom bezel is slimmer.

The curved screen -- a common feature in Samsung's premium smartphones -- looks almost flat from the front and is better designed this time around to reduce accidental touches.

Last year's AMOLED display has been upgraded to Dynamic AMOLED 2X with a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support.

While an enhanced refresh rate makes the user interface smooth and more responsive, it is limited to operate only at fullHD+ resolution.

Not all apps and games support the enhanced refresh rate at the moment and the screen dynamically switches to conventional 60Hz.

Camera: 4/5

The rear camera module on the S20 Plus gets a major bump in terms of features, optics and capabilities.

The phone sports a quad-camera module featuring a 12-megapixel primary sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide sensor, a 64MP telephoto lens and a depth sensor.

On the front, the phone has a 10MP sensor.

The primary rear sensor takes detailed shots with excellent dynamic range, good highlights and shadow details.

The telephoto lens allows up to 3x optical zoom and up to 30x digital zoom, a first in Samsung smartphones.

However, anything captured beyond 3x zoom sees deterioration in quality.

To utilise all the available optics and their value-added features at once, Samsung has added a new mode called 'Single Take'.

In this mode, the camera captures frames in multiple formats and shows them at one place.

It's very useful.

The S20 Plus supports 8K video recording and the phone's ability to pull out a 33MP image from the 8K recorded footage is a welcome addition.

The selfie camera is above average and supports night mode for low light photos that can turn out pretty well.

Performance: 5/5

Powered by Exynos 990 system-on-chip (SoC) paired with 8GB RAM, the phone is a consistent performer that handles most tasks with ease -- processor or graphic-intensive.

Samsung's updated OneUI 2.0 user interface based on Android 10 is one of the best custom skins available on any smartphone.

While the performance and user experience is top-notch, the phone's 128GB internal storage is underwhelming, considering its 8K video recording capability eats up storage space quite quickly.

However, the phone does have a dedicated microSD slot for storage expansion.

The phone's 25W fast charger takes the battery from zero to 100 per cent in little less than two hours.

It also supports both fast and reverse wireless charging.

On moderate to heavy use, expect the phone to last a full day with fullHD+ resolution and nine to 11 hours with QHD+ resolution.

Verdict: 4.5/5

At Rs 73,999, the Galaxy S20 Plus costs as much as the launch price of its predecessor, the Galaxy S10 Plus.

By bringing several major upgrades and keeping the price unchanged, Samsung has made the Galaxy 20 Plus a premium smartphone worth its price.

There isn't a thing missing in this package.