Every year they revise the flagship smartphones.
With Samsung they seem to change things for the sake of it. Small tweaks here and there that don't require a hardware revision.
Often they'll remove features, and now they seem to even reduce the quality.
Comparing the S10 to the S20, the S10 succeeds every time.
2 main tests I've done so far are the camera and speakers.
The camera, I tested with 10 times zoom on both.
Both zoom nicely and the preview image is sharp. However after taking some pictures and viewing the results side by side,
the S20 uses post-processing to blur the image. It looks airbrushed, details are lost and this tacky blur filter is applied.
Also, a small note but although the S20 does 8k video, it's only 30fps. So I think it's better to use 4k 60fps which the S10 also already offers.
The speakers.
Listening to music, the S10 has better sound quality.
I had to check the equalizer and sound settings to make sure they were the same. (They are)
The S20 sounds incredibly tinny and bad, practically unlistenable.
Spotify has an option to switch from device to another so it's easy to compare.
The S10 has a beefy and full(ish) sound, while the S20 sounds compressed and tiny, as if it's on a phone call with hold music.
I'm pretty shocked that a $1300+ revision is not only not better, but actually worse than the previous reiteration.
I'm still to test other aspects of the phone, but I'd like to put this out there as a warning.
I did test the phone the day before buying it, but things like the camera and speaker I was unable to test in store.
Also I think I'll get used to it, but the clock in the top left is incredibly small on the S20. About 2 millimetres in size, smaller than previous Galaxy phones.
It seems they optimised it for the S20 Ultra and didn't resize the interface for the smaller phone.
The one thing I like about the phone is the 120 refresh rate, though it only works if you reduce the screen resolution. So the resolution is actually lower than the S10 if you enable it.
I bought the phone because my S10's battery has depleted, not lasting a full day. (it's 12 months old)
Starting to think I should have bought another S10, or another brand's flagship.
Feel free to post your reviews of the S20.
Also it's a bit insulting of Samsung to offer the S20+ for the same price as the S20 after the release date. Both everyone who bought the S20 and S20+ are wronged by this action. Brand loyalty and trust matters.
Reading your review of the speaker. It sounds like you have a dud. Call centre music is garbage. If the speaker crackles & has poor quality like that I would return it.