A couple of blogs ago I wrote about not believing all the hype that you have to update your phone every year. Being a tech guy I admit that I was one of those persons who did just that until I realized that major advances don't happen every year.
With that in mind I waited for three new versions of my Samsung phone before deciding to upgrade. The first week of March Samsung released the new S20 series. I did a lot of study and research of early reviews and decided on the S20 Ultra, which I pre-ordered.
The decision for the "top of the line" model was because I'm a photographer and the specs are mind blowing! After using the phone for two weeks I'm just utterly amazed! If you want to take a photo in very high resolution it features 108 megapixels. Unheard of in a smartphone until now. If you purchased a DSLR capable of that the cost would be 40 to 50 thousand dollars! Of course you wouldn't shoot in this mode unless you wanted to print a poster size photo.
The phone features a super wide angle lens, a normal 27mm lens, and a zoom lens that is incredible! Let me show you some examples. We live on a golf course and the houses across the fairway are over 200 yards from our patio. I sat in a chair and took these shots hand held.
The first is a super-wide angle. We are going to get closer and closer to the house just to the right of the palm tree. #2 is a normal 27 mm shot. #3 is 4x zoom. #4 is 10x zoom. It's scary to show you how much further it can zoom! (Click on photos for larger view)
This phone has to be the best one you could own today, if you want to take awesome photos! The iPhone 11 pro is very respectable and takes great photos, but just doesn't have the specs that the Ultra has.
Here are some differences between the two. I'll quote the iPhone first and the Galaxy Ultra second.
Price: $1,199 vs $1,399. Display 6.5 vs 6.9 inches. Rear Cameras: Three lenses, 12 mp primary, 12 mp telephoto & 12 mp ultra wide vs Four lenses, 108 mp primary, 48 mp telephoto, 12 mp ultra wide & 12 mp live focus. Front camera 12 mp vs 40 mp. Video 4K 60 fps vs up to 8K 24 fps. RAM 4 GB vs 12 GB. Storage 64 GB vs 128 GB. Micro SD card none vs Yes, up to 1TB!
This house photo was taken even farther than the others. That is incredible! Yes, the price is ridiculous, but it looks like prices on most phones are going up, up, and up!
Another photo that is very impressive. The Galaxy has a "Night Mode." I took this shot after dark in our back yard using this mode. Of course you could do this with a DSLR, but it would take time to set up the shot with all the different settings. This photo was one click; pure magic. You know it's dark because all the solar lights are on. The night mode is really something special!
Before I sign off, let's go back to the white house and zoom in just a little bit further. You've probably seen Samsung's TV ads that say you can zoom to 100x, but would you believe this one is only 30x? What's the end result? I'm a very happy photo guy with this amazing new Galaxy S20 Ultra phone! Oh, and I didn't mention it also has 5G and an F1.8 aperture!