COMPARISON: Galaxy S10 vs Galaxy S20

Now that pretty much every core spec and feature of the brand new Samsung Galaxy S20 has been announced, the only thing left to see is how well it stacks up to its predecessor—the Galaxy S10. And since there are three new smartphones, I’ll be comparing the entire series in a head-to-head spec-sheet run down, but before we do that, here’s a quick look at how the base model Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S20 compare:

Now that you have a general idea of what’s been changed, lets get into the meat and potatoes of it all.

The displays

With the new line of Galaxy S20 smartphones, Samsung went big. Across the board, you’ll be getting bigger displays as the Galaxy S20 comes with a 6.2″ display, the S20+ features a 6.7″ screen and the massive Galaxy S20 Ultra packs a 6.9″ panel. For comparison, the Galaxy S10 only had a 6.1″ panel while the S10+ came with a 6.4″ display instead. It is worth noting while both the S10 and S20 series have Quad HD+ displays, the S20 has a slightly taller aspect ratio so you get 3200×1440 pixels instead. Obviously, with the larger screens, the new S20 phones are also slightly larger and slightly heavier.

However, both series still come with gorgeous Dynamic AMOLED screens with an Infinity-O punch hole at the top. That being said, the new Galaxy S20 series screens are capable of hitting 120Hz refresh rate when the resolution is set to Full HD+ so you can get a much smoother scrolling experience.

I would also like to point out that the new screens on the Galaxy S20 series don’t curve as much at the sides as the Galaxy S10 series, so you get a flatter display.

The specs

On the inside, things look a lot more like a regular spec-sheet refresh. While the Galaxy S10 series were powered by Samsung’s flagship Exynos 9820 processors with 8GB of memory and up to 1TB of internal storage (on the Galaxy S10+), the Galaxy S20 kicks things up a notch with an all new processor and memory configurations.

At its core, the Galaxy S20 series in Malaysia will be powered by the Exynos 990 processor which is a 7nm octa-core chip. On the Galaxy S20 and S20+, you can have that with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of storage. If you want more RAM, you can opt for the Galaxy S20 Ultra which comes with 12GB of RAM, but storage is still capped at 128GB.

That said, both phones have support for microSD expansion up to 1TB, but it is still done via a hybrid SIM tray so you will have to give up your second SIM if you want more space.

The battery

With Samsung’s new Galaxy S20 series, you’re getting much bigger batteries across the board, which is always a good thing. To refresh your memory, the Galaxy S10 and S10+ came with 3,400 mAh and 4,100 mAh batteries respectively. With Samsung’s new crop of Galaxy S flagships, you’ll see at least a 300 mAh boost in capacity.

On the Galaxy S20, you’ll be greeted with a 4,000 mAh battery, on the S20+ you will find a 4,500 mAh battery, and on the massive Galaxy S20 Ultra you have an equally massive 5,000 mAh cell. On top of that, the new Galaxy S20 and S20+ feature support for 25W wired fast-charging while the Galaxy S20 Ultra comes with 45W Super Fast charging via a USB-C cable. That’s way faster than the S10 lineup’s 15W Adaptive Fast Charging.

That being said, both the S10 and S20 series support Fast Wireless Charging 2.0 and also Wireless PowerShare so you can charge other phones and accessories with your Samsung flagship.

The cameras

This, is probably the biggest differentiating factor between the smartphones. While the Galaxy S10 series had a very capable triple camera setup with a 12MP wide, a 12MP telephoto and a 16MP ultra-wide camera, the new Galaxy S20 turns everything up to 11.

On the Galaxy S20, you’ve got a triple camera setup at the back, but the modules are now a little different. You have a 12MP wide camera, a 64MP telephoto camera and a 12MP ultra-wide camera. If you decide to go for the S20+, it adds an additional DepthVision camera turning it into a quad-camera module.

But, the biggest leap comes with the Galaxy S20 Ultra. With this beast, you get a 108MP wide camera, a 48MP periscope telephoto camera, a 12MP ultra-wide camera and a DepthVision camera to boot. This also unlocks the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s signature feature, which is called Space Zoom. Now, the S20 and S20+ also have “Space Zoom” but they are only capable of achieving 30X Super Resolution Zoom while the Galaxy S20 Ultra can do 100X Super Resolution Zoom which is just bonkers.

What’s more, the S20 Ultra features a crazy 40MP selfie shooter up front, while the S20 and S20+ retain 10MP selfie cameras but at a smaller aperture of f/2.2.

Oh, and if we’re talking about video recording, Samsung’s Galaxy S20 series are capable of recording 8K video at 24fps while the Galaxy S10 could only muster up 4K at 60fps.

The headphone jack

Samsung’s Galaxy S10 series have 3.5mm headphone jacks. The Galaxy S20 series do not. There’s really no more to say here.

The missing “e”

In an interesting turn of events, Samsung decided the drop the entry-level Samsung Galaxy S10e this time around with the S20. This means that we won’t have a sub-RM3,000 Galaxy S20e. To refresh your memory, the Galaxy S10e brought a nice chunk of the Galaxy S flagship experience to a smaller and more affordable price tag.

It featured a Full HD+ Flat Dynamic AMOLED display, a side mounted fingerprint scanner and a lot of the internals of the high-end Galaxy S10 and S10+ including the flagship Exynos 9820 processor. In fact, Amin liked it quite a lot despite the sacrifices.

Of course, I will point out that I think the device which will be occupying this space in the lineup will likely be the newly announced Galaxy S10 Lite which is in its own right a very capable device. I’m just not that big a fan of that smartphone.

The stuff they have in common

While the Galaxy S20 series is certainly an upgrade over the Galaxy S10 series, you may be happy to know that these new phones have also kept a lot of what we liked from the S10 lineup. This includes stereo speakers tuned by AKG, IP68 dust and water resistance, Samsung Pay and the whole suite of Samsung ecosystem apps.

The price

When Samsung launched the Galaxy S10 series, these were their official retail prices:

Samsung Galaxy S10e 6GB RAM + 128GB storage — RM2,699
Samsung Galaxy S10 8GB RAM + 128GB storage — RM3,299
Samsung Galaxy S10+ 8GB RAM + 128GB — RM3,699
Samsung Galaxy S10+ 8GB RAM + 512GB storage — RM4,599
Samsung Galaxy S10+ 12GB RAM + 1TB storage — RM5,999

On the other hand, the Galaxy S20 series retails for:

Galaxy S20 8GB RAM + 128GB storage – RM3,599
Galaxy S20+ 8GB RAM + 128GB storage – RM3,999
Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G 12GB RAM + 128GB storage – RM4,999

Across the board, the Galaxy S20 definitely sees a bump up in price compared to the Galaxy S10 that launched the previous year. But, it’s not a massive price bump and the smartphone you’re getting is more capable for sure. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the new S20 series is the lack of storage options. Only 128GB of storage (even with microSD expansion) will definitely not be enough the satiate the hardcore Samsung fans who will end up pre-ordering this handset.

If you’ve decided to take the plunge, you can pre-order the Galaxy S20 at Samsung Malaysia.

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