Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Preview – How ultra is the Note still?
The Note series has always been distinctive, and always a bit niche too. There are very few smartphones with a stylus and simply relatively few people who want one. The devices were also always a bit more expensive and slightly more advanced than the S devices. But that has changed this year, with the S20 Ultra. The arrival of the most recent , most expensive category of smartphones, and with it that ultimate Samsung device, means that the Note series is somewhat under pressure. If you want the ultimate, you cannot blindly buy a Note 20 Ultra, but you should first take a good look at which device is the best that Samsung has to offer.
Of course, this year’s Note brings all kinds of innovations with it. Samsung’s focus is largely on the S Pen, because that remains the most distinctive part of this device, despite the arrival of the S20 Ultra. There are new Air Gestures, the latency of the stylus has gone down considerably and the Samsung Notes app has received another update. The collaboration with Microsoft has also been expanded, and DeX has been improved. There is also more focus on the camera, and as is often the case with the Note: in particular in the field of video.
Excellent and huge
The design has not changed drastically. The Note 10+, which was released last year, also had the flat top and bottom and the glass that curls around the device, as it were. That looks nice and makes the bezels look even smaller than they really are. The screen of the S20 series is only slightly rounded towards the sides: much less than with the S devices before it. This makes the design of the Note distinctive in any case.
What’s different from the Note 10+ is that the stylus is on the other side, according to Samsung to make room for the cameras, and the buttons have also been moved to the other side. The latter is the same as with the S20 series and, in our opinion, a bit more convenient for right-handers. One part whose design has changed due to the extensive camera system is the camera island. That has expanded considerably. Not only is the surface of the island much larger, it also protrudes much more, especially due to the telephoto camera. The Note is a bit less comfortable to hold than the S20 devices, because the phone is a bit more angular. The housing is still IP68 certified, which means that the device can function for another half hour under a meter and a half of water.
The screen is hugely important with the Note series, and it’s also important that the screen be huge. At 6.9″, the screen is a fraction larger than that of the Note 10+. At first glance, the screen looks great again. Whether it is also better than that of the Note 10+ or S20 devices was difficult to be judged in the very short time that we were able to work with the device, which was the result of corona measures. The fact is that you can expect no less than the very best, and Samsung seems to be no less than that with the Note 20 Ultra to deliver.
The resolution is 1440×3200 pixels, just like the S20 Ultra, and the pixel density is about the same too, at 508 pixels per inch. There is of course support for HDR10 + again. However, the main change from the Note 10+ is the screen refresh rate. With 120Hz, it is equal to that of the S20 devices. We had hoped that this would work with the Note 20 Ultra at the maximum resolution, but that is not the case. Samsung drops a stitch there.
However, the manufacturer has now seen the light in terms of dynamically changing the refresh rate, depending on the content displayed on the screen. When you watch a video at 24fps, the smartphone switches to 24Hz, according to Samsung. If it’s good, that makes a difference in terms of battery life. We did indeed see a significant difference between 60Hz and 120Hz in the battery test of the S20 devices. If you scroll through a web page, the device switches to the full 120fps. In practice, this looked very smooth during the hands-on. It’s an important factor that affects how smooth the device feels.
The screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 7, called Victus. Of course we could not test whether this is more scratch-resistant or less fragile, but it is in any case a specification that fits a new Note, because no other device has it yet. According to Corning, the glass survives drop tests from 2 meters, compared to the 1.6 meters with Gorilla Glass 6. It would also be twice as ‘scratch resistant’, although the company does not say how this was tested. It’s a nice idea that your pricey Note 20 Ultra is at least protected by the best Gorilla Glass available.
Latest specs with old acquaintances
The Note 20 Ultra has the same soc as the S20 series, namely the Exynos 990. There has been quite a bit of criticism of Samsung about the different versions of the S20, because the Snapdragon 865 is said to be faster than the Exynos 990. Devices with that soc are sold in the United States. With the Note, this is eminently justified criticism, because the Note 20 Ultra will be released in the United States with the Snapdragon 865+, while the Exynos 990 – with which it will be released in the rest of the world – has not been improved.
The Note wouldn’t be the Note without specifications that surpass the S20 devices, but this is still somewhat limited this year. It has ufs 3.1 storage, where the S20 smartphones have to make do with ufs 3.0. The writing speed has increased and ufs 3.1 is also more energy efficient. You also get bluetooth 5.1, where the Note 10 + and S20 phones have 5.0, and a USB-C connection with the USB 3.2 standard, where the Note 10 + had USB 3.1.
At 4500mAh, the battery capacity is 500mAh smaller than that of the S20 Ultra, and fortunately the device is also a bit thinner. Still, the question is of course whether the Note 20 Ultra will last as long as the S20 Ultra. Charging has not improved over the previous Note or S20 smartphones. You will have to make do with 15W wireless and with the supplied charger with 25W wired, while you can go up to 45W charging speed if you buy the right charger.
The Note 20 Ultra is equipped with 5g and has support for the higher mmwave frequencies in addition to sub6. The S20 Ultra and S20+ also have the necessary antennas built in, but the S20 does not. The Note 20 Ultra is of course also large enough to accommodate the bulky antennas. It would therefore be strange if he did not support this.
Wave the pen
The Note 20 Ultra’s S Pen has a lot less lag than the Note 10+. Where he had a 42ms delay with that device, that has now been reduced to only 9ms. We’ve scratched the screen quite quickly to see the lag, but it’s barely noticeable and that’s pretty cool. The functions of the S Pen have also been updated as a matter of course.
To start with the Air Actions: you can now navigate through Android more easily, without having to touch the screen. There are S Pen gestures for ‘back’, ‘home’, ‘next’, going back to the previous app and taking a screenshot. We succeeded in these gestures quite quickly. Zooming is new in the camera app. You then have to draw a circle in the air with the pen, with the button pressed. That is very difficult in the beginning. We kind of got the hang of it after a while, but it’s not intuitive, and will only be useful in very few real-world situations.
Samsung has expanded its partnership with Microsoft. You can sync notes from the Notes app to Outlook. The notes are then stored continuously, just like with Google Drive. Furthermore, the Note 20 Ultra would be optimized to work with the game streaming service xCloud. What exactly that entails was not clear to us, but hopefully we can test things like this in the review.
Using your phone as a desktop computer in combination with a monitor is possible with DeX, and that has also been improved. Although wired is still possible, and perhaps faster, it can now also be done wirelessly in combination with smart TVs. We haven’t been able to test that yet.
More focus, less depth
We suspect the Note 20 Ultra’s primary camera will have the same sensor as the S20 Ultra’s. In any case, the specifications are comparable. It has 108 megapixels, an f/1.8 aperture, a field of view of 26mm, and a sensor that is 1/1.33″ in size. That is a lot larger than the 1/2.55-inch sensor of the Note 10+. The difference with the S20 Ultra is that it has laser autofocus. The S20 Ultra had problems with the autofocus, despite the fact that it has been improved after updates. That’s why Samsung chose to put laser autofocus on it. A wise choice in our opinion. We got it right away tested and the focus does indeed seem a lot faster in low light. Of course we have to test that a bit more before we can draw a real conclusion. Unfortunately, Samsung does not allow us to take photos.
The depth sensor has had to clear the field, compared to the S20 Ultra and Note 10+. This is mainly used for portrait photos – called Live Focus at Samsung. However, we have often seen that a depth sensor makes little difference and that devices without such a cool sensor take great photos with artificial background blur.
We are very curious about the periscopic telecamera with longer use. This has 5x ‘zoom’ compared to the primary camera, which is four times with the S20 Ultra. So an improvement in that area, but it only has 12 megapixels and can zoom in less far in hybrid: 50x. Zooming in that far is pretty useless, but hopefully it says nothing about the detail compared to the S20 Ultra’s telephoto camera. The telephoto camera worked well during the hands-on session and the photos looked detailed at first glance. However, the disadvantage of 5x zoom is that 4x or 3x times zoom offers relatively little detail. The ultra-wide-angle camera appears to be the same one found on the S20 Ultra.
In the video area, there is a mode in which you can zoom smoothly. That’s great if you want to make beautiful videos, because smartphones usually go quite jerky if you’re not careful. There is also a mode in which you can record 8k video at 24fs, just like on the S20 devices. That is somewhat jerky, also on the Note 20 Ultra. There are microphone controls in the new Pro mode. You can switch between the microphone of your Note and, for example, Bluetooth earbuds.
Conclusion
The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has a few features that you won’t find on other Samsung devices, such as Gorilla Glass 7, a few specific hardware specifications and the new telephoto camera. Nevertheless, the device does not initially impress more than the S20 Ultra, which has been on the market for a while. It would have been nice to see some more upgrades. If only the higher refresh rate would also work at maximum resolution. Practice will of course show whether that first impression is correct.
Compared to the Note 10+, it is a somewhat bigger step, especially in the camera area. However, that device came on the market a year ago with the same amount of storage and memory, and then cost no less than 200 euros less than the Note 20 Ultra. If we take that into account, we still find the updates of the Note 20 Ultra a bit meager. The fact remains that the device contains the latest of the latest in almost every area. It also looks beautiful again, it’s nice that the S Pen has much less delay and we once again marveled at the screen. It is a very beautiful device, for a limited target group and with a hefty price.
The Note 20 Ultra costs 1299 euros for the version with 256GB of flash storage. The 512GB variant has an additional cost of 100 euros. The Note devices will be released on August 21.