Samsung Galaxy S20 5G SM-G981UZAAXAA 5G Unlocked Cell Phone 6.2" Cosmic Gray 128GB

The Samsung Galaxy S20 5G at $999 is a terrible value, a five-year-old phone priced like a current flagship. You get a lovely build and capable cameras, but you're stuck on Android 13 with no more updates, weak gaming performance, and average battery life. At this price, buy a Galaxy S25 Ultra, iPhone 16 Pro Max, or OnePlus 15 instead.

The Snapdragon 865 in the S20 5G is a chip we know well. Day-to-day scrolling, social media, and even 4K video playback feel snappy thanks to the 12GB of RAM, which is frankly overkill for a phone this cheap. Our performance benchmarks place it in the 71st percentile among all phones we track, meaning it's still a fair bit quicker than plenty of 2024 budget phones with MediaTek or lower-tier Snapdragon silicon. But that number masks the real gap: modern mid-range chips like the Tensor in the Pixel 10a or Apple's A-series in the iPhone 16e run circles around it in single-core speed and sustained gaming. For daily use like email, maps, and light photo editing, you won't feel slow. But the processor does heat up when pushed, and those stereo speakers are fine, not great.

The display is another story where raw specs don't tell you everything. You get a 6.2-inch AMOLED at 120Hz, which sounds amazing, but its 1300-nit peak brightness only lands in the 45th percentile for phones in our database. Indoors it's vibrant and smooth, and you'll love the fluid scrolling. Step outside on a sunny day, though, and the screen struggles more than you'd expect from a Samsung panel. It's not terrible, but you'll be cranking brightness to max and squinting a bit. And the combo of that high refresh rate with the aging chip and 4000mAh battery means the power drain is real if you keep 120Hz on all day. The battery falls into the 68th percentile, so it's average at best, we'd call it a "charge by late afternoon" kind of phone under moderate use.

Stacked against the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, the S20 5G loses in every category that matters. The S25 Ultra brings a 200MP main camera, a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, a brighter 120Hz AMOLED, and seven years of promised updates. The S20's glass sandwich feels nice, but the S25 Ultra's titanium frame and Gorilla Armor glass are on another level. The Motorola razr ultra 2025 folds in half and gives you a cover screen experience the S20 can't touch, plus it ships with a modern chip and clean software. The iPhone 16 Pro Max offers Apple's A18 Pro, a 5x telephoto, and the kind of ecosystem integration that makes a five-year-old Android phone feel like a paperweight.

On the Android side, the OnePlus 15 is the other $800-900 contender we'd mention. It packs a Snapdragon 8 Elite, a 6000mAh battery that doubles the S20's real-world endurance, and a 120Hz OLED that gets far brighter outdoors. It also ships with four years of Android updates. So you're choosing between a phone that feels like a flagship relic and phones that actually are flagships. For my money, there's no scenario where the S20 at $999 makes sense. If you can find one used or refurbished for a fraction of the price, the camera and build are still lovely, but at full retail this is a non-starter.

At $999, the value conversation falls apart completely. You're paying current flagship money for a phone that launched in 2020. The S20 5G now costs the same as a Galaxy S25 Ultra, a Motorola razr ultra 2025, or an iPhone 16 Pro Max, all of which outclass it in every measurable way. For the same money, you get vastly better cameras, modern chips that will stay fast for years, and software support that stretches toward 2030. The 30x Space Zoom that felt like a party trick at $169 is just outdated at $999 when the S25 Ultra offers 100x with far better stabilization and processing.

The trade-off is no longer a trade-off, it's a straight loss. Day one the S20 5G feels premium, but day one with any current flagship feels better, lasts longer, and will actually get updates. The value math simply doesn't work. For pure hardware per dollar, our database has dozens of phones that crush the S20 at this price. The OnePlus 15, razr ultra 2025, and iPhone 16 Pro Max all offer fresher chips, better battery life, and modern designs that don't feel like a relic. The S20 was a masterpiece of depreciation at $169; at $999 it's a museum piece with a baffling price tag.

Here's a phone that makes you do a double-take when you see the price. The Samsung Galaxy S20 5G originally launched as a $999 flagship, and it still commands that full retail price in some channels. That's a lot to ask for a five-year-old phone. It's a 6.2-inch slab with a 120Hz AMOLED screen, 12GB of RAM, a 64MP main camera, wireless charging, and full IP68 water resistance. The spec sheet still reads well, but at $999 you're now competing directly with the latest and greatest from every manufacturer. We've been testing one against our database of current flagships to see if this aging device makes any sense at all in 2025.

The target buyer has narrowed considerably. At $169 this was a budget miracle; at $999 you'd have to be someone who specifically wants this exact form factor and feature set, perhaps as a collector's item or a replacement for a beloved S20 that died. The S20 5G hits the 94th percentile for build and 96th for features in our rankings, which is genuinely impressive, but those numbers now go up against the Galaxy S25 Ultra, iPhone 16 Pro Max, and OnePlus 15, all of which match or exceed it while adding years of software support. And the cameras? They land in the 93rd percentile, which was comfortably above budget phones but now trails the computational photography tricks of modern flagships. If you spend your days snapping photos, recording video, and streaming content, you'd be better served by something newer.

But let's get the elephant out of the way early: this phone is five years old and costs as much as a brand-new flagship. Samsung stopped giving it major Android updates after Android 13, and security patches have dried up too. The Snapdragon 865 inside is still a capable chip for everyday stuff, but its 50 out of 100 gaming score tells you it's not going to impress in Genshin Impact. And that 4000mAh battery, while adequate, isn't exactly an endurance champ. So this is a phone for almost nobody at this price, unless you have a very specific nostalgia or replacement need.

Gamers and performance junkies should look elsewhere, the S20 5G's 50/100 gaming score means it can't keep up with modern mid-range phones under sustained load. If you're constantly firing up demanding 3D titles, the Pixel 10a or iPhone 16e will serve you much better. Privacy-conscious users and anyone who uses their phone for work or banking will want to skip this entirely because of the dead software support. A phone with no security patches is a risky daily driver. And if you absolutely need all-day battery without ever hunting for a charger, the 4000mAh cell is a weak spot, a Moto G Stylus or Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G with 5000mAh can go noticeably longer. Those are the folks who should save up a bit more or grab a newer budget option with guaranteed updates and better endurance.

If you're a casual user who wants a phone that takes fantastic photos, feels like a luxury item, and costs less than a nice dinner out, the Galaxy S20 5G used to be shockingly good. At $999, it's shockingly bad. There is no buyer we can recommend this to at full retail price. The 120Hz screen makes everyday scrolling a joy, and Wireless PowerShare is still neat, but you can get those features on a Galaxy S25 Ultra with a decade's worth of improvements bolted on for the same money.

Power users, mobile gamers, and anyone who values security updates already needed to skip this one, and now the price makes it absurd. The 50/100 gaming score is no joke, demanding titles will chug, and the aging processor will only feel slower as apps get heavier. If you rely on your phone for banking, work, or two-factor authentication, the lack of updates should be a dealbreaker. At $999, grab literally any current flagship instead. The S20 5G was the best hardware deal we'd seen in a long while at $169. At $999, it's the worst.