I’m seriously impressed with the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s charging speed

The battery capacities on Galaxy phones in all price segments have received a massive boost this year. From the budget-friendly Galaxy M11 to the $1400 Galaxy S20 Ultra, Samsung has released quite a few phones that have a 5,000 mAh battery in recent months. The Galaxy S20 Ultra, despite some power hungry features like a 120Hz display refresh rate and a nearly 7-inch screen, lasts really long on a single charge thanks to the size of its battery. More than that, however, I’m impressed at how quickly it goes from 0 to 100% with the supplied 25W charger.

I have been using the Galaxy S20 Ultra for around three weeks at this point and was using the Galaxy S20+ prior to that. All three Galaxy S20 models support 25W super fast charging, but Samsung seems to have tuned the Galaxy S20 Ultra to charge the fastest, or at least in a similar time as the Galaxy S20+, despite the difference in battery capacities. An hour of charging gets the Galaxy S20 Ultra from 0 to 100%, and that’s particularly impressive when you consider that just six months ago, the Note 10+ was the charging speed champion, with its 4,300 mAh battery going from 0 to full in around 65 minutes.

The reason is simple: With any fast charging technology, the power received from the charger begins to taper off once you cross 50-60% charge, but that probably isn’t happening as much on the Galaxy S20 Ultra as it does on other Galaxy phones. And it’s great to see Samsung didn’t just slap a big battery on the top-end Galaxy S20 model and call it a day. The S20 Ultra can last a full day with considerably heavy use, even with 120Hz refresh rate enabled (and I’m never disabling that feature on my phones), and when you need to, you can top it up in an hour and be on your way again.

Of course, there’s plenty more to like about the Galaxy S20 Ultra, and you can read all about that in our review of the phone. Also check out our Galaxy S20+ review, which is the Galaxy S20 model we recommend for most people.