Watching this week's announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S20 family of phones and the new Z Flip left me thinking about what these phones—or indeed the changes coming to phones in general this year—mean for business buyers. For consumers looking for a flagship phone, the new models offer several compelling features, but the business advantages are not as clear.
Here are the areas where the new phones stand out, and what implications I think they may have for business users.
Camera Features
Improved cameras. This is undoubtedly the major feature of the three S20 phones, and it's certainly true that all three represent a major leap forward compared with last year's phones. The 6.2-inch Galaxy S20 and the 6.7-inch Galaxy S20+ both now have a 64-megapixel "telephoto lens" with a 76-degree field of view and an aperture of f/2.0, in addition to the traditional 12-megapixel, f/1.8 wide-angle main camera and an ultra-wide 12-megapixel, f/2.2 "ultra-wide" camera with a 120-degree field of view. (Both also offer a 10-megapixel, f/2.2 front-facing camera with an 80-degree field of view that works through a "hole-punch" design with the camera in the center top of the "Infinity-O" display.) The S20+ and the 6.9-inch S20 Ultra both also offer a rear-facing depth-sensing camera.
Samsung started putting ultra-wide cameras on the phone last year with the S10generation, and other vendors, notably LG, did it much earlier. In a few situations, such as capturing the full look of a space, I find the ultra-wide lens to be quite useful and I can easily imagine it being used in real estate or insurance applications.
Up to 100X Zoom. The bigger changes are in the telephoto lenses. Samsung says the S20 and S20+ have a "hybrid optic" zoom of 3X "lossless zoom," which doesn't sound like a lot, but is better than you'll find in most competing phones. This is great when you want to get closer to a subject, which I can see being useful in construction, insurance, and reconnaissance applications. The larger S20 Ultra takes this a step further, swapping out the normal wide-angle camera for a 108-megapixel one with the same aperture; and replacing the telephoto lens with a 48 megapixel, 24-degree field of view, f/2.5 camera system. What makes this stand out is that it uses a prismatic lens system that sends the light sideways through the phone to allow for 10x lossless zoom. On all three models, Samsung offers an extra 10x of digital zoom, resulting in a "Space Zoom" of up to 30X on the smaller phones and 100X on the larger one. The demos I've seen were impressive, even if digital zoom means sacrificing some clarity; I'll know more when I can try it out in the real world.
Improved Night Mode. Taking low-light photos has been one of the big challenges of smartphone cameras, and an area where I've found the Samsung phones to be a bit behind the current iPhone and Google Pixel flagships. The S20 line is trying to address this in a couple of ways. On the S20 and S20+, the new phones will take twice as many images as before to try to combine them into a single image with better clarity. The S20 Ultra also swaps out the 12-megapixel main camera sensor for a 108-megapixel sensor, which should be good for both additional cropping in good light, and for capturing low-light images by binning groups of 9 pixels to create one 12-megapixel image.
Samsung also said the phones will be able to do a better job of taking photos when there is a lot of motion in the shot. We'll know more when we can test real units.
8K Videos. The phones are also able to capture video at 8K, 24 frames per second, and share this resolution video via YouTube or by casting to an 8K TV. I can see where professional videographers or marketers would like to capture video in 8K, because it gives you more information when you cut or crop the images. But I doubt this will be very important to most users today. You can't (and don't need to) show that resolution on the phone itself (because of the size of the display) and even on a large TV, most people will be hard pressed to see the difference between 4K and 8K video at a normal viewing distance. 8K video also takes up a lot of space, so you'll want an extra flash storage card (all three models take up to 1 TB in a microSD slot). Note the phones default to 1080p capture (they can also do 4K), recognizing that most of the time that's good enough.
But there are some nice features here, including the ability to do on-device trimming of the videos and to pull out a single frame as a 33-megapixel still image. Other video features include improvements into the "super steady" features for smoothing video shake, and a night hyperlapse feature.
New Camera Interface. This didn't get as much attention but might turn out to be particularly useful. Samsung is reducing the main menu camera choices to three main options: photo, video, and "single take." (All the other options, including a Pro mode that lets you control all the details of the camera are still there, but buried under a menu). Single Take mode will capture a series of images and short video clips up to 10 seconds using multiple cameras, and then uses what Samsung describes as AI to pick the best shots. This typically includes a short video, and ultra-wide, live focus, and often black-and-white photos. This is important because it saves you the time of choosing the right mode. You can then easily save or share just the actual images you want to from the multiple shots captured. I can see this being useful in cases where you need to capture something immediately.
5G Everywhere
Three 5G phones. All three of the S20 phones will be 5G enabled, with Samsung essentially saying that 5G is simply going to become a part of flagship phones this year, as opposed to being a separate model, as in last year's Galaxy S10 5G. Initial versions of the smaller S20 will just support sub-6Gz 5G (as well as all the usual 4G bands). The S20+ and S20 Ultra will support both sub-6GHz and mmWave bands (which offer substantially faster communications, but much shorter range). Note that coverage of 5G is rolling out, but remains spotty.
For most business users, 5G really doesn't provide huge benefits now. Yes, you can download files faster, but for most applications, 4G is fast enough. Perhaps the biggest improvement 5G users will notice during the initial phases is simply more stable coverage, particularly where low-band 5G coverage is available. Later on, there may well be situations where the improved speed, reliability, and latency of 5G networks may lead to new applications. The important mobile 4G applications didn't come out until a few years after the 4G rollout, so for most business users, making 5G part of the basic phone prices just means a little future-proofing, with the potential that the phone will have a longer useful life.
Video Chat. One exception to this might be video chat, where higher-speed mmWave and potentially mid-range 5G should allow for better, more predictable video calls while on the road. The S20 line now includes a more integrated version of Duo, Google's video chat application, which ties into the Contracts and Messages applications. This should allow for full HD connections with up to eight people at once, great for video conference calls.
Other General Features
Improved Performance and Capacity. The North American versions of the S20 will use the Qualcomm 865; units in Korea, Europe and some other markets will use Samsung's own Exynos 990 processor instead. Either should offer improved performance compared with last year's models. The S20 will comes with 12GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage; the S20+ will have 12GB and 128 or 512GB of storage; and the S20 Ultra will have 12 or 16 GB of RAM and 128 or 512 GB of storage.
All use LPDDR5 memory, which Samsung says offers 30 percent faster data access speeds while using up to 20 percent less power.
Pinning applications. Everyone likes improved performance and battery life, and one particular advantage of the additional RAM is that you will be able to pin specified applications into memory, so they start immediately rather than having to load. On all of the models, you're now able to pin up to three applications directly into RAM, while on the S20 Ultra with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage, you can do this with five applications. While Samsung mostly talked about this in the context of games, you can certainly imagine it would be quite useful for the most commonly used business applications as well.
120Hz screen. All of the models now feature a 120Hz Super AMOLED display, which essentially means the phone looks much smoother for scrolling text, or, more usefully, for games. Indeed for gamers, Samsung also says the phone is twice as responsive to touches, operating at 240Hz. I suspect most users will leave it at the default 60Hz, simply because the battery life should be better.
Specific Business Features
Of course, the S20 retains a number of the business features that the Galaxy line has had, including Samsung Knox for security, good integration with the Microsoft suite of applications (which come pre-installed), and its DeX functionality which lets you plug in a keyboard and monitor and use your device more as you would a traditional PC. In addition, there are a few new features specifically designed for business users.
These include a new function that lets users access FTP servers with their FTP credentials or network drives in the office and see the results in the My Files app. This should make it easier to share sensitive files, without using email.
For travelers, the S20 offers dual SIM capability, coming later (via a firmware update). In the US, this will involve both a physical SIM and an eSIM. This is particularly important for businesses that need to bill out phone usage to different accounts, or that need to work internationally.
Samsung's DeX feature is gaining updated credential management and embedded Secure Element (eSE) functions, so you can better authenticate as if you were using a physical smart card; or if you had something like a digital credential.
Will You Flip?
The other unique phone of the announcement was the Galaxy Z Flip, Samsung's second foldable phone, one that is much more mainstream than last year's ill-fated Galaxy Fold. The flip has a 6.7-in, 21:9 display, but folds in half to form a closer to square form factor that should more easily fit into a pocket or purse.
This is a bit different from other foldable phones in that the hinge is designed to work at almost any angle, and some of the applications (notably Duo and YouTube) have been enhanced for use on two half-size screens.
It's a cool looking phone, but I'm not sure what the business justification would be for it. It's running an older processor (the Snapdragon 855+ in the U.S) without even a 5G option, and features fewer cameras than the S10, much less the S20. At $1,380, it is a niche product that will appeal mainly to consumers who just like the "wow" factor. But it does have the advantage of being distinctive.
A Range of Phones
The S20 phones are priced like flagship phones, with the S20 starting at $999, the S20+ at $1,199, and the S20 Ultra at $1399.
From a business perspective, one of the most interesting things about the announcement is that all three LTE versions of last year's flagship Samsung phones are staying in the lineup, with the S10e now down to $599, the S10 now at $749, and the S10+ now at $849. In all cases, that's a significant price drop, and you'd still be getting a very high-end phone, albeit one that doesn't have quite the bells and whistles of the S20. Still, the S10+ is no slouch, and since 5G applications aren't here, most of what you are giving up would be the additional camera features. These phones aren't as sexy as the new S20 line, but if you're buying in bulk for a business, I can see these being a much more economical option.
The Rugged X Cover Pro
There's one more phone in Samsung's line worth mentioning, even if it didn't come up in this week's announcement: The Galaxy XCover Pro, which was announced a couple of weeks ago.
This doesn't have the high-end features of a flagship phone. It has a 2GHz octa-core processor (the Samsung Exynos 9611), 4GB of memory, and 64GB of storage (with a microSD slot than can take up to 512GB, so not bad). It has just two rear-facing cameras (8 megapixel and 25 megapixel), and a 6.3-inch, FHD screen. These don't match the S10, never mind the S20, but they aren't bad.
More importantly, the phone has a number of features designed for specific business cases. It's a more durable phone, with MIL-STD-810G certification, meaning it's better suited for altitude, humidity, and environmental stress; designed to be more water resistant; and to take a fall of a meter without damage. Yet in size and weight, it's not much bigger than the comparable flagship devices. Another difference is its support for PogoPlug charging, so it's easy to charge a fleet of phones.
Other features include a push-to-talk (Walkie-Talkie) feature (which brought to mind images of a similar feature in phones a decade ago), this time designed to integrate with Microsoft Teams; and programmable short cut keys to bring up particular applications.
As a result, it seems like a good choice for field workers.
For retail workers, it also has an NFC chip designed for mobile payment, as well as the option of attaching a sled for a credit-card reader.
The XCover Pro probably isn't the phone you would assign to most office workers—the S10 and S20 lines, or maybe even the Note 10 phablet are more suited to that. But it's an interesting idea for other kinds of businesses.
Here are PCMag's hands-on looks at the S20 phones and the Z Flip.
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