The camera is the star of Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra

Samsung’s new Galaxy S20 phones have arrived, and the three models — Galaxy S20, S20 Plus and Galaxy S20 Ultra — are all a nice step up from last year’s Galaxy S10s and they are ready for 5G networks. Since the Ultra was the model that was tested, this review will mostly concentrate on it.

The star here is the camera which has a three-lens system that features a 108-megapixel mode on the main camera sensor and a 40-megapixel front-facing camera. The telephoto lens can zoom to 10x (optical) and it can use artificial intelligence to digitally zoom up to 100x — something Samsung calls Space Zoom.

To get the super-high-resolution 108 megapixel mode, you have to select it from the aspect ratio setting on the main camera screen. Note that you can only shoot with the wide-angle lens for 108 megapixel photos (not ultrawide or telephoto).

You will need a tripod or some other support when zooming in more than 10x. Trying to use the 100x zoom setting without camera support is disappointing but not unexpected. It also helps those super zoom shots if the subject is still.

All three S20 models can shoot 8K video at 24 frames per second. Each frame of that 8K video is a 33MP still image, which means you can shoot 8K video and pick out your favorite frames and save them as really high-resolution photos.

The 5G speed on the phone is quite impressive. In testing, the phone had download speeds of 975 megabits per second, which is just less than 1 gigabit. Now that Samsung has fired the first shot by including 5G in all three models of the S20, Apple is likely to follow suit with its next iPhone release.

The screen has a fantastic 120-hertz refresh rate, which means it refreshes twice as fast as most smartphones for very fluid scrolling and graphics response. The phone also has a 5,000 milliamp-hour battery, which is as big as you're likely to encounter.

The Ultra runs Android 10 and comes with 128 or 512 gigabytes of internal storage. It has a microSD card slot to increase the storage capacity to up to 1.5 terabytes.

It can be unlocked via face recognition or an in-screen fingerprint reader. Both worked well. The water-resistant Ultra can take a 30-minute dunk in up 5 feet of water.

The S20 Ultra comes in Cosmic Black or Cosmic Gray and is on the pricey side, starting at $1,399.

The screen is extremely bright and clear and a joy to use. The buttons are all on the right side, which makes one-handed use easier for someone with big hands.

For power users, especially Android power users, the S20 Ultra is the phone for you.