Here's how much storage you need for a minute of 8K video on Galaxy S20 series

The Samsung Galaxy S20 series marks the first time we see 8K recording on a major smartphone line (bar the REDMAGIC 3), offering an exponential increase in detail compared to standard 4K videos.

This quality increase will have ramifications for storage though, as Samsung says (via SamMobile) 8K video will consume 600MB of storage per minute. By comparison, 4K/30fps video on a modern phone varies from 200MB to 350MB per minute, depending on a variety of factors (bit-rate, format etc).

8K frames are 33MP in resolution, while 4K frames are roughly 8.3MP. So we were bound to see a big increase in file size with the jump in resolution either way, but the introduction of the high efficiency video codec (HEVC) can help prevent file sizes from blowing up even more.

SamMobile also reports that 8K recording will be limited to five minutes per clip on the Galaxy S20 series, presumably due to concerns over heat. We saw a similar situation with the transition to 4K in the early 2010s, as earlier Samsung flagships imposed a five minute cap on individual clips too. Sony phones, however, would shut down the recording and even the phone itself when the device temperature hit a certain point.

Either way, you can expect 8K video to consume roughly double the storage compared to 4K at the very least. Thankfully, Samsung’s Galaxy S20 phones all come with 128GB of expandable storage as the bare minimum.

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