APRIL 2020 PCWorld 41and side-heavy, so it requires a
slightly different grip, lest it slide
and slip out of your hands.
You can forget about one-
handed operation. While the new,
higher placement of the in-display
fingerprint sensor has drastically
improved the accuracy and
reliability of the scanner when
picking it up and unlocking with
my thumb, the size of the S20 Ultra
makes it difficult to do much else
without using all 10 of my fingers. It
was hard enough to use the
6.8-inch display on the Note 10+,
but the S20 Ultra’s 6.9-inch
screen, coupled with the weight
and near-9mm thickness, is simply
too much for one hand to bear.
The S20 Ultra is the only phone I’ve used
that I could actually feel sliding down my hand
as I held it. It’s a weird phenomenon, caused
by a combination of the size, weight, and
polished aluminum edges. Eventually, I
settled on a grip that either contorted my
pinkie finger under the bottom or used my
off-hand thumb to keep it steady. I still had to
adjust my grip every so often. Long stretches
with the Ultra were downright uncomfortable.
Even if you have fingers long enough to
comfortably reach the upper corners of the
screen, the bulbous camera will complicate
your grip. While giant geometrical camera
arrays are all the rage, the S20 Ultra takes it to
almost comical proportions, with a bump that
protrudes some three millimeters from the
back. Because it’s such a broad bump, taking
up about an eighth of the rear case, your
fingers will inevitably butt into it.
The giant camera bump also makes it
tricky to use on a table, especially when
tapping the upper left side of the screen. It’s
wobblier than the S10 and the Pixel, and
when a notification comes in, the haptic
vibration is downright startling. All said, it’s
the first phone I wanted to put in a case,
which is a shame, because the glass repels
fingerprints surprisingly well.
Elsewhere, it’s easier to raise the volume,The S20 Ultra absolutely towers over the Galaxy S10+, which
isn’t exactly small.