Screen protectors are normally one of the first accessories that people purchase when they pick up a new smartphone. With premium smartphones becoming more expensive than ever before, it's always a good idea to spend a bit of extra money for added protection of the display, since display replacements tend to be very costly.
With Samsung's new flagships hitting the market, many have been wondering if the Galaxy S20 comes with a screen protector. Samsung started shipping premium devices with protectors pre-installed last year and that policy has not been changed for the new lineup.
Galaxy S20 series comes with a screen protector pre-installed
Yes, the Galaxy S20 does come with the screen protector. All three models in the lineup – the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+ and the Galaxy S20 Utra – have a screen protector installed right out of the box. It's basically a thin sheet of plastic so it's not that obvious.
This causes some customers to believe that there's no protector on the screen at all. If you turn off the display and examine it under lights at an angle, you can easily make out the edges of the protector, particularly around the corners of the display and the Infinity-O punch hole.
Samsung would often pre-install protectors on mid-range and entry-level devices before but that wasn't the case with flagships. We saw that change last year with the introduction of the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy S10 lineup. It came with a protector installed, with the exception of the Galaxy S10e, which didn't have a fingerprint sensor embedded in the display.
Some third-party screen protectors don't function properly with in-display fingerprint sensors. So it's better for Samsung to provide a basic protector out of the box instead of having customers go through the hassle of finding the right one. It starting shipping flagships with a pre-installed protector with the Galaxy Note 10 series last year.
This is now the case for the Galaxy S20 series as well. Regardless of where in the world you buy your Galaxy S20 handset from, it's going to have a screen protector on it. While it doesn't offer the same kind of protection that you can get from a tempered glass protector, it does a great job of shielding your display from dings and scratches. After six months, the protector on my Galaxy Note 10+ is visibly scratched, which just shows that it has done its job well. So you can expect the one on your Galaxy S20 to hold up nicely too.
