Samsung Galaxy S20+ first impressions: Gray colour is boring, but display steals the show

Samsung may have stumbled in the budget and mid-range segments, but its premium phones have remained top-notch. Take the Galaxy S-series for example. Samsung's flagship phones over the years have set new benchmarks for Android smartphones with a variety of industry-first features. 2019's Galaxy S10 marked Samsung's big leap of faith in the design department. This year, Samsung has upped the specs ante, especially with a 108-megapixel camera and 100x zoom. But that's on the Galaxy S20 Ultra which we are yet to try.

Today, we take a closer look at the Galaxy S20 Plus, a mid-tier phone in the new flagship series. It's an interesting smartphone as it isn't the cheapest in the lot nor does it boast Galaxy S20 Ultra's over-the-top specifications. Read on.

Samsung Galaxy S20+ has bigger dimensions than the predecessor, Galaxy S10+. This, however, doesn't really affect the in-hand usage. It's comfortable to hold and feels pretty light as well. Probably my biggest gripe with the Galaxy S20+ is the gray colour which is quite boring. This shade of gray looks quite dull for a premium phone that costs over ₹70,000. Colour is subjective though and others might disagree with me. The phone comes in two more colours that are blue and white.

On the Galaxy S20+, you get a single selfie camera and four cameras at the back. The phone also supports up to 30x zoom. I did try out the 30x zoom but the results weren't great. Most of the photos with 30x zoom came out grainy. It appears to be good enough to zoom in far objects but you don't want a binocular, right? A higher zoom capacity is also not really new. Last year, we reviewed the Huawei P30 Pro which could do 50x zoom.

But not everything was grim during our brief hands-on with the Galaxy S20. Samsung is known to offer one of the best smartphone displays. The Galaxy S20+ was no surprise and this time it's even better with the 120Hz refresh rate. The phone lets you switch between 60Hz and 120Hz and the difference is quite evident in a good way. Samsung isn't the first to introduce this tech in India. The Asus ROG Phone 2 already has this but the experience isn't really the same.

Takeaway,

The only thing that has struck me so far is its display. The design and software still feel familiar like last year's flagship. The Galaxy S20+ is also expected to perform well since it's got the Exynos 990 chipset in India which is an equivalent to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865. Overall, the phone seems very familiar like I've mentioned already and I didn't really gawk at it. Or maybe I'm just too disappointed with the colour.