Galaxy Note 20 Ultra ongoing review: Everything we love — and don't — so far – CNET

Late Thursday morning, the package arrived with a thump: a plain brown cardboard box containing within it Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G. I ripped it open, sliced through the tape and gently shook the black lid from the box. There it was, the new, signature bronze shade of Samsung’s $1,300 Note 20 Ultra. Sleek and beautiful, but also overly large and perplexing. (Keep reading for more on the standard Note 20, which costs $1,000.) 

So far, I’m enjoying uncovering the Note 20 Ultra’s mysteries and I hope to receive a Note 20 soon after. For now, the most premium of Samsung’s Note lineup is the one I have to work with. The gleeful, giddy person within me loves peeling back the layers and discovering all the wonderful and quirky aspects of the phone, from a better way to shoot selfie photos to the enormous 6.9-inch screen.

Then there’s the picky reviewer side that frets over the battery life that plunged at an alarming rate on Day 1 and worries what will happen to the impossible-to-ignore camera module protruding out the back like it owns the whole joint.

After a day with the Note 20, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. There’s so much ahead in the testing process. We’ll gain a better understanding of how quickly a phone with a 6.9-inch display with a default 120Hz refresh rate churns through a 4,500-mAh battery. And we’ll see how well the new suite of gestures work in day-to-day life, especially the “next normal” that Samsung keeps using to refer to the unknown ways the coronavirus pandemic is permanently altering global society and possibly buying habits for the near future.

Note 20 Ultra: What I love so far

• The bronze color with the matte finish: sleek, sophisticated and less of a grease trap when slick or grimy hands get all over it. It’s lustrous even when pleasantly hazy.
• The screen, as always, is bright and brilliant.
• My favorite Galaxy Note tricks return to life, like taking a really precise screenshot using the S Pen and easily creating a screen recording or GIF of a portion of the display.
• Taking a selfie using the S Pen is a breeze when you press the stylus button with one hand without having to stick your arm out at an awkward angle or worry about dropping the phone.
• Face tone filters for selfies are nice to add some warmth or step on the breaks if a picture is oversaturated. 

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First Look: Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra

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What might not be so great about the Note 20 Ultra

Battery life confuses me. At 1 p.m. I switched in the usual testing SIM card and battery was at 100%. By 4 p.m. it was at 45%. That was with Wi-Fi and 4G (not 5G) data engaged. Yes, the screen was using the default 120Hz option, but part of the time, I was on a phone call with the screen off. The call sounded great, by the way. I’ve reached out to Samsung to see if there may be an issue.

Neither Note 20 phone comes with a pair of free wired headphones. That may not seem like a big deal as Samsung transitions users toward its Galaxy Buds Live wireless earbuds, but the fact this company spent years touting the $99 value means the end result is that the Note price keeps going up while shedding previous value.

That camera bump is hard to ignore. Without a case, I constantly worry about dropping it and cracking the camera array, which would undoubtedly be the first thing to hit, or else laying it down and moving the device in a way that scratches the camera. This has happened to me before and ruined every ultrawide image after, so trust me when I say this is no idle concern.

Why is it so hot? On an 81-degree F (27C) day, the Note 20 seemed to both generate and dissipate quite a lot of heat. Maybe it’s tied to whatever is going on with the battery life, maybe it’s just a large phone that needs to shed a lot of heat. I was able to go on a nearly two-hour walk without it falling out of my back pocket, though I could immediately feel there was a change from the Galaxy Note 20 Plus, another large phone that nevertheless felt smaller.

What will we test tomorrow?

There’s still so much to see as the Note 20 Ultra begins to settle in as my daily phone for the next week. That means the stylus’ new gesture features, email, photos, the daily news digest, movies and shows, exercise and all the rest. Check back as this review develops day by day. Keep reading for our original impressions on the Note 20 Ultra and standard Note 20. And scroll to the very end for all the specs.

The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra reminds me of a figure straight from Greek mythology. With its sleek profile, resplendent bronze finish (for its signature color), and thick camera bump on the back staring out like a set of compound eyes, it doesn’t take much more than a glance to see this new phone for power users is very much siren-meets-cyclops.

The Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra’s looks are just the beginning of the story — and there’s far more below — including one genuinely surprising change. But before we go there, it’s important to understand the context into which these phones are coming to light. The Galaxy Note 20 phones are available for preorder now and are expected to arrive by the official sale date, Aug. 21. The Note 20 starts at $1,000 (£849, AU$1,499) and the Note 20 Ultra starts at $1,300 (£1,179, AU$1,849).

The coronavirus pandemic has turned the world on its head, endangering lives, launching a global recession and throwing into question the need for a premium phone whose cheapest model costs $1,000, which is $50 more than last year’s entry-level Galaxy Note 10. But while Samsung asks us to consider the merits of a 5G device with juiced-up cameras and some features better suited for the boardroom than the living room, Google has just released an excellent $349 no-frills phone that seems more in step with these lean and doubtful days.

Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra come in a striking bronze shade

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The timing is coincidental, but unfortunate. Phones can take more than a year to cycle through the pipeline, so when Samsung’s designers and engineers were plotting the Note 20 refresh, the feature roadmap was well established. The Note line has always stood for software and specs that went above and beyond. While many of the features and updates, like new S Pen gestures tuned to operating PowerPoint presentations, will make sense for a post-pandemic world, the state of COVID-19 cases today forms a weak argument for the “normal” activities that merit such a device.

That isn’t to say that the Note 20 and 20 Ultra won’t have a place in the who’s who list of 2020 phones, though it’s too soon to know. I spend all day on my laptop, but still often reach for my phone as a second or even preferred screen to read in bed, on the couch or at the kitchen table when I want a change of pace. I use mobile payments more than I ever did before, as shops in my area eschew cash in favor of touchless transactions. And battery life is still of the utmost importance as I reconnect with friends and coworkers during hours-long walks with just my phone as a way to get fresh air. Samsung, too, says mobile usage has been up during this time.

The difference is that, without an end to the pandemic in sight, it feels harder to get on board with a phone whose main features feel less compelling at the outset by dint of the times. In truth, I hope the Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra win me over when I get to try out the review units. I hope Samsung’s trade-in and yearly upgrade programs entice its loyal customers to upgrade to a device that may well deliver the kind of core functionality, long-term battery life and pleasing extras that can make a phone fun to use for years.

I’m ready for the Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra to convince me, or at least try their hardest — top-heavy camera bulge and all. (Psst. Samsung also announced the Galaxy Z Fold 2 on Wednesday. Although it’s sure to cost even more than the Note 20, its ability to stay open while folded has me genuinely excited to see more.)  

Galaxy Note 20 vs. Note 20 Ultra: Surprising differences

Samsung eased us into the idea of a more entry-level Note phone in 2019, but this year, there’s a wide gulf between the standard Galaxy Note 20 and the Note 20 Ultra. (Scroll to the end for the full specs comparison.)

Note 20 Ultra: What you need to know

The Ultra has a 6.9-inch curved screen, a more squared-off shape and all the perks, including the higher-powered camera tech, support for Google’s Nearby Share through its UWB Share (ultra wide band) feature and a microSD card slot up to 1TB. The screen has an option to flip into a 120Hz refresh rate, where each pixel refreshes 120 times per second, making scrolling liquid-smooth. (We’ll have to see how this affects battery life.)

And then there’s that camera bulge. Full disclosure: I haven’t had a chance to see either Note 20 in person here in California, but my New York colleague, Richard Peterson, was able to handle and videotape both devices, and attempt to answer my laundry list of questions. 

Attending a virtual briefing and poring over our footage, it’s clear that from one angle, the Note 20 Ultra looks sleek and sexy. From another, it’s unpleasantly top-heavy in a way that makes my mind leap to a case as a necessity to protect the Note 20 Ultra’s camera mount. The fact that the camera array protrudes so far from the body makes this area far more susceptible to breaks, cracks and scratches when dropped or dragged along a surface — for example, if you lay the phone on its back. 

We’ll put the Note 20 Ultra’s new Gorilla Glass Victus shielding on both sides to the test, but I’ve banged up enough phone cameras during my career as a reviewer to suggest avoiding that risk at all costs.

The mystic bronze color sports a matte finish, while mystic black and mystic white are glossy glass.

Note 20: Did someone say plastic?

The standard Note 20 has a 6.7-inch flat screen with no curved sides (a staple on the Note line for years). But here’s the clincher — it has a plastic back, which Samsung prefers to call polycarbonate. There’s no microSD card slot (same as last year) and small features are missing. There are stepped-down camera specs (including no pro video mode), a less advanced screen technology with no 120Hz refresh rate option, a smaller battery capacity (4,300 mAh versus 4,500 mAh), less RAM (8GB versus 12GB), and no UWB sharing.

Embracing pastel, the Note 20’s mystic green, mystic bronze and mystic gray tones all come with a matte finish. It uses a metal frame and Gorilla Glass 5 on the front, not the most recent Gorilla Glass Victus.

The Note 20 shares the same core specs as the Note 20 Ultra. The 10-megapixel selfie camera, new S Pen gestures and Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus processor are part of both phones. 

But back to the Note 20’s plastic backing: That feels out of character for a phone family that’s typically about showcasing the best of the best Samsung has to offer. Without having reviewed the phone yet, a $1,000 phone with a plastic back seems hard to swallow. Maybe I’ll change my mind.

Note 20 cameras: 108MP, pro video mode, 8K video capture

The camera array is where Samsung wants the Note 20 phones, and especially the Note 20 Ultra, to shine. It’s taken a step back from the ostentation of the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which boasted a 100x Space Zoom feature and a main camera capable of shooting a 108-megapixel photo, concentrating instead on the idea of cropping in for more detail. 

Samsung still gave the Note 20 Ultra an 108-megapixel camera option — you tap it to turn it on when you want the full resolution. When it comes to zoom, the Note 20 falls back to 50x zoom, with the Note 20 settling in at 30x. 

It’s interesting to see Samsung backtrack like this, but the company seems to be responding to feedback that the S20 Ultra was too expensive and its 100x zoom wasn’t good enough or useful enough to justify the price.

The Note 20 Ultra has 5x optical zoom, which should make photos taken in that range crisper and clearer than using digital zoom alone. We’ll soon see.

Faster autofocus in the Note 20 Ultra is also designed to give it an edge over the standard Note 20, so you can snap photos of squirmy pets, amusing facial expressions and flapping hummingbirds faster, without missing the shot. 

A pro video mode packs in more manual tools and options for capturing footage, which should make aspiring moviemakers happy. This has been one of Samsung’s weaker areas for several years, compared to the latest iPhone. As with the Galaxy S20 Ultra, both phones support 8K video capture. Just be aware, it’ll make video files enormous on and off your phone.

The Note 20 phones get new S Pen stylus and note app tricks

What would the Galaxy Note be without its stylus? For loyalists, scribbling, navigating and annotating are part of the phone’s charm. So is the fact that the Notes app allows you to do all of the above. Here are the newest features for both Note 20 models.

New S Pen gesture navigation: Pointing the pen tip away from your body (and at a distance from the phone), press and hold the stylus button while making one of five new gestures to go back, go home, open a recent app or take a screenshot with Smart Select. You can also squiggle the pen to capture the entire screen.

The S Pen is more responsive on the Note 20 Ultra when the 120Hz screen option is on.

Handwriting recognition gets better with tools including autostraighten. 

Samsung Notes gets live auto-syncing at long last. This will store a note in the cloud for you to access from any other device — as long as you’re signed into a Samsung account.

Attach and time-sync voice recordings. You can get your voice note to sync with what you write so it’ll play back from the time you mention the word.

Import a PDF to annotate or highlight. Instead of printing out a page or downloading it to sign and then upload or send out again, you can simply mark your signature and export it back again.

Other Note 20 features and goodies

• UWB support for sharing files like a digital key. Point to share with other Samsung devices using UWB. 
• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gives you access to over 100 games you can play on the fly. 
• Samsung’s Microsoft partnership: Drag-and-drop and syncing from Windows devices and apps to your Samsung phone, including notes and reminders.
• Samsung DeX, the vision for replacing your computer with your phone, now lets you connect to another screen wirelessly to view your content, say on your TV screen in your living room. 
• You can pair a Galaxy Note 20 with the new Galaxy Buds Live to turn on noise cancellation. In the taped demo I saw, you still hear a lot of static and distortion, but it did cut out interfering conversations.

Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra specs

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