so we're back on the roof and i've got what i consider to be my favorite two
phones on the market right now if it was my money i now know having
lived with both of these incredible phones i know which one i would choose
i want to know which one you would choose if it was your money on the line
let's get into it now actually just before i launch into the designs of
these two incredible phones i do want to ask you if you would
consider liking and subscribing you know to BTEKT we've recently kicked
off rooftop reviews because we're not
allowed out we're in lockdown here hopefully you like this new format but
do let me know your comments in the section
below so then design let's get into this
so let's talk about the camera bump here on the s20 Ultra
it's about as subtle as a brick it sticks out well the whole phone is about
as subtle as a brick it's as heavy as a brick as well at 220
grams even the dimensions are sort of brick
like but it looks better than the brick i actually really like the look
even though cosmic grey i don't see what's cosmic about it
and okay it's marginally more interesting than perhaps the all-black
finish but the looks have grown on me somewhat even
though this is not the mirrored slate version here on
the Xperia 1 II i still think it's an absolutely
stunning stunning phone it's only 180 grams. What
are the other key differences here 21x9 20x9 of course that's a big big
difference we'll come on to that later when we talk about the display
um headphone jack absolutely love the fact that that's here that is
a big deal for a lot of people for some people i've seen in the comments
it is a huge deal and i completely respect the fact that sony's put one
here we are in the middle of a thunderstorm
here we could get struck by lightning but let's crack on
the other thing of course here talking about the design is there's no
notch on the sony xperia one mark ii is that a good thing it's a fantastic
thing i really really appreciate that there isn't a
notch either on the uh Samsung galaxy S20 ultra what we do have though is a
little pinhole camera some people that bothers it doesn't
bother me to be honest i'm happy with both although i do prefer
the sony approach here by the way on the uh
the whole headphone jack thing do you remember when it wasn't that long ago
when samsung was ridiculing apple uh because they'd done away with the uh
with the headphone jack and yet now of course we're talking about samsung who's
done away with it and actually only sony here has a headphone jack
so with these two phones then when it comes to the display the obvious
starting point is the 21 by 9 aspect ratio on the
Sony is very different now when i first started living with
this phone i wasn't really sure about that because
um well you know i don't watch movies all the time i
often watch youtube in fact much more than i watch movies
but what i realized is it's okay to just put it full screen because most of the
time you can get away with that and when you do it's a really great
experience um this the screen is bright enough despite
what a lot of people have said um and of course you can get it even
brighter if you go into the settings i'll just put that on the screen here um
now when it comes to the the samsung here i mean this is such a
stunning stunning display but of course what we
have here that we don't have on the sony is 120 hertz refresh
rate the only way to get that 120 hertz
refresh rate though is if you drop the the resolution down
the touch does that worry me uh no because it's just such an amazing
display now with the sony you don't get the
option to choose if you want the higher refresh rate or if you want the 4k
i mean it's 4k you can't change that sony have got motion blurring reduction
in there or motion blur reduction um does it work as well as 120 hertz
refresh rate it doesn't no but it gets me close enough that i just
don't think about it when i'm using the phone at no point do i think ah
what i just did would have been smoother on this um having said that
one of the most amazing things about this phone is if you're using
I love Samsung Browser by the way i think it's my favorite
um samsung browser and you've got you know adblocker in there and you're
scrolling through a website it just looks amazing
there are so many points when i've used this phone and thought
it doesn't get any better than this but then that's the same here that's why we
have to try and work out which one is best
so let's talk about the speakers now on the samsung here
we've got a speaker in the earpiece and a bottom firing speaker here as well
it's good it's plenty loud it doesn't quite have the finesse
though that the the sony has the sony isn't
really really loud but it is most definitely loud enough but it is
beautifully balanced and the key difference here is both speakers are
front-facing
both of these phones are incredibly fast and
they are enough for i mean i don't think
i know anyone who would struggle with these phones in terms of you know
they're not quick enough or powerful enough
um the only thing i would say though is yes wi-fi 6 and 5G for both
except um you're not going to get 5g in the usa unfortunately and you will
not get the snapdragon 865 with this if you're in the uk
or europe and that's unfortunate it's not as big a difference as
has been made out i think by some people but it's something to just be aware of
so let's talk about battery life the most important thing
is does it get you through the day and without any worries any battery anxiety
and both of these phones achieve that with loads and loads of room to spare
5000 milliamp hours here 4 000 here with the sony it's more than
enough no worries whichever phone you choose
let's talk about fast charging it's really impressive here on the samsung
but you know sony do a very good job at
making sure that your battery is looked after for the long term
two different approaches both have wireless charging again
uh nothing to worry about here i don't mind the fact that we don't have the
fastest charging in the world here on the sony because
if there's more than enough to get me through the day i'm going to stick it on
charge overnight anyway so it's fine
so let's talk about the camera tech we have two very
very different approaches here automatic mode on the samsung i do prefer it
i also prefer looking back at the photos on this
massive massive screen that's so bright even out here in the middle of latin
america having said that if you're the kind of
person who takes real pride in their pictures and
actually wants to get into pro mode this is probably going to be the one for
you again they're two very different approaches
for what it's worth if i had to choose you know just these phones just on the
cameras alone that would be insanely difficult
i think i would choose the sony because i personally am really interested in
getting into pro mode and trying to improve as a photographer
and the way i see it is kind of like it's a bit of a challenge that sony's
given me here blackberry gave us brick breaker nokia
gave us snake and uh sony's given us pro mode
and it's a lot of fun and actually i think i'm using my time better using pro
mode on here than i would be in a game on another phone so do you
know what i mean now because it's so subjective this area
what i'm not going to do is give you a huge
long kind of monologue about which i prefer
and why i'm putting these on the screen now so you can make up your
own minds but what i will say and this is really important
we've got a massive series of camera specials lined up with these two phones
and also the best of the rest everything else that's on the market right now that
we consider to be a contender will be going out in the city here by
the way can you guess which city i'm in uh and we will be taking loads of
photographs with some really cool people i think that's going to be a huge amount
of fun we're just waiting for the Covid 19
restrictions to be lifted and we'll be on our way so before i move on from the
camera check into the next section here i just want to say that
i prefer the front-facing camera here on the samsung
it is better there's no two ways about it in my opinion the front-facing camera
on the sony isn't up to the standard that i would have
expected and the same is also true of automatic mode on the sony
i think they've got it close to where it needs to be but
it's just not quite there could that happen in a future software update
i certainly hope so in terms of video both of these are absolutely excellent
we're going to put a couple of examples up on the screen here for you to see
the focusing issue is a lot better now than it was at launch here on the
samsung as you can see and actually stabilization is great
again it's subjective i want to know your opinion but yeah in terms of video
both of these are extremely competent so before we get to the verdict and i
explain which one of these i would choose with my own money
i want to give you just a very quick buyer's guide here and what i will say
is that when the deals come up for the sony xperia one mark ii here
with the free headphones earphones i can never remember the name of
i did this last time let's put them up here um that obviously makes a lot more
sense because it's one thousand two hundred dollars eleven hundred pounds
uh that really helps in fact right now as we're recording this vodafone has a
deal in the uk where you will get the free earphones and you'll get it
in mirrored slate which is a color i absolutely love i
mean i definitely recommend that now with the samsung of course because
the note 20 series has just come out we've seen a second kind of
considerable price cut here on the samsung some really good
deals in the uk europe i've even seen in the us some good deals
actually for our friends in the u.s watching this if you're not aware i
noticed on swapper.com some incredible deals on
this phone for like barely used uh immaculate looking s20
ultra so there are really good deals around
now for both of these two phones well worth checking out
okay the rain is really closing in now there's a reason why people don't do
reviews of mobile technology on rooftops so look which one of these phones would
i choose if it were my own money the first thing i want to say is you
cannot go wrong here but the biggest thing to think about in
my opinion is the sheer size portability maneuverability of
these two phones in terms of living with them every day as a true
daily driver i did find the samsung was just a bit
too big for me and a bit too heavy to feel
comfortable and confident just you know using on the daily there is
something about the size that the the form factor here of this
sony that i find so incredibly appealing it
really is a big screen phone experience but
without all the drawbacks and i love that so much the other thing
is i've enjoyed the pro mode so much
i think if you have a real interest in photography and you just want to take it
to the next level using your phone this is just an extreme amount of fun
and i would recommend it on that basis alone
i adore the samsung i thought that this was
absolutely brilliant when it came to wowing iphone you know that
you must know people like this i know i do people who insist that you know
apple's the best in iphones you know you just get the new iphone you
never think about it because they're always better
well i've seen iphone owners look at this and see what it's done
with taking beautiful shots of a full moon and i've seen them
well up and say i had no idea samsung was this good
so i mean this is incredible so if it was my money which one would
i choose it's tough and i hope you don't give me too much of a hard time about
this in the comments but with my money i would choose this the sony xperia one
mark ii it's that form factor it's so light
for such a big phone i adore the screen i love the quality of the speakers
there's something about the way sony does things and i feel that
so many tech reviewers just don't give sony a fair
a fair crack of the whip and i've never really understood why
i know that certainly everyone that's ever presented on b-tech
has kept a very open mind when it comes to sony and other products
and by the way a massive shout out to basil
david gina jordan ian all the wonderful people that we've had working on btech
over the years they've done a terrific job
and i have to say thank you to you watching this for liking and subscribing
and your comments you know we've had so many thoughtful
kind comments as we've relaunched under incredibly difficult
lockdown conditions here thank you so much for your ideas and suggestions on
where we go from here anyway so that's it sony xperia one mark
ii i would give this 97% for what it's worth and i would give
this probably about 96% that's how close it is
thank you for watching i'll see you next time