Motorola One Fusion + Android Smartphone Review

Introduction

The Motorola One Fusion + looks like a lovely phone with a rich feature set. One Fusion + is Moto's second phone with a flawless screen thanks to a pop-up selfie, and is trying to give a big bang for its € 299 price. Its HDR10 screen, uninterrupted at the time, is perfect for movies and games. Then there is the powerful Snapdragon 730 chip - one of the best options for the midrange category.

There is more. Fusion + packs a quad-standard camera on its back - standard, ultrawide, macro, and depth - but offers a variety of shooting options, including Night Vision.

Then there is the huge 5,000 mAh battery which should last at least two days by Moto rating. We'll see about this a little bit, you bet.

One Fusion + clean boots OS 10 clean, but not part of the Android One distribution. It's the purest version of Google with a host of unknown Moto add-ons here and there, including dedicated Mode and a standby screen.

Motorola One Fusion + Specs

Body: 162.9x76.4x9.6mm, 210g; Gorilla Glass front, plastic frame and back. Splash resistant.

Screen: 6.5 inches LCD, 1080x2340px resolutions, 19.5: 9 aspect ratio, 385ppi; no cutout, HDR10.

Chipset: Snapdragon 730 (8nm): Octa-core CPU (2x2.2 GHz Kryo 470 Gold & 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 470 Silver); Adreno 618 GPU.

Memory: 6GB of RAM, built-in UFS 2.1 storage, (shared) microSD slot.

OS / Software: Android 10.

Rear Camera: Wide (large): 64MP, Quad-Bayer, 1 / 1.72 "sensor, 0.8 pixel size, m, 26mm in diameter. , PDAF.

Ultrawide: 8MP, 1 / 4.0 ", 1.12µm, 13mm, f / 2.2, AF. Macro: 5MP, f / 2.2. Depth: 2MP, f / 2.2. Video recording: up to 2160p / 30fps.

Front camera: 16MP, Quad-Bayer, f / 2.0, 1.0µm, fixed focus. 1080p / 30fps video recording.

Battery: 5,000mAh, 15W cable charging support.

Misc: Fingerprint reader; FM radio; 3.5mm headphone jack.

Like many other Motorola budget phones, it also packs this waterproof nano-coating, which provides a basic ban on cheating between the phone's cast and its ports. This is far from water and is like peace of mind, but it can save your Moto once or twice in an accident. And we can all do it inevitably. And in case you were wondering about the typical One Fusion model - you probably never heard of it. The standard (and cheaper) version is limited to Latin America and the Middle East, and Motorola has not participated in any of the wide-release plans. 

Design, Making, Operating

The Motorola One Fusion + is a well-designed phone with invisible paint and a screen with no holes. As it is a budget device a few cuts have to be made along the way, but it is all together in the end. The front is entirely Gorilla Glass, and the rear is a single plastic one. Of course, there is no standing frame, the back panel covers both sides of the fence and its back. We have the Twilight Blue version in that it has two different shades of dark blue mix, and an S-like surface texture below.

Unfortunately, while all these layers of paint and plastic look good, the back is a digital fingerprint, and everything will deteriorate very quickly. The combined case is helpful, even if it removes the cool look. It is a difficult decision. So, the star of the show is definitely a 6.5 ′ ′ screen, named after Total Vision. It is the second Moto image so far with a free design and the name really deserves it.

The selfie camera is housed in a pop-up module with engines on top of Fusion + so there was no need for a pixel pile.

The good news is that this is really the best way to get a more focused viewing experience. But if you’re expecting a screen below the bezel, you might be disappointed - One Fusion + has a noticeably large chin under the display. Low-density bezels are common in the midrange, especially when the panel is a single LCD as it can be as small as OLED and requires more space, while its driver is often hidden under a pointed chin.

However, for the € 299 phone, this is probably the most premium screen you can get with high resolution, HDR10 support, and cutting that, so we welcome that bezel. In fact, we think it would be better to have it when using the phone with one hand. The pop-up module is the same as all the other add-ons we have come across - with the engine and you can hear the underlying equipment as it goes up or down.

It has a 16MP Quad-Bayer selfie camera and nothing more. Module pops only when needed and installed fall detection and appears automatically if you get One Fusion + free-kick.

There is one very small earring at the top of the screen, which is almost invisible. Unfortunately, Motorola has chosen not to include the LED notification light in Fusion +. As we mentioned above, the phone has about 1cm sides, but the outer frame is part of the back panel - something we used to like to be empty in the past.

Good touch, even if done as part of a cost cut. On the sides of the panel, you will find all the buttons, a 3.5mm jack and a USB-C port, there is also a hybrid-SIM tray at the top, and a speaker at the bottom. Fusion + puts Google's Computer Assistant key over its volume and does just that - pleads Helper. We were unable to enable its operation. The plastic One of the Motorola One Fusion + is beautiful, there are no two ways to it. The two blue hues change gracefully, and the subtle texture made by S looks really nice nearby. If you want to keep this beauty, regular cleaning should be like a fingerprint of love and an overdose.

The quad-camera shows just a little bit and is made in the form of a 3 + 1. A single-LED flash is all around us, too. One Fusion + has its own back scanner and the Moto logo is painted all over. It is always of the same type and works seamlessly.

The Motorola One Fusion + measures 162.9 x 76.4 x 9.6 mm and weighs 210g. That’s not a sleek, or light 6.5-inches, but what we would expect from a phone with a large 5,000mAh battery. And when we used it we felt it was strong, but not shorter or softer than expected. The Motorola One Fusion + felt hand in hand, guilty or not, safe and strong, and we loved the time we spent with Motor. It is a highly constructed wire and its non-slip water retention adds an extra dimension to its shape. It’s a great call, and if you have a good heart with that, you’ll love it as easy as we did. 

Layout

The Motorola One Fusion + packs an IPS LCD 6.5 ′ ′ screen in 1080p with 20: 9 features. The panel has no cutouts or anything, and is protected by a Gorilla Glass clip, an unspecified update. The Total Vision screen, as Motorola calls it, is 396ppi sharp. It supports HDR10 and thanks to Widevine L1 DRM, you will be able to enjoy high-quality HDR10 content from Netflix and popular. We measured maximum brightness when 454 nits in manual mode, and 562 nits in auto mode. That’s almost in the middle of the LCD, and we’ve seen the panels brighter. Still, we had no problems even on very light days.

The dark levels of the One Fusion + screen come out well, and, and generally, the panel offers an excellent measurement of about 1400: 1. The minimum light to the left of the bar is 6.2 nits - good. Colour reproduction is always good in One Fusion +. Saturday's default mode has a DeltaE rating of 4.3 compared to the DCI-P3 limits, and we naturally rated DeltaE 2.0 directly in terms of sRGB. 

Battery Life and Charging

The Motorola One Fusion + puts a massive 5,000 mAh battery, which should last more than two days for normal use according to Motorola claims. The phone supports TurboPower fast charging and the 18W charger supplied also includes about 30% of lost battery in 30mins. Note that Motorola claims that the phone is charging at 15W, which means that the adapter you receive comes in excess to get the job done.

Unexpectedly, the One Fusion + turned out to be the best maker in our battery test with an endurance rating of 136 hours. It did a great job in all the tested situations - video, calls, web browsing and stand-alone functionality. 

Speaker Test

The Motorola One Fusion + has a single speaker that shoots down the fence. Don't cry too much, and get 'Good' points from our test. One Fusion + also offers equal audio output with a good presentation of bass, mids, and highs. 

Audio Output Quality

The Motorola One Fusion + has excellent audio quality. 

Android 10 with my UX

Motorola has gained a lot from Android stocks on its smartphones, even those that are not part of the Android One app - like the One Fusion + here. However, there is a wide range of custom features that are well integrated into the Moto App. Car Actions is a smartphone communication system - including a karate chop for turning on or off, twisting to move the camera app, action of fingerprint sound, accelerometer silencing accelerometer.

The Moto Display has one-way single in One Fusion + - Peek Display - a non-existent display. It will display notifications and allow you to interact with them right there on the lock screen and will alert you when you select your phone. The directional display, a feature found on some Car phones, is not in Fusion + because the selfies camera is hidden and cannot track your face all the time.

There is a new custom feature that lets you customize the look and feel of your Moto. You can play the size and shape of the icons on the home screen, change the system font, and choose a colour to highlight quick toggles. Moto Game Time is a set of company mobile game development tools. Allows you to filter calls and notifications, block Fire Actions, performance section allows you to turn off active brightness. The floating game floating icon in Toolkit gives you instant toggles for calls and notifications, access to your choice of dual messaging apps and access to full game time settings.

The Motorola One Fusion + relies on touch detection with one long long button in the middle. Swipe upwards to take you to the home screen, the edge swipe pops up the latest apps menu, with a tablet swipe (left or right) to switch between last used apps. If you want Back, just swipe anywhere from the edge of the screen. If, on the other hand, you want to have three ancient button navigation, you switch to it from the settings. All this aside, the rest is as good as Android 10 as Google intended it to be. The Motorola One Fusion + also supports FM radio and there is a pre-installed app for that. You don’t see it every day, not least. 

Performance and Benchmarks

The Motorola One Fusion + is powered by the Snapdragon 730 chip - one of the most popular midrange platforms from Qualcomm. The Indian version of Fusion + works on the Snapdragon 730G chip, which has a slightly different GPU clock but in a different way - similar to the 730.

Both 730 and 730G CPUs are the same - octa-core processors with two Kryo 470 Gold (Cortex-A76) processors built at 2.2 GHz, and six Kryo 470 silver (Cortex-A55), operating at 1.8 GHz. They are all built-in an 8nm LPP area and that is why the power works so well.

Both chips also have the same Adreno 618 GPU. But one in the 730G clock is 75 MHz higher and stays at 575 MHz. This is the only difference between the two groups.

One Fusion + is sold in only one setting with 6GB RAM and 128GB UFS2.1 storage. We had a few benches, and the CPU moulded it as a very good player. The Kirin 810 processor is more powerful, but it's only available on the smallest Google phone now. The Snapdragon 720G counts the higher part, but has a higher clock speed (2.2GHz vs 2.3GHz). The same thing applies with graphics - Huawei beats it all, but Google is stepping in. After that the Adreno 618 inside the Snapdragon 720G (Redmi Note 9 Pro) is a bit better than the Adreno 616 as part of the Moto's S730 chip. 

However, GPU performance is sufficient in the classroom. Throwing all the ingredients together in Antutu, One Fusion + is in line for Realme 6 Pro and Redmi K30. Once again, Huawei's Kirin 810 proves to be superior, while the S720G-powered Redmi Note 9 Pro offers fire with fodder.

The Motorola One Fusion + offers many bangs for its attractive price and shows solid numbers every time it tests, no matter the functions. In the end, the sharpest challenge - to play - doesn't just happen in Fusion +, but it's a good thing. 

Quad Camera with Macro and Deep Snappers 

The Motorola One Fusion + has a quad-rear camera with three snappers and 2MP deep sensors. There is a 64MP main scanner, an 8MP ultrawide spray, and a 5MP macro image. One LED flash is nearby, if you need it. The main camera uses a 64MP Samsung ISOCELL Plus GW1 1 / 1.72 "sensor with 0.8µm pixels and f / 1.8. The autofocus detection section is supported.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Samsung ISOCELL S5K4H4 1 / 4.0 "sensor with 1.12µm pixels behind the f / 2.2 lens. Focus is optimized. with 1.12µm pixels. Supports autofocus between 4cm and 10cm. This camera can capture 720p videos. The deep camera has a 2MP OmniVision OV2180 sensor. The pop-up selfie camera offers a 16MP OmniVision OV16A1Q 1 / 3.06 "sensor with 1.0µm pixels and a Quad-Bayer filter. Bayer module, selfie cam takes 4MP photos automatically, but this one can be set to 16MP shooting output if necessary.

Motorola has been installing its own custom Camera program on the best-selling Android software, and so has One Fusion + as well. It is straightforward and works with a swipe action switch between stills, video, and enhanced modes (tapping on thumbnails also works). A quick set of settings is available in HDR viewer (Auto / On / Off), Flash modes (Auto / Off), self-timer (Off / 3s / 10s) and active photos (Auto / On / Off). There is also a shortcut in the settings menu in the view. Night Vision Camera and Macro camera can be found within the Modes selection. Manual mode is accessible from other changes in the viewing screen - not additional modes. Allows you to drive on your ISO (100-3200), shutter speed (1 / 6000s-1 / 3s), or exposure compensation (2EV to + 2EV to 1 / 3EV and 0.5EV upside), and selecting a white balance with a light temperature (marking normal types of light), and you can manually change the direction - all is normal. 

Image Quality

The main camera saves 16MP automatically and the one we took during the day went well, especially at this budget stage. The pictures have a very nice contrast and a strong range, and are true with the colours of life. No visible noise. Sharpening is one of the most aggressive choices we can make, but it does not harm the overall quality. We shot pictures with Auto HDR as intended by Motorola. And it causes all the time during the day. It tightens the strongest range, too - it also removes noise. There may be several loss of detail due to HDR, but it is not visible, and we suggest leaving the HDR setting to Auto. There is a high resolution of 64MP and it does a very good job. 64MP images look like a real auction with special details, great contrast and colours. They can’t be achieved with Auto HDR, so their range is huge not as great as the default images. Note that shooting at 64MP takes a few seconds and one image weighs about 30MB.

The Fusion + has an 8MP ultrawide camera and its images increase by 16MP when stored. And they are far from good - the details are very bad. The images fit perfectly inside because of the 13mm lens, their contrast and colours are very good, as there is a strong width, but these images will not go further.

The 5MP macro cam has a dedicated shooting mode, and is very focused on the themes. The photos don’t go over in detail or separately, but they’re great. We offer Motorola points to make macro mode easier by giving this camera autofocus capabilities - a few donors.

2MP depth sensor comes in handy when shooting graphics. 16MP graphics taken with a large camera go well - lots of detail, great contrast, and subject separation is enough for this class. Mental-blurring looks good, too. If Auto HDR decides not to rip, you will get images that are not very good. We recommend leaving Auto HDR on a regular basis - as intended by Motorola.

Night Vision is available on the One Fusion + main camera and does a great job of making the night image brighter, colourful and contrasting. It comes with a lot of detail in the most beautiful images and shadows, and makes for a picture of a blossoming night, with a twist of certain details and sharp. Ultrawide photography is no worse than any other similar night camera, but the up to 16MP makes them look bad. You can see what's in the pictures, either 16MP or 8MP. We doubt that anyone will be using this camera under extreme conditions. 

Selfies

The Motorola One Fusion + selfie camera is in the pop-up module with the engine and pops up every time you switch to selfie mode. The snapper has a 16MP Quad-Bayer shooter behind the f / 2.2 lens centred lens. It saves 4MP photos automatically, as it should, but if you want - you can set it to save 16MP enhanced images instead. 4MP images display beautiful details, colours and contrast. Powerful distance is limited, but Auto HDR helps to extend that much. Photos are possible with a selfie camera and are not bad - subject separation is not perfect but mask algorithm is blurred and the results are acceptable. We've seen the best, but we've also seen the worst. 

Video Recording

The Motorola One Fusion + records 4K @ 30fps videos and 1080p @ 30 / 60fps videos with its main camera, while the ultrawide and macro snappers are limited to 1080p @ 30fps clips. 4K exposure from the main camera has good resolution details, even if we were expecting more of the video embedded at 50Mbps video bitrate. The colours are well filled and the contrast is good. A strong distance can be they were high, but not bad either. 1080p clips shot at 30fps are great across the board - details, contrast, colours. They are not excessively sharp, while the dynamic range is limited.

After that Full HD videos at 60fps from the main camera are not very poor in detail and the processing tries to hide this with excessive pressure. You should stay away from this mode. The 1080p clips from the ultrawide camera are very soft, but otherwise very good. You can use electronic stabilization in any camera and in any mode, or it could only work in 1080p @ 30fps mode on the main camera. Maybe a software update will fix that. 

Wind-up

The Motorola One Fusion + joins a wide range of attractive budget offerings. A mid-range phone, with some high-tier components, and yet - one is quite cheap. Really, it provides your big belt and you won’t be disappointed in the event you get it. 

One Fusion + has a lot to offer - the HDR10 notch screen is still a plethora of visuals, and many will love it just because maybe not for romantic lovers, but still. Then there are its snappy hardware and a large battery that will allow for long playing sessions, or days of normal use.

The camera was amazingly beautiful, day and night, and it works in many ways enough to compel you to take creative photos. The ultrawide camera needs some upgrades and you definitely hope Motorola will get it out in the end.

Lastly, a clean and fast Android 10 with Moto enhancements will be a delight to use for Android cleaners. Renewals are often done on Moto phones, so that's another bonus. Of course, there are a lot of cool offers, so let’s take a look at a few.

Alternatives

The Motorola One Fusion + costs € 299 in Europe and comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. Realme sells 8GB + 128GB Realme 6 for the same price and its exciting offers with a 90Hz screen, the same input power, and the same quad-camera. The Realme 6 beats the Moto with a larger upgrade rate, faster charging, and a better ultrawide camera, but the One Fusion + has a free HDR10 screen, better battery life, and a bigger speaker.

Then there is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro. Its 6GB + 128GB model is cheap at around € 40 per Moto, while compatible with Moto’s speed and camera capabilities, its screen has punch-holes and its MIUI is anti-vanilla Android. If you are OLEDs, then the Samsung Galaxy A51 is a good alternative. It has a 6.5 inches Super AMOLED with a small punch-hole, great playback capabilities and a uniform camera design. Its battery life is very low, but there is no water protection, and the screen does not support HDR10.

Finally, if you can travel without Google services, the Huawei P40 Lite would be a good choice. The Kirin 810 is a medium-sized and excellent gaming console, its quad-camera camera for the same setting is good in quality, and the battery life and charging speed are unique. The good news is that the P40 Lite is about € 100 cheaper than the moto. It remains to be seen if that is how important Google stuff is to you.

The Decision

The Motorola One Fusion + is among the best phones you can buy cheap. It has an excellent immersive screen, excellent game performance on the go, smart camera flexibility, and amazing battery autonomy. That’s why it’s really easy with One Fusion +. If your budget is around € 300, it should be at the top of your shortlist.

Advantage

Large HDR10 flawless screen with excellent contrast

High battery life

A dehydrated body

Skilled equipment suitable for sports on the go

Vanilla Android 10 with nice Fire tricks

Good image quality day and night with a great camera

Beautiful photos, macro, selfies

FM radio, MicroSD slot, 3.5mm jack. 

Dis-advantage

The ultrawide camera requires some work

The video capture is like this

No NFC

Using a selfie camera with its own questions - it is slow and there are concerns about trust over time but we think it should be good

Vivo X50 Pro Plus Android Smartphone Review

Vivo X50 Pro Plus Review

The Vivo X50 Pro Plus is the high-rise end from the X50 series.

Vivo

Chinese phone maker Vivo recently unveiled its X50 series, marking the official launch of its first international citizenship this year. Vivo, one of the top 10 phone manufacturers by sharing the market despite the unknown in the West, advertises its latest phone as "professional photography." Introducing the gimbal camera system in the series, which is being sold outside of China for the first time.

There are three phones on the list, the X50, X50 Pro and X50 Pro Plus. The X50 Pro has a cutting processor that contains Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 (as seen on the Galaxy S20, among others), while the X50 and Pro both have Snapdragon 765G CPUs. But while the X50 Pro has a slower processor, it also has a gimbal. Vivo has said it has chosen to add a gimbal to the Pro, rather than the more expensive Pro Plus, to make the feature more accessible.

The company claims that the X50 Pro system has a 300% increase in the performance of traditional robust technology. That’s thanks in part to that gimbal, which uses “double ball construction to achieve triple-axis rotation,” effectively allowing the camera to locate the inside of the fence.

Vivo

While the X50 only has a gimbal with hyped-up, all three devices support 5G. All three phones have the same 6.56-inch display, too. But there is another important difference: the processors these phones work on. The X50 Pro Plus gets an excellent CPU, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, while the Pro and X50 both run on the Snapdragon 765G.

Vivo says it currently has no plans to disconnect the phone in the US. But X50 phones will be released in parts of Asia, Africa and Europe in the next three months, so it will be easier to import.

Price details are not yet shared, but costs will vary from country to country. In China the X50 Pro starts at 4,298 yuan, which translates to $ 610 (about $ 490 or AU $ 880), while in India it starts at 49,990 rupees or about $ 660. As always, you can expect higher price tags in Western countries. For more details on the specs, scroll down to the chart below, which compares all three phones.

X50 Pro cameras in depth

The X50 Pro's rear camera system is pushed by a 48-megapixel main camera, which anticipate on a gimbal-like camera system and image stabilization and electronic image stabilization technology. When I first tried it out, I likened it to a one-generation iPhone XS Max while running during the day, but I didn't see much difference between the two phones, nor did I install cameras. Both phones capture stable footage without obvious impairment. The difference was noticeable, however, when I handled the video while working and in the dark.

When using ultra-solid or anti-shake mode, the Vivo X50 Pro technology for video durability is identified by note. That’s when the difference between the iPhone XS Max was most noticeable. The footage I captured was smooth and dull without stitching. Even when I was shooting with my innocent hand, which usually produces shakier videos, the footage was unusually smooth. There is a trade-off anyway: Couldn't capture more details on distant topics. From what I have collected so far, the Ultra-solid solid mode is like a great shooting tool that stays close.

The Vivo X50 Pro (pictured) has a 6.56-inch AMOLED screen.

The Vivo IX50 Pro has 4 rear cameras

In general, the X50 Pro has made it easy to take crisp, precise and healthy photos and capture my amazing location. I would have to spend more time on the phone, but so far I have noticed that in some lighting conditions - at sunset for example - the pictures were full and nailed to the top. The iPhone XS Max took pictures that were real-life, by comparison. Any photo you like maybe a matter of personal choice, but you can see the difference in the pictures below.

The Vivo X50 Pro snapped a sunny orange (left), and the photo taken by the iPhone XS Max (right) was a real-to-life experience.

Sareena Dayaram / CNET

There are four cameras on the backside of the X50 Pro. In addition to the 48-megapixel main Shooter, you'll find a periscope zoom lens and an 8-megapixel wide-angle lens. There is also a 13-megapixel portrait telephoto snapper. I am looking forward to trying out the X50 Pro camera system with more depth.

The X50 Pro has a 60x zoom

The 8-megapixel periscope lens is one of three (three) side-by-side large 48-megapixel arrows in the Vivo X50 Pro. I was blown away by the power of Vivo X50’s 60x Hyper Zoom. Although the photos were short - 60x still very far, after all - they were able to get details that I could not see with my own eyes, including a sign at the hotel on the other side of the harbour in Hong Kong. I would like to compare you to the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra’s 100x Space Zoom.

The Vivo Pro X50 Pro is in the distance. Using its 60x hyper zoom, I was able to zoom the sign to the hotel on the other side of the harbour. I could not see the sign with my naked eyes and did not know it was there until I got close to the phone.

Sareena Dayaram / CNET 1x-default.png

This photo was taken in the default settings (1x).

Sareena Dayaram / CNET 5x-default-mode.png

5x zoom.

Sareena Dayaram / CNET Vivo-x50-pro-10x.png

10x zoom.

Sareena Dayaram / CNETimg-20200715-190613

Zoom to 60x.

Sareena Dayaram / CNET 3

Four types of side zoom.

Sareena Dayaram / CNET 4,315-mAh fast-paced battery

In the few days I have used the phone, the battery life of the Vivo X50 Pro's 4,315-mah has been strong in the default settings. My daily work usually involves a few short calls, frequently using WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, checking emails, reading news apps and playing music on Spotify. I have also used social media, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I do not use my phone to get heavy games. The X50 Pro battery lasts easily all day long.

Using a 33-watt Vivo flash, I was able to charge the battery in 52 minutes. Good, but not as fast as Oppo's official Get the X2 Pro shows, charging its battery for 38 minutes. Surprisingly, however, it was when it recharged the dead battery by about 60% in 15 minutes.

Vivo X50 specifies - Vivo X50 Vivo X50 Pro Vivo X50 Pro Plus :

Display size, resolution 6.5-inches AMOLED 6.5-inches AMOLED 6.5-inches AMOLED Dimensions (Inches) 6.2x2.86x0.31 inches 6.28 x2.97x0.29 inches 6.2x2. Dimensions 8x0.34 inches 15mm.54x75.4x7.55 mm 158.46x72.8x8.04 mm 158.5x73x8.83 mm Weight (Ounces, Grams) 6.16 oz, 174.5 grams 6.4 oz, 181.5 grams 6.77 oz, 192 grams 10-megapixel (main), 8-megapixel (wide-angle), 5-megapixel (macro) Camera 10 13-megapixel (portrait telephoto) 48-megapixel (main), 8-megapixel (Ultra) wide), 8-megapixel (periscope), 13-megapixel (portrait telephoto) 50-megapixel (main), 13-megapixel (super) wide angle), 32 megapixel (portrait telephoto) Front-facing 32-megapixel 32-megapixel 32-megapixel processor Snapdragon 765G Snapdragon 765G Snapdragon 865 Storage 128GB / 256GB 128GB / 256GB 128GB / 256GB RAM 8GB 8GB 8GB 4,200 mAh (33W Vivo flash charge) 4,315 mAh (VW Flash Charger) 4,350 mAh (44W Vivo flash) Fingerprint Sensor Yes Yes Yes Yes USB C C USB C USB-C connector Headphone jack No No Special features 20x digital zoom, 90Hz rate Gimbal-like, 60x hyperzoom, 90Hz frequency refresh rate 120Hz, 60x zoom

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Android Smartphone Full Review

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Android Smartphone Full Review

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra has 5G, 108-megapixel camera, four other cameras, a huge screen, a high refresh rate, a 1399 dollar starting price. The S20 Ultra goes big, I mean you recognize, literally big, check out the phone. and searching at it I feel one thing is blindingly obvious. Samsung seems like it's something to prove. the simplest word that I can come up with to explain the S20 Ultra is, imposing. it's an outsized and nearly as heavy as just about any phone that I even have ever used. Now the most reason this phone is as big because it is is in order that you'll have this screen which is 6.9 inches diagonally. and since this screen doesn't have a face unlock sensor thereon, it can cover nearly the whole front of the phone. Now I figured that I'd be annoyed at having to travel back to an in-screen fingerprint sensor rather than face unlock, but I wasn't. The sensor is fast and accurate enough. But the important reason I feel that this screen shows that Samsung has something to prove with the S20 Ultra, is that they finally added the choice to modify it to 120-hertz refresh rate. Now, it comes outta the box at 60 hertz to save lots of battery but I hopped into settings and turned it on directly and never looked back because I feel it's enough battery life to handle it. And 120 hertz does make scrolling and screen animations look better and smoother. Samsung even says that it stopped bothering with any variable refresh rate supported the content of the screen nonsense. It's just locked to 120. Oh, by the way, you cannot have both 120 hertz and therefore the phone's maximum 3200 by 1440 resolution. But, I feel the trade for 1080 by 2300 to urge 120 hertz is worthwhile. And in fact, the screen looks nice. Looks nice indoors, outdoors, at different angles along with HDR content. Samsung knows the way to do that by now, it's extremely good at it. And again, because it's nearly seven inches diagonally, it's good 'cause it's just huge. Samsung has already done the make the phone bigger than everybody else thing. That's not actually what the S20 Ultra is about. It's about being bigger in every way, not just size.

And there's no better place to start out talking about what meaning, than to only jump right into the most important number of all, the 108-megapixel camera. (relaxing music) So let's just get into it. If you count the depth sensor, there are five cameras on this phone. And three of them have just silly megapixel counts. The selfie camera is 40 megapixels. The telephoto is 48, the regular wide-angle is 108 megapixels. the sole camera that may not out of bounds megapixel wise is that the ultra-wide which is 12 megapixels. But the S20 goes further than that. So almost like what Huawei did on its phones, the zoom lens here actually hits a prism and a mirror and redirects the sunshine across the body of the phone into the sensor, sort of a periscope. It means the phone can get real optical zoom up to 4 X and something specialized up to 10 X. Then there's this thing that Samsung calls Space Zoom, which pushes the zoom bent 100 X. That's one among the explanations that Samsung went with a 48-megapixel camera on the telephoto, in order that it's more pixels to settle on from when it starts cropping in. It also does this thing where it takes multiple photos to assist get data from all the sensors to assist. So how does all that tech work? Well, I tested this zoom against the iPhone 11 Pro, and therefore the Pixel 4 XL, both of which have telephoto lenses. And for fun, I threw within the Sony RX100 VII. The Pixel 4 XL maxes at 8x zoom, so I just compared it at that level and that I used a tripod for all of those photos that you are looking at. I feel the RX100 wins, but you recognize, it is a standalone camera so in fact it's gonna. once you just check out the phones, the S20 Ultra embarrasses the iPhone, and that I think it edges out the Pixel 4 too. thus far so good, but what about this Space Zoom thing? Well, you'll impress your friends with little who moments by zooming into 100 X, but truthfully, I feel they appear like splotchy messes at that zoom level. I used to be ready to get some fairly nice stuff at 30 X, usually by propping the phone on something stable. But, it still seems like a phone photo to me. Well, Samsung is performing some weird tech stuff here too. So, by default, the 108-megapixel sensor makes 12-megapixel images because the hardware automatically combines nine pixels into one big pixel. it is a process called binning. And combined, those binned pixels are about as big as what they would've been on a lower megapixel sensor.

This does help this camera avoid some of the usual problems that you get with high megapixel sensors.  Like bad low light, and noise. It mostly works. See, to make this entire pixel binning stuff happen, Samsung still has to do a lot in the software. Now, generally, I think the S20 wants to smooth out lighting especially on faces, it wants to keep things bright, and it wants to shift towards less red tones. And those are often really good instincts for photos. Samsung sometimes steers the S20's tuning just a little too far. So, compared to the iPhone, or the Pixel, this photo of me is just plain over smoothed and over brightened. It is super weird. As soon as the S20 camera sees a face, it brings up the shadows too much it smoothes skin too much, and it tries way too hard to adjust the white balance and often gets it wrong. Turn your head 45 degrees where it doesn't see a face, and it's fine. Turn on pro mode, and it's fine again. Turn on Bixby Scene Optimizer, and well, okay Bixby makes it worse, but still. In a lot of brightening conditions, I got nice pics of faces but in challenging conditions it got rough. Samsung tells me that it's looking into it, but there's no setting that you can change to change the default behaviour of what this thing does with faces. The weirdest part though, none of this applies to the selfie camera. Which is great. Now Samsung also lets you take full-on, 108 megapixel photos, and there's yet more camera tech involved in this like re mosaicing but the bottom line is you need a lot of light to get a decent photo at that resolution. And even then, my 108-megapixel photos were noisy enough in the fine details when I cropped in, that I never really saw the point. Now, when it comes to low light photos, Samsung is doing better than it ever has, partly because the sensors are so big here. But it still has a lot of work to do to catch up to the Pixel 4. And on portrait, again, better than it ever has, but it still has a lot of work to do to catch up to the iPhone. The selfie camera though, which is 40 megapixels, is my favourite camera on this entire phone. It doesn't do the same bad over smoothing on faces, I just really like it.

Now as for video, the headline feature is that you can shoot and edit in 8K, and I don’t know, I think that's kind of gimmicky but I do like that you can pull a still photo out. More important to me is the slightly improved video stabilization because I have pretty shaky hands, but you should know that still doesn't work in 4K and not in 8K. Especially when I was shooting video. I also really like this new feature called single take which does as many of Samsung's weirdo camera modes as possible in one long shot. It's fun, but I wouldn't depend on it for anything important 'cause the quality is like, not that good. So, that's a lot. It's a lot of camera which makes sense because this camera bump is so huge right? I mean, okay. Where do I think it all lands? Well, I think Samsung has a little bit more work to do on its photo algorithms. I think it's going to take a minute for them to learn how to take all of these huge megapixel counts and turn them into something that works in every single context.

 Now the S20 phones are the very first mainstream 5G phones. There have been a few before, but they have never been the default and with the S20 line they are. Now you should know that only the S20 Ultra and the S20 Plus support the super high-speed millimetre wave-5G that you can only get at like a few street corners. But, all of them support the slightly slower, but much more widespread mid-band 5G. On T-Mobile's mid-band, I was able to pull anywhere from like 45 down, which is not much faster than LTE, up to 120 megs per second in a pretty good spot. That's fast. But it's not as fast as what I could get on Verizon's millimetre wave, where I saw download speeds hit over 1300 Mbps.  Which is incredible? I got that on one street corner, if I held my phone right, and I didn't turn my body around. And I didn't walk half a block away. And if I was lucky because sometimes it would drop down to LTE anyway in that spot.  Samsung always boasts the best possible specs for an Android phone on the Galaxy S line, and this year is no different.

The Snapdragon 865 processor, which is fast but it's not in a way that I think people are going to notice over the 855. It has 5000 milliamps battery here, which is huge and has let me run a full day with very heavy use. I have done it several times now. 5G might bring that battery life down a tick, but I was clearing six hours of screen time with 120hertz refresh rate turned on. The RAM matters too, you get 12 or 16 gigs of RAM depending on which model you buy and that means that apps close less often in the background and you can even pin apps to memory which means that Android won't be able to close them in the background. This might seem like a weird power user feature, but let's be honest this is a weird power-user phone. Samsung is also sticking to its guns by offering expandable storage and it's not keeping the headphone jack. And it is okay to be sad about that, don't let anybody tell you different. The other side of performance is software, and for the most part, Samsung is doing a solid job with One UI on top of Android 10. I still like it, but Samsung is starting to Samsung it up a little bit with feature creep. Everything that it's ever made is still here, and too much of it is sitting in the settings tray and it's ready to confuse you.

There's Quick Share, which is like AirDrop but only for Galaxy phones. There's Link Share, which lets you throw stuff online for a private link for people to download for a day or two. There's Music Share, which let's other people with Galaxy phones play their music on the Bluetooth device that's paired to your Galaxy phone. But it's not as weird as Samsung Daily which sits next to the home screen and just doesn't offer useful cards for anything. Or, as weird as Bixby which sits under a long press of the power button and it's still just Bixby. Overall, the experience on the S20 Ultra is quite good, but it takes a day or two of dismissing prompts and turning off stuff that you don't want. Which is super annoying. So, Galaxy S20 Ultra. Did Samsung prove that it could make the best screen on a smartphone? Yes, it did. Did Samsung show that it could make 5G a dominant feature for phones? Well, yes it did but that doesn't mean that your city or your carrier has it. Did Samsung prove that it could throw every single performance spec possible into a single phone? I mean, it did. This is Samsung. It also proved though that it's starting to lose it's restraint a little bit on software. But the biggest thing that Samsung had to prove is that it could stay in the camera fight and do so with big megapixel sensors and zoom. And I think on zoom, Samsung has proved that its hardware can beat Google and Apple at around 8x, but it's not magic enough to get something great beyond that. I'm more worried about how the camera treats faces though, because I think Samsung is still Samsung in' up a little bit too much there. Mostly though, Samsung proved that when it wants to it can still go all out with the phone. I mean, they did call this the Ultra, which is another way of saying a lot. And yeah, this phone is a lot. That's all about review. Thanks 😊😊😊😊