14 PCWorld MARCH 2020NEWS SAMSUNG GALAXY S20 V S20+
Snapdragon 865, which should bring a nice
speed and graphics boost over last year’s 855.
Far more intriguing is the RAM. Samsung
has switched to LPDDR5 RAM for the S20,
which is reportedly 1.3 times faster than the
S10 5G’s LPDDR4X. You’re also getting a lot
more of it: Samsung has bumped the base
RAM to 12GB in all models this year, a
50-percent increase over last year’s 8GB. (If
you wanted 12GB of RAM in the S10+, you
needed to upgrade to the 1TB Performance
Edition ceramic model for $1,600.)
As far as storage goes, both phones offer
128GB of internal storage with support for a
1TB MicroSD card. The S20+ also has a
512GB option.5G
The S20 isn’t Samsung’s first 5G phone—the
S10 5G and Note 10+ 5G both arrived lastyear—but it’s the first Galaxy phone that’s
exclusively 5G. That’s because Qualcomm is
requiring the Snapdragon 865 processor to
be paired with the X55 5G modem.
However, you’re not getting an equal 5G
experience on both phones. While the S20+
supports both the sub-6GHz spectrum and
mmWave, the S20 supports only sub-6GHz.
That means Verizon customers are going to
be out of luck with the S20, because the
carrier is building out its mmWave network
first. However, Verizon will be selling its own
model of S20 that does support mmWave at
some point, we just don’t know when or how
much it’ll cost. T-Mobile subscribers, on the
other hand, will be able to use the company’s
5G network on either phone.BATTERY
With lots of pixels, 120Hz refresh, and a 5G
modem, the S20 is going
to need lots of battery
capacity. The S20 has a
4,000mAh battery, while
the S20+ gets a
4,500mAh one, a nice
boost from the 3,400mAh
and 4,100mAh batteries in
the S10 and S10+.
The phones are also
equipped with Wireless
PowerShare (for charging
your Galaxy Buds+ or a
Sorry audiophiles, there’s no headphone jack on any model of S20. buddy’s phone), 10W Fast