Mobile World Conference (MWC) is an annual trade show primarily meant for the mobile communications industry. Every year, almost all the industry leaders such as Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus, and more launch or unveil upcoming handsets and technologies and innovations at the event. However, after the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus, MWC officials called off this year’s show. Samsung, which traditionally unveils its latest handsets at MWC, launched the Galaxy S20 series, the Galaxy Z Flip, and a new pair of wireless earbuds at its very own Unpacked event on Feb. 11. Here is a look at what was unveiled.
Samsung Galaxy S20 series
Samsung’s S series houses the most powerful weapons in Samsung’s smartphone arsenal. Every year, Samsung packs its S series of handsets with new, innovative, and powerful specifications and always attracts a huge market share. This year, the company announced three new flagship variants under the latest smartphone flagship line, Galaxy S20.
The company launched the Galaxy S20, S20+, and S20 Ultra with varied specifications and prices. Here is everything you need to know about these handsets.
Display
The Galaxy S20 is the base variant and sports a 6.2-inch display, the S20+ comes with a 6.7-inch display and the S20 Ultra with a large 6.9-inch display. All these handsets sport a Quad HD+ AMOLED dynamic display with a refresh rate of 120Hz. These devices also allow users to change the refresh rate of the display to 60Hz, which could save battery power.
All the Galaxy S20 devices come with Samsung’s proprietary Infinity-O display giving a nearly bezel-less full-frontal display.
Hardware
All three handsets are powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 865 processor with 8GB of RAM in LTE variants and up to 16GB of RAM for 5G variants. The Galaxy S20 is stuffed with a bunch of sensors including an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, accelerometer, barometer, gyro sensor, geomagnetic sensor, hall sensor, proximity, and RGB sensor.
On the connectivity front, these devices offer 5G, LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth v5, GPS, Glonass, and more. As for storage, the base variant on the S20 offers 128GB of onboard storage, while the premium variant packs in 512GB of internal storage.
Camera
This is probably the biggest difference between these three handsets. The base variant Galaxy S20 sports a triple-camera setup at rear packing a 12-megapixels wide-angle, 12-megapixels ultrawide, and a 64-megapixels telephoto lens. The Galaxy S20+ has all the above lenses and adds in an additional DepthVision lens making it a quad-camera setup. The Galaxy S20 Ultra also comes with a quad-camera setup with more powerful lenses. The S20 Ultra sports a 12-megapixels ultra-wide, 108-megapixels wide-angle, 48-megapixels telephoto, and a DepthVision lens.
The Galaxy S20 and the Galaxy S10+ sports a 10-megapixels front-facing camera, whereas the Galaxy S20 Ultra sports a 40-megapixels selfie camera.
All these three handsets are Optical Image stabilization (OIS) and tracking AF enabled. All these Galaxy S20 devices support “space zoom,” allowing users to capture distant objects with much better details and definition. All the Galaxy S20 devices allow users to record videos at 8K resolution at 24fps.
Battery
The Galaxy S20 stays juiced up by a 4000mAh battery, while the Galaxy S20+ packs in a 4,500mAh battery. The Galaxy S20 Ultra comes with an even larger 5,000mAh battery. All the handsets support fast charging and Wireless PowerShare.
Pricing and availability
The base Galaxy S20 is priced at $999 while the Galaxy S20+ starts at $1,199. The high-end Galaxy S20 Ultra starts at $1,399. The first launch wave of the Galaxy S20s will begin on March 6. And the next waves of sales are going to follow with an interval of a few weeks in between them. However, all these handsets are available for pre-order now.
Beyond the Galaxy S20: The Galaxy Z Flip
Foldable phones are moving from curiosity to reality as several smartphone makers pin their hopes on the new devices. While Samsung has been busy designing the foldable phone for quite a few years now, companies such as Motorola and Huawei also showcased their take on the foldable smartphones.
In response, Samsung unveiled more information about its upcoming second foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Z Flip, making Samsung the only company to offer two foldable devices. The device comes with a flip-like foldable display and it is currently available for purchase from Samsung.
The device sports a 6.7-inch FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED display featuring the Infinity Flex that folds in half, like the old-school flip phones. The device also comes with a 1.1-inch Super AMOLED cover display. The device sports a Snapdragon 855+ mobile processor paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.
Imaging on the device is handled by a dual rear camera setup consisting of a 12-megapixels ultrawide and a 12-megapixels wide-angle camera. The device sports a 10-megapixels front-facing camera. The Galaxy Z Flip stays juiced on a 3,300mAh battery and supports fast charging and Wireless PowerShare.
Galaxy Buds Plus
In addition to the new handsets, Samsung launched its latest fully wireless earbuds — Galaxy Buds Plus. Priced at $150, the earbuds offer 11 hours of battery life, and they can be recharged using the included wireless charging case. The earbuds also come with a shortcut to launch the Spotify app.
The earbuds do not come with noise-cancellation. Samsung hopes they will be a strong competitor to Apple’s standard AirPods, which retail at $160.
Samsung also announced a bunch of introductory offers along with the Galaxy S20 series. The company promised that users who are willing to exchange their existing smartphone for the latest S20 will get more than the usual amount on exchange. Samsung is also planning to pack gift cards with every purchase.
Images: Samsung
