Samsung’s massive Galaxy S20 Ultra reckons you need a little Space

Space. The final frontier. The place where no-one can hear you scream.  And, apparently, the place you import the finest zoom from — at least, if you believe Samsung’s claims about its all-new flagship device, the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Yes, that S20 Ultra. It’s totally real.

And, with the new handset, Samsung’s hoping to take some of the shine from Huawei’s camera hardware, using a little something the company calls Space Zoom.

To Infinity!

You see, the Ultra gets its title from the quad rear camera arrangement that uses Samsung’s newest, largest sensors. The main lens is a 108MP ISOCELL monster, backed up by Samsung’s 48MP sensor — which confers a little something called Space Zoom — as well as a 12MP ultra-wide (120 and a ToF (time of flight) depth sensor.

Space Zoom is the thing, a software-assisted 100x zoom mode intended to make Huawei’s camera hardware look bad. Or, at least, intended to let Samsung put a larger number on its ads. And, possible, let you see into space. The moon at 100x is rather impressive so we’re dying to try it out in practise, but even if Space Zoom turns out to be a gimmick, the Galaxy S20 Ultra also features a 10x hybrid optical zoom. That’s bound to be less gimmicky.

What else do the cameras do, besides possess large numbers? Well, they’ll record in 8K — so you’ve got a reason to buy an 8K Samsung TV, and there’s a new Bright Night mode that Samsung reckons’ll will get you some awesome night-time shots. We’ll have to see how that looks and whether Apple needs to be nervous. Keep an eye out for our review as soon as Samsung’s got hardware in SA.

And Beyond!

There’s more to Samsung’s monster than just the camera, of course. The front panel is huge, a 6.9in Gorilla Glass 6 OLED screen that runs at 120Hz — which should make games like Fortnite an excellent experience. The handset will certainly have the power to play anything that crosses its path. Samsung’s got an Exynos 990 in there, and the company’s cranked up the graphics processing by about 25% over its other handsets. 5G is a thing, as is up to 512GB of storage. You’re going to wind up paying for it, though. The Galaxy S20 Ultra won’t come cheap, you can bet on that.