Display | 6.1 inches Super Retina XDR OLED display with HDR10, 1170x2532 pixels resolution and Apple’s ceramic glass |
Chipset and GPU | Apple A14 Bionic with Apple GPU |
Memory | 6GB RAM, 128GB storage or 6GB RAM, 256GB storage, or 6GB RAM, 512GB RAM |
Cameras | On the back: 12MP standard sensor, 12MP ultrawide sensor, 12MP 2x telephoto sensor and a 3D LiDAR sensor for depth On the front: 12MP selfie camera |
Battery | 2815mAh battery with 20W fast charging support and 15W fast wireless charging |
Water Resistance | IP68 certified water/dust resistance, up to 6m for 30 minutes |
The Pro Max has a 6.7 inches display with a resolution of 1284x2778 pixels, a 3687mAh battery and a significantly bigger main camera sensor with sensor shift stabilization. These are the differences between the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max.
You may be wondering what "sensor shift stabilization" is and how it is different from "optical image stabilization", which is present in the non-pros and the Pro, the Pro Max has sensor shift stabilization.
The sensor shift stabilization, also known as, "In Body Image Stabilization"(IBIS) is a camera stabilization method that is usually found in pro grade cameras. The iPhone 12 Pro Max is the first phone to have this tech. What this stabilization does is it makes adjustments to the whole sensor to counter the movements of the phone. Optical image stabilization on the other hand, moves the camera lens to counter those movements.
While both of these are effective methods of image stabilization, the IBIS is quite significantly quicker than the OIS. Apple even claims that the phone can allow the user to take two seconds exposure shots using their hands, which is pretty impressive.
This year's designs of the iPhones also give them a physical edge over their competitors. iPhones this year, are designed like metal slabs, that makes them very durable. Also, neither the back glass nor the front glass protrude out of the rails of the phones, both the glasses are slightly lower than the frames of the phones for that matter, this makes these phones almost shatter proof, almost all that drops are going to be taken by the metal rails of the phones, unless something on the surface makes direct contact with the glass upon falling.
The prices of the phones are, around $999 or ₹1,19,000 for the 12 Pro and around $1,099 or ₹1,29,000 for the Pro Max. Again, Indian customers are kind of unlucky when it comes to iPhone prices, but what can we do.
So, overall, this looks like a solid lineup from Apple and each phone feels like it is worth its price, but not so much if you live in India. You could definitely go for any of these if you get some good offers, if you're outside of India, they're pretty good without any offers as well. These are good, reliable phones, no significant complaints this year, you'd be happy with any of these. Apple is improving with value.
One tip that I would give you though, is that if you are thinking of buying the iPhone 12 Pro, then just save up a little more and buy the Pro Max instead, cause, in terms of value, that is a more significant jump from the regular iPhone 12 than the 12 Pro is.
Also, you could just get the regular iPhone 12 as well, instead of the 12 Pro, cause the price jump between these two phones is not worth the features that you get. But yeah, if you want a depth sensor, a telephoto lens, stainless steel frame and don't mind the price, and don't like the size of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, then sure, buy the iPhone 12 Pro. That's not bad deal either.
Galaxy S20 |
| What Should You Buy? iPhone 12, Galaxy S20, Note 20 or The Oneplus 8 Pro? |
Samsung launched three phones this year, the Galaxy S20, S20+ and the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Yes, their lineup is slightly changed, they have changed the names as well. I guess they are going to name their phones as the years they launch them in, this is cool, makes it easier to remember the names, since names are getting so complicated these days.
Complicated names remind me of an article I just wrote, explaining phone series of most companies. Here is the link to it.
The changes in Samsung's S lineup are not just superficial, it does feel like that they have tried to reconstruct their phones with the starting of a new decade. As one would expect from the face of Samsung phones, these phones are really good, they provide a complete flagship experience with some of Samsung's native features and tricks to place the cherry on top.
Personally, I feel like these phones kind of have less to offer, not that these are bad phones by any means, they are really complete phones like every other brand out there. But compared to the wild stuff that Samsung phones used to do, these phones feel a little boring. Samsung used to make phones that really stood out from every other brand out there, their phones used to do it all, they were the most non compromising phones out there. They offered headphone jacks, iris scanners, heart rate monitors, capacitive fingerprint sensors and what not, heck, they even put a pressure sensitive home button in the Galaxy S8.
I used to really enjoy Samsung phones when they used to just put everything in a phone and the price still looked reasonable. Since the Note 10, it just feels like they keep compromising stuff in their phones. But yeah, they have also been putting a lot of new stuff as well, like reverse wireless charging, 120Hz display and a bunch of other stuff, maybe that makes up for it.
Galaxy S20 And S20+
Here are the specs of the Galaxy S20.
Display | 6.2 inches Dynamic AMOLED display with HDR10+, 1440x3200 pixels resolution and 120Hz refresh rate |
Chipset and GPU | Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 with Adreno 650 GPU in USA, Samsung Exynos 990 with Mali G77 MP11 GPU in other places |
Memory | For 4G: 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, expandable up to 1TB For 5G: 12GB RAM and 128GB storage, expandable up to 1TB |
Cameras | On the back: 12MP standard sensor, 12MP ultrawide sensor and a 64MP telephoto sensor On the front: 10MP selfie camera |
Battery | 4000mAh battery with 25W fast charging, 15W fast wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging |
Water Resistance | IP68 certified water/dust resistance, up to 1.5m for 30 minutes |
The Galaxy S20+ comes with a 6.7 inches display, 4500mAh battery and an additional depth sensor. I don't like that they are offering different camera setups for these two phones, yes, the difference is small, but there should be no differences other than screen and battery sizes. There are people who prefer smaller phones over big ones, this doesn't mean that they should be compromising on performance or specs. Samsung should learn this from Apple instead of removing the charger and the earphones from the boxes of their phones.
So, in terms of specs, these phones are really good, as Samsung phones usually are. But a lot of people don't like Samsung's software, therefore, they go for Oneplus or Apple. To those people, the software is the same this year with minor improvements here and there, therefore, you can skip this and the next one.
The displays on these phones don't only have 120Hz refresh rate, they also have increased responsiveness, which no other 2020 phone offers. This combination makes the phone super smooth, responsive, and an absolute delight to use. But there is one limitation that these phones pose, that is, you can only use 120Hz refresh rate at 1080p resolution, at 1440p, the phones switch to 60Hz refresh rate. This is the case with all three of these phones.
This year, Samsung also highlighted the cameras on these flagships, and they did deliver. The cameras on these phones are really good, the S20 offers three lenses, while the S20+ offers an additional depth sensor, this makes the S20+ a little better at portraits. For photos these phones go toe to toe with their counterparts from Apple and Google, but for video, they can't compare to Apple, iPhones are just at another level when it comes to video recording. This is also not the best camera system in Samsung's S lineup, that is, of course, the Galaxy S20 Ultra, at least it's supposed to be. I'll talk more about it later in this article.
The Galaxy S20 packs in a 4000mAh battery, which is a pretty big number, but that huge display with 120Hz refresh rate takes up a lot of power, so, the battery backup is good on this phone, not excellent, but definitely a lot better than the iPhones. My words look a bit too harsh on the battery backup of these phones, but that's not the case, it really is very good battery backup, it should be tough to kill this phone in a single day. The S20+ has a 4500mAh battery, but it also has a bigger display, so, the battery backup here should be slightly better than the S20, but there won't be a huge difference.
At water resistance, as the specs suggest, these are way behind the iPhones. But on the other hand, water resistant is water resistant, 1.5m or 6m doesn't matter that much, most people still like to keep their phones away from water even if they are water resistant. Both of these phones should survive rain or splashes just fine, but the iPhones would have a better chance at surviving a drop in the swimming pool. I would not advice taking your phone in the pool or in the ocean though, salt and chlorine don't go hand in hand with the water resistant seals in these phones.
In terms of biometrics, these phones have an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and optical face unlock. The face unlock, let's face it, isn't really good in terms of security, it is fast, but not that secure, it can be fooled with a photo of yours. The fingerprint sensor is more secure, but it could get annoying as it is kind of slow and a bit inaccurate. The iPhones on the other hand have Apple's face id, which is really exceptional in terms of security and speed, it feels really good to use, but with the masks situation going on, that gets a bit annoying too, cause, every time you use your phone, you have to remove your mask. It also adds that big ugly notch at the top of your phone, If you'd ask me then I'd pick a rarely annoying fingerprint sensor over a notch as big as that of iPhones. But with the reasons mentioned above, it really depends upon what you're more comfortable with.
Galaxy S20 Ultra
 |
| What Should You Buy? iPhone 12, Galaxy S20, Note 20 or The Oneplus 8 Pro? |
This is the phone that was in the spotlight for a long time, and it was also the most expensive phone for sometime. It is still pretty expensive, but Samsung prices drop quite a bit.
It looks like that Samsung's strategy for the Galaxy S20 Ultra was to throw big numbers at us and kind of make an extreme phone, and see how it turns out. It did turn out to be a pretty interesting piece of tech in 2020. Let's quickly cover the specs of this phone now.
Display | 6.9 inches Dynamic AMOLED display with HDR10+, 1440x3200 pixels resolution and 120Hz refresh rate |
Chipset and GPU | Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 with Adreno 650 GPU in USA, Samsung Exynos 990 with Mali G77 MP11 GPU in other places |
Memory | 12GB RAM and 128GB storage or 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, or 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, expandable up to 1TB |
Cameras | On the back: 108MP standard sensor, 12MP ultrawide sensor, a 48MP periscope telephoto sensor and a depth sensor On the front: 40MP selfie camera |
Battery | 5000mAh battery with 45W fast charging, 15W fast wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging |
Water Resistance | IP68 certified water/dust resistance, up to 1.5m for 30 minutes |
First of all, this is a huge phone, 6.9 inches is huge, that sounds so wrong, but you get it. This isn't a phone for people with small hands or people who prefer small phones.
As you can see, those are some pretty wild specs right there, specially the display, cameras and the battery capacity. The display is essentially the same as the other two phones in this lineup just the size is different. Great for content consumption.
The battery is also really big on this device, but the big display with 120Hz refresh rate and increased responsiveness also uses a lot of power, again, making the battery backup of the phone very good but not excellent. The phone would definitely comfortably last a whole day and probably a little more, way more than any of the iPhones would.
Samsung really made a big deal about the cameras that they put on the Galaxy S20 Ultra, and they did entertain us a lot at that time, but the camera system still has stuff that needs to be talked about.
Let's first talk about the good stuff about it. The main shooter is a 108MP beast, which means that images are going to be super sharp and as the sensor is really big, the lowlight performance would be great too. The periscope telephoto lens allows a 100x hybrid zoom, which could or could not be a useful feature, it is quite amazing nonetheless. They have named this feature as "space zoom", which I think was a missed opportunity to call it "galaxy zoom", but anyway. The Galaxy S20 Ultra has introduced another really wild feature to the smartphone world, that is 8K video recording. Even though it is 24fps, it could be really useful when it comes to capturing more detail in a video and you could even pull out 33MP stills while recording or after recording.
Let's now talk about if all this even makes that big of a difference. First of all, don't get into those big megapixels numbers, those aren't really as big a deal as they look like. Megapixels don't matter that much in phone cameras, here is an article talking about just that. In a nutshell, 108, 64 or 48 megapixels aren't as drastically different from 12 megapixels as they sound like, the biggest reason behind it is that you don't have a screen to view images that are so sharp. Even 8K screens are just 33MP and all those camera numbers mentioned above are greater than this, so it is kind of technically not possible for you to view the images corresponding to those numbers. But this doesn't mean that these numbers don't make a difference at all, they do. The images captured from these sensors are like 12MP images, but a slight bit sharper and contain more detail.
Now, for the space zoom, do you really think that 100x zoom is very useful? Think about it yourself, how many times have you found yourself feeling the need of bringing the moon a little closer? Okay, I agree that this feature could be kind of useful, but the quality of it squeezes out the usefulness of this feature. If it was optical zoom instead of hybrid, which is not possible, then it would've been a very different story. I still admit though that this feature is not a complete waste as around 30x zoom is still really useful as it manages to preserve a lot of original detail.
The 8K video recording on the other hand, might not be as useful. First, it takes up a lot of space, really, a lot, you don't want to do it. Second, you probably don't have an 8K screen. Third, it uses the telephoto lens to record 8K, this makes the frame smaller, unstable and more unstable as it also doesn't support any software based stabilization. Maybe it would have been a little more useful if it used the ultrawide lens for the purpose, 8K would have made more sense then, in terms of frame size and details to capture. About the 33MP stills, they could be useful if you capture them while recording, but if you pull them from recorded video then motion blur ruins them, unless of course, there's no motion.
In conclusion, the cameras of the S20 Ultra feel like a gimmick or a party trick of sorts. The cameras on the S20 and the S20+ are pretty complete on their own, and you should be just fine with them. I would not suggest spending so much extra money just for the cameras of the Galaxy S20 Ultra.
One more thing about Samsung phones is that the experiences are very different for Exynos and Snapdragon variants, Snapdragon ones being the better of the two. Snapdragon variants offers slightly better performance and way better efficiency than Exynos variants. People have reported a lot poorer battery performance on Exynos variants. That is something you should keep in mind. Samsung should at least reduce the price of the Exynos phones, but they don't. This is just really bad, I don't even know what to say about it, we shouldn't get poor performance on phones this expensive.
The Prices of these phones are as follows:
Galaxy S20 - Around $650 and ₹54,000
Galaxy S20+ - Around $700 and ₹59,000
Galaxy S20 Ultra - Around $900 and ₹86,000
Galaxy Note 20 |
| What Should You Buy? iPhone 12, Galaxy S20, Note 20 or The Oneplus 8 Pro? |
Two phones here, the Note 20 and the Note 20 Ultra.
Galaxy Note 20
No matter what Samsung may tell you, the Note 20 is not a flagship. It is just a scam phone for the people who just want a stylus and don't care too much about tech. There is one more purpose that it serves though, that is, it makes the Note 20 Ultra look good and more reasonable. Did I tell you what the price of the Note 20 is? When it launched, the price was around $1000, now it's around $719 and ₹77,000. Just don't buy it, please don't, this phone definitely hurts the feelings of reasonable pricing, if it has any.
Just so you don't think that I'm giving incomplete information, I am going to tell you about the negative points of the Note 20. It has a 1080p display, Gorilla glass 5 on the front, plastic panel on the back and no 120Hz refresh rate. These features here are what really define flagship phones, it should have a 1440p display, at least Gorilla glass 6 on the back and the front, and should definitely have 120Hz refresh rate, it doesn't even have expandable storage. The good things that it has are, cameras, 25W fast charging, reverse wireless charging, flagship performance and 8K video recording. This in no way is a combination that should cost that much. I am just saying that this phone should be cheaper, which, it isn't. So, you should be better off buying a Galaxy S20 or S20+, or any of the older generation Notes.
Galaxy Note 20 Ultra
The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is the best phone from Samsung this year, like the Note is every year. While there seem to be no big changes from last year's Note or the Galaxy S20 Ultra, there are a lot of small improvements that make a big difference. This phone kind of pushes the concept of the Galaxy S20 Ultra towards perfection.
Here are the specs.
Display | 6.9 inches Dynamic AMOLED display with HDR10+, 1440x3088 pixels resolution, 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and Gorilla Glass Victus |
Chipset and GPU | Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ with Adreno 650 GPU in USA Samsung Exynos 990 with Mali G77 MP11 GPU in other places |
Memory | 12GB RAM and 256GB storage or 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, expandable up to 1TB |
Cameras | On the back: 108MP standard sensor, 12MP ultrawide sensor, 12MP periscope telephoto sensor and laser autofocus On the front: 10MP selfie camera |
Battery | 4500mAh battery with 25W fast charging, 15W fast wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging |
Water Resistance | IP68 certified water/dust resistance, up to 1.5m for 30 minutes |
Yes, the Note 20 Ultra is not as ultra as the S20 Ultra was, but that is part of what makes it better, it does not do stuff as extreme as the S20 Ultra, but what it does, it does well, with that, it also has a lot of new small things that just make life better. This is what the S20 Ultra lacked a little.
Let me first cover what it does better over the S20 Ultra. It has adaptive refresh rate, that means that the refresh rate of the screen can vary depending on what application is running, apps that use 120Hz, use it and apps that don't need it, don't use it. The refresh rate is not fixed at 120Hz, this, positively affects the battery life.
The Note 20 Ultra is better designed, built and way better looking than the S20 Ultra, the mystic bronze variant even has a matte finished back. The Note 20 Ultra has Corning's new Gorilla Glass Victus on both front and the back, which is way more durable than the Gorilla Glass 6 on the S20 Ultra. The Note 20 Ultra also has a speaker opening at the top of the screen, instead of an under display speaker, which was present in the previous Note and the is present in the S20 Ultra, this speaker vibrates the display to propagate sound and I will say that it is not more pleasant than an opening for the speaker.
The camera system on the Note is just complete, I don't think we need any more cameras than this. Three looks just sweet to me, cause, these three seem like the only usable perspectives. The S20 Ultra also had these three sensors, but it also had a depth sensor and the Note 20 Ultra proves that we don't really need a depth sensor until it's like Apple's LiDAR. The S20 Ultra also had some autofocus issues, which the Note fixes with laser autofocus, and that works really well. The 100x zoom is now 50x, which I think looks much more usable now, the 100x earlier wasn't good enough to be called useful, but 50x was and still is, with that, they have also slightly improved the software performance of the cameras. Also, the 8K remains.
The Note 20 Ultra has also improved the speed and accuracy of the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor from the S20 Ultra.
The battery is a little smaller and the charging speed is a bit less than that of the S20 Ultra, but the battery capacity is just something that you need to trade off for the S Pen. The charging speed is slow but it improves the battery life as faster charging speeds wear the battery a little more. So, yeah, the S20 Ultra is kind of better here, but hey, the S Pen!
Are you even talking about the Galaxy Note if you don't talk about the S Pen? This is the feature which people choose the Note for, well, this, and the mostly no compromises nature of the device. Well, the S Pen is improved too this year, they have decreased its latency from 46ms to 9ms, which, to be honest, is just huge. Now it feels a lot closer to using a real pen and paper. Not to mention, they have also added writing sounds to it, cool, right? You could also turn them off if they annoy you.
There is one more Samsung feature that not a lot people know about, it is known as "Samsung DeX". This feature lets you use your phone as a pc by connecting to a monitor, it even lets you use a keyboard and a mouse, or the phone could itself act as a trackpad. Now, the reason why I mentioned this feature is that, till now, Samsung phones used to do it with the help of a wire, but the Note 20 Ultra does it wirelessly, which is another thing that they put on this phone.
There is one annoying thing about it though, which is the same as every other Samsung flagship, it is that there are again two variants of the device, the Snapdragon one and the Exynos one. Either these phones should perform equally or they should be priced unequally, until then, only Americans can fully enjoy these devices.
This might not be a big problem for you if you're someone who can root your phone. But not all of us can do it, or want to do it.
The Price of the Note 20 Ultra is around $1,000 and ₹1,04,000. Looks a bit too expensive for Exynos variants, sadly.
Oneplus 8 Pro |
| What Should You Buy? iPhone 12, Galaxy S20, Note 20 or The Oneplus 8 Pro? |
We are only going to talk about the Oneplus 8 Pro as it is the only flagship in Oneplus' lineup.
Oneplus 8 Pro specs.
Display | 6.8 inches Fluid AMOLED display with HDR10+, 1440x3168 pixels resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and 1B colours |
Chipset and GPU | Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 with Adreno 650 GPU |
Memory | 8GB RAM and 128GB storage or 12GB RAM and 256GB storage |
Cameras | On the back: 48MP standard sensor, 48MP ultrawide sensor, 8MP 3x telephoto sensor, 5MP colour filter sensor and laser autofocus On the front: 16MP selfie camera |
Battery | 4510mAh battery with 30W fast charging, 30W fast wireless charging and 3W reverse wireless charging |
Water Resistance | IP68 certified water/dust resistance |
In terms of specs, the Oneplus 8 Pro is everything that a flagship needs to be, and in some specs, it even does better. The display on the Oneplus 8 Pro has the capacity to display one billion colours while every other flagship displays 16 million colours. The edge is so slight here that I don't even know if it's significant enough, but it is still an edge nonetheless.
One more thing that the display of the Oneplus 8 Pro can do is that it can can refresh at 120Hz at 1440p resolution. Now, none of the Samsung phones could do that, and Samsung hasn't even given a reason for it yet. My guess is that Samsung does it to save battery as 1440p resolution and 120Hz refresh rate are both features that consume quite a lot of battery. Samsung needs to save as much battery because of the comparatively heavy One UI, but Oneplus doesn't, as Oxygen OS is very light and well optimized.
Talking of Oxygen OS, a lot of people prefer it over One UI because of a cleaner, closer to stock Android experience, but a lot of people also prefer One UI because of it being so feature rich. So, here, it all comes down to what one prefers, Oxygen OS has slight edge here though, as a lighter UI makes the phone feel smoother and faster, and improves performance as there is less stuff running in the background.
The Oneplus 8 Pro also has 30W wireless charging, every other phone on the list has 15W wireless charging. This means that the Oneplus 8 Pro would wirelessly charge faster than other flagships.
About the cameras, if you are someone that wants to get a phone with the best photo and video quality, then I wouldn't suggest that you buy the Oneplus 8 Pro. If you want the best phone for both photos and video then go for an iPhone, if you want it only for videos then also go for an iPhone and if you want it only for photos then go for a Pixel. You could go for a Samsung flagship too, the camera quality on those is also comparable to iPhones and Pixels. But the Oneplus 8 Pro is not your phone, the camera quality on this phone is very good, they have improved a lot from previous generations, it gives tough competition to the flagships, but it just doesn't beat them.
The price of the Oneplus 8 Pro is around $700 and ₹54,000.
Overall, I would say that this phone provides the best value among all of 2020's flagships. It costs so less and still goes toe to toe with all of the other phones, and even beats them in some areas, except for the cameras. But the cameras aren't bad either, they perform worse than other flagships but that doesn't mean that they're bad, you wouldn't even know the difference until you really compare the photos with other flagships. To be honest, this phone is a no brainer at this price tag, just go for it.
Conclusion
So, if you want to know which ones is the best phones among these, then it is the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, with all of its features, cameras, display and design, it is just the best. But, it is also the most expensive, so it shouldn't be anything less than the best, and I think it just lives up to that.
But it is not that simple, is it? Not all of us can spend so much on a phone, even if it is a flagship, and not all of us like Samsung phones or Android in general. So, for value, none of these phones come close to the Oneplus 8 Pro, if you're someone who has less money and wants a flagship phone, then let me tell you this, the Oneplus 8 Pro provides ultra premium flagship experience for low end flagship money. Heck, I just don't understand how it costs so less.
And, if you're someone who doesn't like Android, then Apple has provided you with quite some choice this year, and that too with a hierarchy. You know what to do. But you could also get an iPhone if you just want a good, stable and complete experience, want top of the line cameras, want to look rich and don't care too much about Android or iOS.
The Galaxy S20 series falls in a weird space this year. If you like any of those phones and are satisfied with the price then those phones aren't bad deals either. But just don't buy the Galaxy S20 Ultra, buy the Oneplus 8 pro instead, the experience would almost be the same for way less money. You could also just add some more money and buy the Note 20 Ultra, that phones is way better and more worth the money.
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