Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra came into market around 2025, it is about five years since its release
It offered great and fantastic features which was beating most phones at the market
The specifications of Samsung galaxy s20 ultra are still great in 2025 and even in coming years
Its specifications may attract user to buy it for having premium phones feeling because it is sold cheaply right now
For example in Ebay Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra can be at your hand for around $210 while some mid range phones are available at higher price while 5 years old Samsung outperforms them in many areas
But, Galaxy S20 Ultra is worthless in 2025 because high performance and cheap mid range phones are blowing down this Samsung in various angles, so you better avoid it.
To prove it, let’s look at the Samsung Galaxy A36 which came into market in March 2025, you will be surprised at what you will learn.
Updates and long term support
If you are unaware Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is no longer receiving operating system update
Samsung offered three years update, meaning that S20 Ultra would have Android 13
Originally it comes with Android 10, however almost all apps run smoothly on android 13
It is important to note long term software update ensures a device is free from bugs and user gets new useful features
The case is different in Samsung Galaxy A36
First Galaxy A36 uses Android 15 and One UI 7 while S24 uses One UI 5 skin
Another thing, it will receive six software updates hence it will get Android 16,17,18,19,20 and Android 21 (assuming naming system remains the same)
What does this mean
There will be less software issues when device run a particular app, all issues relating to phone software system is fixed through updates
Lacking long term support on many old samsung phones devalue the phone quality and make them worthless
Performance
Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra run on Snapdragon 865 cpu for the samsung sold in USA and north america markets in general
In Global market they use Exynos 990
Let’s look on Snapdragon 865 variants because Exynos 990 performance is low when you compare it with snapdragon
The Snapdragon 865 processor was designed using Cortex A77 on performance cores while Samsung Galaxy A36 adopts Cortex A78 which improves efficiency on battery power consumption.
By comparing the two architectures one can conclude that Galaxy A36 is more powerful than S20 Ultra because of its newer design system.
But that is not the case
Snapdragon 865 performs slightly higher than Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 which runs on Samsung Galaxy A36
But the difference in performance between the two SoCs is very small and it is hard to notice
Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 can achieve about 85% performance of the Snapdragon 865
For example, according to geekbench tests snapdragon 865 scores around 1117 while snapdragon 6 Gen 3 scores 1017, this is very small
When it comes to power efficiency, Cortex A78 has the upper hand because it improved power efficiency by 20% of the previous architecture which is Cortex A77.
This makes snapdragon 6 gen 8 a pick and snapdragon 865 a waste
So, Samsung Galaxy A36 is much worthier than this old premium samsung phone
Battery performance
From Gsmarena review about five years ago, Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra battery lasted for 10 hours on continuous web browsing
Using the same battery test structure, Samsung Galaxy A36 lasted for 11 hours
It is a difference of around 10%
The reason why Galaxy A36 keeps battery charges for much longer is because of its processor
Its processor Snapdragon 6 gen 3 was designed to consume less power while offering higher performance
The design structure of this cpu makes this mid range phone to use less energy during processing the tasks
One disadvantage you may face when buying S20 Ultra is battery degradation because it is five years now since it was announced
Probably, you will buy a refurbished one or used one, be careful if you opt for S20
Require extra efforts to install new One UI
On OS updates, galaxy s20 ultra receives up to Android 13 and One UI 5.0
It is possible to install Android 15 and One UI 7 but by unofficial means
To upgrade the phone to a latest operating system an expertise on custom ROM installation is required
The process requires to download some files including ExtremeROM and also a computer which has Odin software
The installation goes through a number of processes in which you must change some settings, one of them you must unlock something called bootloader
There is a chance of losing your data or break the phone completely, in fact it requires patient and carefulness
A normal user may not spend much time to upgrade operating system this way
And this doesn’t guarantee you the feature update of the new coming OS, you will need to repeat the process if the new ROM is available
Hey, does the latest One UI 7 and newer matter? The answer is YES
One UI 7 has the abundant number of new AI features which are not available on old Samsung phones
Same specifications ratio
Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is old one but it offers more as compared to Galaxy A36
Among the specifications which are unavailable in A36 are periscope telephoto, 8K video recording, wireless charging, and hdr10+
Other specifications are the same at higher ratio
Price
The price of Samsung Galaxy A36 is $269 while Galaxy S20 is $210
The difference is 59, but this difference will give phone that receives support for many years
And it will help avoid the phone that is no longer supported in term of OS updates
It is very rare to find mid range phone that get OS update for six years under that buck
Final thoughts
Samsung is very difference with iPhone phones when it comes to the device supporting
In reality Samsung Galaxy S20 is still good phone in 2025 and even in 2026 but supporting it for only 3 years with price tag of at least $1000 it was worthless to buy it
And I feel the shame to compare it to Samsung Galaxy A36 but the reality holds that the two phones are similar in many ways while one among them gets new OS features every year for six years
