Ultra also suggests ultra-pricey, as the Note 20 Ultra starts at $1,299.99 for a model with 128GB of storage. You can bump that all the method up to 512GB for $1,449.99.
Samsung has actually settled into a brand-new routine for its Galaxy Note line of smart devices: take a few of the significant brand-new functions from the flagship Galaxy S updates from earlier in the year, enhance on them a little, and add a stylus. Rather of being the first with brand-new technology, the Note has actually ended up being the phone that fine-tunes it.
Theres no one thing I can point at to explain what makes the Note 20 Ultra such an excellent phone. There are a lot of little things.
There are great deals of terrific features of routines: they are foreseeable, they permit you to develop up abilities, they are comfy and familiar. But they can also lead you to fall under a rut. The Note 20 Ultra avoids that trap, fortunately– not because it has new ideas, but because it does such a good task with the same old ones.
If there is something new for Samsungs regular, its this new “Ultra” name at the end of its flagship S and Note phones. Were utilized to phones coming in small and huge, but now Samsung wishes to present yet another tier. Near as I can tell, what “Ultra” primarily suggests is going all-out on every possible specification and making the electronic camera bump gigantic. Samsung has long felt the similarity OnePlus and Huawei (a minimum of up until this year) nipping at its heels, and the Ultra tier of its phones is Samsungs answer to anyone who thinks it cant make the highest-level Android phone.
Excellent Stuff
Fast performance
Samsung Notes with the S Pen is great
Multiday battery life
Selfie cam (the “Hamcam”) oversmooths faces
Costly compared to non-stylus rivals
Ads in Samsung apps
Enormous with a massive cam bump
Bad Stuff
Galaxy Note 20 Ultra hardware
That suggests it has a cinema, yes, but it also suggests that it has squared-off corners, very little bezels, and is in proportion front to back. Samsung has a new surface on the back thats matted instead of glossy. That hides fingerprints, but it (counterintuitively) makes the phone a little bit more slippery. Samsung is highlighting the bronze color this year, and for great factor: its stunning.
Video camera bump aside, I do not believe any person is creating better phone hardware today than Samsung. The Galaxy S20 is my preferred phone hardware of the year up until now because it has the cleanest lines. The Note 20 Ultra doesnt rather rise to that level since of the camera bump, however its an otherwise perfect execution of what I expect a Note to be.
There is a matte finish on the back that pushes back finger prints however is a little slippery.
The cam module on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is huge.
One other quirk: the S Pen stylus silo is on the left-hand side of the phone rather of the right. As a righty, I find it a little off-putting. However I figure its time leftys had something swing their way.
The Note 20 Ultras most popular hardware function is a promontory. It has this enormous, mesa-like camera bump on the back that houses the 3 cameras, a laser focus sensing unit, and the flash. Its not simply that its big, its that it juts right out of what is otherwise a vast, flat area of phone.
The Galaxy Note 20 Ultras cam is as excellent as any thats ever been placed on a phone.
The Note 20 Ultra is a huge phone with a 6.9-inch screen. Generally, I reach for my Kindle when I want to read an ebook or a Switch when I desire a portable video game maker, however the screen on the Note 20 Ultra is huge enough that I never felt like I needed either.
Keep in mind 20 Ultra screen and specifications
I believe the Note 20 Ultra has a cam system thats on par with the finest phones out there, except for one part: Samsung biffed it with the selfie electronic camera.
Its due to the fact that of Samsung Notes. Im going to write a sentence now, and youre probably not going to believe it. I can barely believe it. After a week or so with the Note 20 Ultra, I stand by it. Here we go.
The remainder of the video cameras fare far better. You get three cams: a 12-megapixel ultrawide, a 12-megapixel telephoto with a periscope assembly, and a 108-megapixel main wide-angle. Lets take them in order from simplest to many complicated.
The Note 20 Ultra is an extremely extravagant, flashy phone. But this year, it didnt get a flashy upgrade. It got what amounts to a spec bump (and an electronic camera bump to match). Thats enough to make it possibly the finest flagship Android phone you can purchase right now. Even for a phone as huge as this, that is no small thing.
I took the precise very same selfie with a Note 20 Ultra and a Pixel 4. I hereby dub the Note 20 Ultras selfie cam the #Hamcam.
Generally, the ultrawide sensor on any phone is the weakest of the bunch, and thats the case here. The ultrawide on the Note 20 Ultra is better than that average. Im pleased with the dynamic variety, in specific, which is very important for landscapes.
It supports both sub-6 and mmWave versions of 5G, and I continue to believe that 5G is still not worth the cost premium it commands. Where I live, I discover that, at best, its only 10 to 20 percent faster than LTE. And in some unusual cases, its actually slower than LTE.
Generally speaking, my suggestions when it pertains to the Note is this: if you definitely want a stylus, your only option is a Note. You probably dont if you dont understand if you want a stylus. Itll simply be a thing that you utilize a couple of times and then ignore.
With a cam bump this big, you d anticipate the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra to have an outstanding camera system. It does– although the real pictures you leave it arent constantly great. The crucial thing is that Samsung has mostly recuperated from the issues that beleaguered the Galaxy S20 Ultra.
Beyond that inconsistent selfie camera and Samsungs refusal to simply kill off its Bixby digital assistant, theres absolutely nothing in the Note 20 that I would send out back to the drawing board. And though theres no single huge feature that is a must-have, there are great deals of little things that made me keep in mind how fantastic mobile phones can be.
Lastly: video. I am a much bigger fan of Samsungs Pro Mode for video than I anticipated to be. Yes, theres an 8K option in there, and yes, I think that outdoors anything but ideal conditions shooting simple subjects, you need to adhere to 4K or lower. However the interface for professional mode is clean and clear. And Samsung has actually added great deals of microphone choices, a relative rarity on phones. You can change between the front mic, rear mic, or the omni mic. You can likewise plug in a USB-C mic or record off a Bluetooth headset.
The battery life out of that 4,500 mAh cell is all the more impressive because its powering a lot. The Note 20 Ultra has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ processor, which has a separate modem for 5G (an additional power draw). Theres 12GB of RAM– enough to multitask– and the normal assortment of other Samsung specifications: in-screen ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, reverse and wireless cordless charging, expandable storage, stereo speakers, Bluetooth 5, NFC, MST, IP68 water resistance, wireless DeX over Miracast.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has a three-camera selection on the back.
There arent a lot of surprises with the Note 20 Ultra when it comes to its specifications or performance. The screen, in specific, is outstanding. Its likewise using Cornings most current, stupidly named Gorilla Glass “Victus.”.
Im regularly getting through 2 days of usage. Even if I push this thing super difficult by shooting 8K video and playing streaming games, it still clocks in around six hours of screen time and does not require to be plugged in till I sleep.
However the factor the screen is so fantastic isnt the resolution or the glass; its the refresh rate. It can strike 120Hz, and– in a very first for Samsung– its a variable refresh rate. If nothings moving, the screen dynamically changes based on whats being displayed and can ratchet all the way down to 10Hz.
Its reasonable to call the Note 20 Ultra an iterative upgrade. Doubly so: its an improvement of the exact same Note style that Samsung has been refining for half a decade, and internally, its a bunch of tweaks to the Galaxy S20 Ultra from earlier this year.
Maximalists will likely sneer at the fact that Samsung will not let you at the same time set the optimum resolution and the high refresh rate at the same time, however I dont care, and I cant see the distinction in resolution anyway. The trade-off is much better battery life, and the battery life on the Note 20 Ultra is excellent.
There is a problem with Samsung Notes, though: its just that great on the Note 20 Ultra itself.
” Space zoom” can do 50x, but its not very usable.
Grid View.
Samsungs notes app already does things that Apple Notes is just capturing up to and Microsofts mobile OneNote app still cant pull off, like letting you highlight your handwriting and copy it as plain text. It likewise lets you export out your notes (longhand or typed) to a Word doc, PowerPoint, plain text file, image, or a PDF.
The rest of Samsungs One UI version of Android is par for the Samsung course. Recently, Samsung has actually lost a little discipline when it comes to software application style. The company is always tempted to lade on too many strange functions and get you to use a lot of weird Samsungy services. The experience on the Note 20 suffers as a result. Inside Samsungs own apps, youll often face massive banner ads; Samsung Health is particularly egregious. Dial it back, Sammy.
Normally speaking, my suggestions when it comes to the Note is this: if you absolutely desire a stylus, your only choice is a Note. Notes also does the technique where it can record audio as you write down notes so that you can go back later on and tap on your jotting and hear what was said at that accurate minute.
Samsung even tossed in a UWB radio similar to the iPhone– and simply like the iPhone, it appears like its here more as a braggy specification sheet checkbox than as an actually helpful feature.
If there is something new for Samsungs routine, its this brand-new “Ultra” moniker at the end of its flagship S and Note phones. The Note 20 Ultra does not quite increase to that level because of the camera bump, however its an otherwise perfect execution of what I anticipate a Note to be.
Left: Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra; Right: Pixel 4 XL. Both in Night mode.
Samsung stumbled out of eviction with the S20 Ultra, which had serious focusing issues that were only partially mitigated by a software application update. The Note 20 Ultra has that update, however, more importantly, it also has a laser autofocus system. Its a brute force hardware solution, however it works: close up, the focusing is much quicker and far more trustworthy than the S20 Ultras.
There is one specification that is truly remarkable: Samsung has reduced the latency on the S Pen stylus. Its down to 9ms (80 percent quicker than the Note 10) through a combination of faster processing, a higher refresh rate screen, and some predictive artificial intelligence that can intuit where the stylus is going ahead of time.
Samsung Notes is the best notes app you can get on a phone.
Samsung has actually fallen a step behind the iPhone in terms of color and still hasnt reached the Pixel in terms of detail, however I still think its ahead of the majority of the remainder of the Android pack. Surprisingly, I discovered myself choosing the Note 20 Ultras low-light mode photos to the Pixels. In those cases, a minimum of, Samsungs fondness for smoothing made for a more pleasing image in incredibly low light.
Samsungs love affair with Microsoft is getting actually major this year. In addition to Notes one-way sync, pointers and tasks will sync both ways with Outlook. Later on this year, Microsofts Your Phone app on Windows will allow you to mirror multiple apps simultaneously from the Note.
If you compose at an odd angle, you can tap a button to straighten your handwriting so it streams naturally down the screen. That appears like a ridiculous thing, however it makes your notes far more understandable. Notes likewise does the technique where it can tape-record audio as you take down notes so that you can return later and tap on your jotting and hear what was said at that accurate minute.
The S20 Ultra was never anything more than a parlor technique over, say, 15x zoom– however it was fairly impressive at 15x. The same applies to the Note 20 Ultra. Those phones cant zoom farther than that, but the Note 20 can, and I got good results at 15 or even 20x.
This year, I found myself using it a lot. Its not since of the latency, and its definitely not since of Samsungs silly “air actions” that let you wave the S Pen around like a magic wand remote control.
You can take 108-megapixel images, but the reality is that youll almost never get enough added information to be worth it. Better to stick with the default 12-megapixel images, the outcome of combining (called “binning”) several pixels together. Those results are traditional Samsung: great but in some cases a little oversmoothened and/ or oversharpened.
Playing Xbox or Stadia games on the Note 20s cinema is great.
Its impressive because its tangible: latency when writing and drawing with the S Pen is the finest Ive ever seen on a phone. The virtual ink streams right out of the stylus suggestion with nary a gap.
However its when you utilize the S Pen that Samsung Notes really sings. Its handwriting recognition is as excellent as Ive seen on any gizmo– and, obviously, your handwritten notes are searchable, too. New this year, Samsung Notes also (lastly) can straight annotate PDFs.
The S Pen and Samsung software.
: Bixby. Instead of letting this poor excuse for a digital assistant languish any longer, Samsung needs to send Bixby to be with family members because farm upstate where it can live gladly ever after.
Samsung likewise has this thing it calls “Space Zoom” that lets you combine the digital and optical zooms to get into 50x. Interestingly, the S20 Ultra has a higher megapixel count and provides 100x zoom, which means Samsung dialed it back for the Note.
I still cant get over how excellent the experience of utilizing the stylus in Samsung Notes is, if only since Ive been trained by years of Samsungs software overpromises. This time, it actually delivers. Streaming Xbox games on it is really immersive and fun– and the battery has the stamina to hold up for hours of it. Even the gimmicky Space Zoom sometimes paid off.
Left: Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, the “Hamcam.” : Pixel 4 XL. Both in picture mode, though outcomes are the very same without it.
This isnt a needed upgrade for you if you have a Note 10 or even a Note 9. And if you do not believe youll utilize the stylus, there are less costly choices that give you a number of the same benefits.
Samsung Notes can realign your handwriting, transform it to text, and play back audio from the minute you wrote it.
In general, general performance on the Note 20 Ultra is top-notch. Apps never appear to close in the background, stutters are nonexistent, and the refresh rate on the screen makes everything feel that much smoother.
Samsung is likewise pushing Microsofts Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service. Ive been utilizing the beta, and its truly great. Playing an Xbox video game on the Notes big (for a phone) screen feels totally natural. Its a bigger screen than even my Switch Lite. Stadia is great, too– but it will not have Microsofts game library.
There is an issue with Samsung Notes, though: its just that great on the Note 20 Ultra itself. Later this year, Samsung Notes will be able to one-way sync to Microsoft OneNote.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.
Even if you turn off every face smoothing and filter choice, Samsungs selfie video camera still uses something to clean up faces. I want it didnt due to the fact that I understand theres a great electronic camera in there somewhere.
Even if you never pull the S Pen out of its silo, the Samsung Notes app is properly designed, handling quick lists and longer notes similarly well. It has just the right quantity of text formatting, and this year, it included the capability to arrange your notes into folders (finally).
The Note 20 Ultra electronic camera.
Theres the main 108-megapixel camera. This sensor is Samsungs own, and Samsungs entire project with cams this year is to make a generational leap over the Sony sensor-using competition by utilizing all of those megapixels.
Samsungs Notes app is remarkably great.
