Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860 price and review

Get next-level power for everything you love to do with Samsung Galaxy 5G; Share more, game harder, experience more and never miss a beat The S20 Plus’ comes with 6.7-inch screen (larger than the standard S20’s 6.2-inch display), and supports the fastest 5G speeds, using mmWave technology. Unlike the S20, the Plus gives you an option to buy a 512GB variant. The larger model (along with the Ultra) also has a time-of-flight sensor in the camera module that’s designed to enrich low light shots, but doesn’t seem to affect photography in a meaningful way. Get details in Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860 price and review.

There’s a smattering of other perks. The S20 Plus has a larger battery than the S20 (but smaller than the Ultra), which in our looping video test lasted 21 hours in airplane mode and 17 hours, 15 minutes in our Wi-Fi test that simulates real-world use. That’s when using the default 60Hz screen refresh rate.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• High refresh rate screen
• Good battery life
• Excellent fit and finish

Cons

• 5G not worth the added cost
• Cameras oversmooth faces
• Software updates only guaranteed for two years

Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860 specs

• Display: 6.7-inch quad-HD AMOLED; 120-Hz refresh rate
• Rear camera: Quad-lens: 12MP primary (ƒ/1.8); 64MP telephoto with 3x lossless zoom (ƒ/2.0); 12MP ultrawide (ƒ/2.2); VGA time of flight
• Front camera: 10MP (ƒ;/2.2)
• CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865
• RAM: 12GB
• Storage: 128GB, 512GB
• microSD: Yes, up to 1TB
• Battery size: 4,500 mAh
• Battery life (Hrs:Mins): 10:31 (60Hz); 8:55 (120Hz)
• Size: 6.37 x 2.9 x 0.3 inches
• Weight: 6.56 ounces

Who is this for – Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860

Yes for

You love taking telephoto pictures
Not all phones are good at taking zoomed-in photos. The S20 Plus has a respectable 3x optical zoom combined with a 64MP sensor that enables some truly neat close-in photography. It may not capture the clearest photos at 30x zoom, but it will collect context at a farther range than almost every phone on the market – except for the S20 Ultra, of course.

You’re willing to pay for nearly the best
We won’t beat around the bush: the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is a superior phone, especially the cameras. But if you want to save some money, the S20 Plus has nearly all its best perks at a notably lower cost.

You want to be on the cutting edge of 5G
Given the S20 Plus connects to both mmWave and sub-6 5G, it’s a great phone for those who want to jump on the cutting edge of 5G – because, chances are, the phone will hook up to the 5G network of your carrier of choice.

Don’t buy it if…

You want an affordable flagship
As much as we enjoyed the S20 Plus, it’s certainly expensive – and beyond the means of some consumers. If you want flagship specs at a lower cost, consider the OnePlus 7T Pro or an older phone. They’ll serve you just fine.

You want cheap 5G
Yes, the S20 Plus is likely the most affordable way to get 5G on both mmWave and Sub-6. But if you wanted a more affordable way to get to 5G, pick up a phone that’s 5G-capable and matching your carrier’s particular network. For instance, if your network runs on mmWave, check if there’s a discounted Samsung Galaxy S10 5G; if your network exists on a sub-6 then see if a OnePlus 7 Pro 5G works.

You want a handsome phone
If the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus has another great flaw, it’s that its design isn’t particularly inspiring. In fact, you might be shocked its price goes so high – because all it’s paying for goes on the inside. If you can’t enjoy all the phone can do, find one which has the style and trimmings that make it worthwhile.

How much is Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860 price?

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus will set you back $1,199. That gets you 12GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, though you’ll be able to upgrade to 512GB for an extra $150.

It’s hard to look past that $1,199 price, which is $200 more than the Galaxy S10 Plus cost when that phone debuted in 2019. And now that Samsung has cut the price of the S10 Plus by $150, the gap in price is even bigger.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus is available through each of the big four U.S. networks — AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. US Cellular, Xfinity Mobile and Visible offer the Galaxy S20 Plus as well, and you can find it at Samsung, Amazon and Best Buy. As of the summer, discount carriers including Visible have started offering  the phone.

Regardless, even if you don’t opt for the 512GB version, you can always insert a microSD card into the Galaxy S20, S20 Plus or S20 Ultra to give your phone up to another terabyte of storage.

Compare Galaxy S20 vs S20 Plus vs S20 Ultra

Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860 review

Color

The Galaxy S20 Plus comes in three colors: Cloud Blue, Cosmic Gray and Cosmic Black. Personally, this feels like a step back; the S10 line was available in a wide range of unique and bold colors — from the iridescent Prism White to stunning Flamingo Pink — and the hues that Samsung’s gone for here feel drab and uninspired by comparison. Perhaps they’ll look better in natural light.

Build

The 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED screen isn’t heavily curved down the side of the phone, but the 3D glass over the top is beautifully shaped at each corner to give the front of the phone a modern shape that’s comfortable to hold. Down the right-hand side is the power button and volume rocker, and rather than being just sandwiched between the chassis and the glass, the metal bodywork tracks around them.

Design

The Galaxy S20+ is a big phone. At 6.4 by 2.9 by 0.3 inches (HWD), it feels large in the hand, but it probably won’t poke out of your pocket. Samsung focused on increasing height rather than width for usability, and as a result the phone is taller than the Galaxy S10+, but fortunately not wider; it doesn’t reach the hand-busting 3-inch width of the Galaxy S20 Ultra or the iPhone 11 Pro Max. At 6.56 ounces, it’s pretty heavy, but once again it doesn’t feel nearly as heavy as the 7.76-ounce Galaxy S20 Ultra.

Screen

The screen is a 6.7-inch, 3,120-by-1,440 AMOLED panel. The screens on the three new S20 models are all the same resolution, which means they get denser and even better to look at as the sizes go down. They’re 14 percent brighter than last year’s displays, according to DisplayMate Labs, and you can definitely see the difference between this and a Galaxy S10e.

Bixby button

The dedicated Bixby button on the side of the S10 series is gone; now Bixby is a long press of the power button, which is on the right side of the phone with the volume rocker (and which you can disable). On the back, there’s a camera/microphone patch with six elements: the four cameras (wide, regular, 3x zoom, and time-of-flight), the flash, and a microphone. Like other S20s, the S20+ has no headphone jack on the bottom, but it ships with a set of AKG-branded USB-C earbuds.

Refresh Rate

The phone should stay in its new 120Hz, 1080p screen mode, though. The 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling noticeably smoother and improves the phone experience all around. If you’re concerned about the 1080p resolution, I didn’t find it to be a problem, but remember that the pixels get tighter as the screen size gets smaller, so this phone is a better bet to use that resolution than the Ultra is.

Sensor

Also like the Ultra, the Galaxy S20+ still relies on Qualcomm’s first-generation in-display fingerprint sensor. In my experience, this sensor requires a clear, direct press on its relatively limited target area—not ideal, as there’s no tactile guide as to where to press. But it’s not a deal breaker, and you can also use face unlock, PIN, or password.

Software and Processor

The Snapdragon 865 delivers about 20-percent better CPU and GPU performance than last year’s 855. You probably won’t feel that. Rather, the new chipset is there to enable distinct new capabilities—that 120Hz screen, 8K video recording, the multi-frame camera night mode, and 5G, for example. It does so with aplomb. On our GFXBench graphics benchmarks, the phone was able to hit 60 or 120fps depending on screen mode, as long as the scene being rendered wasn’t too strenuous. We have a full benchmark story looking at the Galaxy S20 Ultra; the S20+, as I said, is about the same.

The Galaxy S20+ benchmarks exactly like the Galaxy S20 Ultra. The default configuration has a 2.84GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor, 12GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage (107GB of which available); there’s also a 512GB version for $150 more. If you don’t want to pay that difference right now, you can put a microSD card in the phone later, but you can’t use that card to store 8K video recordings.

Also like the S20 Ultra, the S20+ runs Android 10 with Samsung’s OneUI 2.0 skin over it. Samsung’s version of Android isn’t very Google-centric, and it’s going to have a ton of bloatware if you buy it from a carrier. There’s a huge amount of settings and confusing optional features. There are some things to like, though, such as a system-wide dark mode, a focus mode that blocks distracting apps, and a Link to Windows/Your Phone feature that lets you manage notifications and cut and paste text and images from your Windows PC.

Camera

The S20 Plus has a quad sensor camera inside the bump on the back, made up of a 12-megapixel f/1.8 wide-angle lens, a 64-megapixel f/2.0 telephoto sensor, and another 12-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide sensor. A time-of-flight sensor completes the lineup, and this is the same camera system found on the regular Galaxy S20 too. You can take 3x hybrid zoom shots or up to 30x digital, shoot 8K video at 24 frames per second (fps), record with HDR10+, and slow-motion video at 960.

Outside of the saturation boost, Samsung’s software can be heavy-handed with sharpening too, but you do have to go looking for it to notice. I didn’t have problems with the 8K video mode which we experienced on the S20 Ultra, with the high-res videos shooting smoothly and looking stunning on the screen too. It should be noted this S20 Plus has a Samsung Exynos processor, while the S20 Ultra we reviewed had the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865.

In the sunshine, shots are quite heavily saturated which may split opinion, but often I found it livened up images nicely. Night mode is effective, brightening up medium-lit scenes without adding excessive noise, but in very low light it does get noisy and less usable. Its worst crime is consistently inaccurate edge detection in portrait mode, and problems with focusing. When we tested the Galaxy S20 Ultra the same problems were found.

The Galaxy S20 Plus also has Samsung’s fun Single Take mode, where you shoot a video instead of taking stills, and the software generates a selection of clips, GIFs, and still images from it for you. It’s great for grabbing shareable images and video in the moment, without worrying you’re going to miss something. It’s easy to use, and really fun.

While 8K video does look good, playing it back in all its glory won’t be possible for most due to the expense of buying an 8K TV at the moment, so it’s better to avoid the massive file sizes (at least 500MB per minute) and shoot at 4K or 1080p. That way, you can also use Samsung’s excellent Super Steady stabilization mode, which operates uncannily well.

Selfies taken with the 20-megapixel hidden in the central hole-punch are a mixed bag. When you don’t use the portrait mode they come out very well, with lovely colors and natural tones, but portrait mode is unreliable, blurring out edges when they shouldn’t be and smoothing skin to an unacceptable level. I do like the auto-enabled gesture control, where holding your hand up starts a countdown timer. The phone never failed to “see” my hand, making it reliable and usable.

Results from the Galaxy S20 Plus’ camera are generally really good almost regardless of the environment or time of day. It’s a great all-rounder, and versatile enough that you won’t be left wishing for a feature it doesn’t have, provided you don’t expect much from portrait mode and like a bit of saturation in your sunny day photos.

Battery life in Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860 with this price

At 4,500 mAh, the Plus variant’s battery equals the capacity of the one inside last year’s Galaxy S10 5G. That phone lasted 10 hours, 56 minutes on our Tom’s Guide battery test, in which we have a phone surf the web continuously over a cellular connection with the screen set to 150 nits of brightness. So you’d expect the Galaxy S20 Plus to match the result.

One other word about the S20 Plus’ battery life — it takes a severe hit if you enable the 120Hz refresh rate. We re-ran the test with the faster refresh rate turned on, and the S20 Plus turned in a time of 8 hours and 55 minutes — more than 90 minutes worse than when the phone’s screen was set to a 60Hz refresh rate. We saw a similar drop when we tested the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s battery, so it’s easy to understand why the 120Hz refresh rate isn’t a default setting.

In regular use, the Galaxy S20 Plus’ battery has proved fairly resilient. I took a fully charged Galaxy S20 Plus and spent a healthy chunk of the next 24 hours, taking photos, playing games, watching videos and poking my away around — with the 120Hz refresh rating turned on for much of that time. I ended that test period with 32% of the battery remaining, so it’s clear you’ll be able to go through the day without needing to find a place to charge the S20 Plus.

The S20 Plus certainly came close when we ran our battery test, holding out for 10 hours, 31 minutes with the screen set to the default 60Hz refresh rate. While that’s better than the average smartphone, we would have hoped the S20 Plus’ result would have come closer to 11 hours like the S10 5G did. Perhaps surfing the web over T-Mobile’s 5G network accounts for the difference, as last year’s S10 5G test ran on Verizon’s network over LTE.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus ships with a 25-watt fast charger, which should get the S20 Plus juiced back up relatively quickly. Our testing backed that up. After charging a drained S20 Plus battery for 30 minutes using the supplied charger, the phone’s battery indicator was back to 55%. Of course, we got the same result recharging an iPhone 11 Pro, and Apple’s phone only features an 18-watt charger.

Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860 performance review

Although Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 865 processor is sure to wind up in a number of premium Android handsets throughout 2020, it landed in Galaxy S20 line first. Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus buyers also get a generous 12GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, though they have the option to increase capacity to up to 512GB as well.

Because the Galaxy S20 Plus has the same Snapdragon 865 chipset and 12GB of RAM as the Galaxy S20 Ultra base model, it’s no surprise that Samsung’s 6.7-inch phone matches the performance of the 6.9-inch Ultra — and that’s a good thing. The S20 Plus posted a nearly identical multicore score to the S20 Ultra on the Geekbench 5 general performance test — 3,076.3 for the S20 Plus and 3,076.7 for the S20 Ultra. Those were the best Geekbench scores we’ve ever seen on any Android phone when we tested back in the spring, though they’re still short of the 3,517 score turned in by the A13 Bionic-powered iPhone 11 Pro Max. The OnePlus 8 Pro outscored the Galaxy S20 Plus in Geekbench, too, and we imagine the Snapdragon 865 Plus-powered Note 20 lineup will outperform the S20 series.

We’re also encouraged by how the Snapdragon 865 boosts the Galaxy S20 Plus in real-world applications. We test phones by having them transcode a 4K video to 1080p after applying an effect and transition in Adobe Rush. The iPhone usually breezes through this test, while Snapdragon-powered devices slog through it. And while the S20 Plus’ time of 1 minute, 13 seconds was no match for the 45 seconds it took the iPhone 11 Pro Max to transcode the video, it’s a big jump forward from the Galaxy Note 10’s time of 1 minute, 34 seconds. The S20 Plus also beat the S20 Ultra’s time by 3 seconds.

When we tested for graphics, the Galaxy S20 Plus turned in a result of 1,319 frames (21 frames per second) in GFXBench’s Aztec Ruins Vulkan test (off-screen). That’s essentially identical to how the Galaxy S20 Ultra performed and well ahead of last year leading Android phones like the Galaxy Note 10 Plus (1,058 frames) and the OnePlus 7T (1,169). The iPhone 11 Pro Max remains the standard to beat, though, with its 1,657-frame score (25 fps).

In everyday use, the Snapdragon 865 inside the Galaxy S20 Plus hums along. My PUBG Mobile sessions never included any stutters or frame drops like I’ve gotten used to playing the game on older devices. And switching between apps is a breeze thanks to all that RAM Samsung packed into the phone.

Does it support 5G – Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860?

The Galaxy S20+ and S20 Ultra are the most advanced 5G phones in the US at the moment. They’re the only phones able to handle the entire layer cake of 5G frequencies—low, middle, and high—including reusing 4G frequencies through dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS).

The small Galaxy S20, on AT&T and T-Mobile/Sprint, gives up high-band millimeter-wave, which has very little coverage right now but delivers awesome speed and will expand over the next three years. (Verizon plans to have a mmWave version of the small phone later in Q2.)

The Galaxy S20+ has the same 5G hardware as the Galaxy S20 Ultra, but I found that it performed slightly better on Verizon’s 5G network than the Ultra did. It was a slight difference, but a repeatable one. At a Verizon 5G site in Astoria, NY, I got a maximum speed of 1.25Gbps with both phones, but the Galaxy S20+ held onto 5G signal 10-20 feet farther away than the S20 Ultra did.

I expect to see the same advantage on AT&T high-band 5G, which I tested on the Ultra in Manhattan. I can’t get to Manhattan right now because of coronavirus-related travel restrictions.

The small S20 lacks the “5G+” technology that gets these amazing speeds

The Galaxy S20+ has all of the 5G pluses that the Ultra does, but it also has one minus: Like the S20 Ultra, it hasn’t received a software update needed to accelerate T-Mobile low-band 5G performance. That update, currently available in the OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren, helps make 5G slightly faster than 4G LTE in many areas, as opposed to sometimes slower. The latest rumors I’ve heard are that the update is coming in April.

Otherwise, I tested the S20+ on Sprint’s 5G and on Verizon and AT&T 4G. I didn’t see a convincing difference between the S20+ and the larger model on those technologies. All of the S20s are state-of-the-art here.

Sprint’s 5G, which will soon become the New T-Mobile’s mid-band 5G, pretty much doubles Sprint’s 4G speeds in New York right now, and will probably have better performance once New T-Mobile starts using more of its available spectrum.

What is the best alternative of Samsung Galaxy S20+ Plus 5G G9860?

With the launch of its iPhone 12 lineup this year, Apple has discounted a few of its older models, including reducing the 2018 iPhone XR to $500. That pricing tier has been popular of late, and many big-time phone makers are offering great new phones in that range. One of them is Google’s new Pixel 4A 5G, which joins the Pixel 4A from August.

Now more than before, people on a tight budget have more options to choose from. In addition to those new phones, there are plenty of reliable handsets from 2019 as well — and all of them cost about $500 or less. And despite their low prices, budget phones are getting more advanced and pack features akin to a premium phone, like amazing cameras, fast processors and modern-day software features. 

In addition to its main Galaxy S20 phones, Samsung has a more cost-conscious A series line of phones. This year it launched the Galaxy A51 5G, which has four cameras including a selfie camera, an in-screen fingerprint sensor and expandable memory. CNET reviewed the non-5G version that originally went for $399 (£329, AU$599) though we’ve seen it go on sale in the US for as low as $280. 

Available in the US for $445, the One 5G is one of the best, most affordable 5G phones available. This cheap smartphone option has a total of six, yes six, cameras, a 90Hz high-refresh rate display and fast-charging technology. It’s available now in the US on AT&T and is coming to Verizon at a later date. 

If you want an affordable 5G phone, the Pixel 4A 5G is a worthy consideration. Available for preorder and shipping out Nov. 19, the $499 (£499, AU$799) handset has a solid battery life, fantastic dual rear cameras and robust software support from Google. 

Released in August, Google’s Pixel 4A costs $349 (£349, AU$599). The 5.81-inch Google Pixel phone only comes in one color (black) and features a headphone jack, a slightly larger screen and a bigger battery than last year’s Pixel 4 and 128GB of storage right off the bat. 

The iPhone XR may be two years old, but second to the SE above, it’s one of the cheapest iPhones you can get new from Apple. Currently starting at $499 (£499, AU$849) off-contract with 64GB, it features a 6.1-inch LCD display, a 12-megapixel rear camera and the A12 Bionic processor. It’s also compatible with Apple’s latest iOS 14 software update. 

If you’re looking for a cheaper Note 20 alternative, the Moto G Stylus features a stylus that you can store inside the phone along with a built-in Notes app to help with productivity. Available in the US and currently priced at $250 from Motorola, the phone also features triple-rear cameras, 128GB of storage and a robust 4,000-mAh battery. 

Although the Galaxy A50 came out last year (and is the predecessor to the A51 phone mentioned above), it’s still a great phone for $350. This Samsung phone has a 6.4-inch AMOLED screen, an in-screen fingerprint reader, front facing camera for selfies and a headphone jack. 

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