Tech

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 review: Overpriced and underbaked

Published

4 years ago

September 20, 2020

Galaxy Note 20

by Samsung

The Galaxy Note 20 is infused with just enough Samsung pedigree to be worth consideration but is ultimately dragged down by a laundry list of compromises and an indefensibly high price tag.

Samsung’s premium smartphone strategy is in flux. Between its ever-expanding foldable phone portfolio and obscenely specced devices under the “Ultra” branding, it’s easy to forget about the Galaxy Note family and in particular 2020’s standard Note model — the Galaxy Note 20.

2019 marked the first year where Samsung offered two Note series phones at the same time. Rather than settle into a pattern, the South Korean giant has switched things up again in 2020. We’ve already reviewed the Note 20 Ultra — a monstrous phone with a monstrous price tag – which usurped the short-lived Note “Plus” line. But where does that leave the non-Ultra model, the Galaxy Note 20?

The Galaxy Note 10 changed the identity of the vanilla Note lineage, offering what some considered to be a watered-down take on the Note formula. However, if the Note 10 was a confusing smartphone, the Galaxy Note 20 is an outright confounding one.

This is Android Authority’s Samsung Galaxy Note 20 review.

About this Samsung Galaxy Note 20 review: We tested a UK version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 (Exynos-equipped) over a period of two weeks. It was running Android 10 with Samsung’s One UI 2.5. It received one minor software update during this time containing the September security patch and minor bug fixes. Samsung did not supply a review unit. Android Authority purchased the Galaxy Note 20 for the purpose of this review.

Design: Pain in the glass

Gorilla Glass 5 (front), plastic (rear)
IP68 certified
161.6 x 75.2 x 8.3mm
192g

Face on, the Galaxy Note 20 looks unmistakably like a Galaxy Note phone. Instead of continuing the Note 10’s shrunken take on Samsung’s phablet formula, the Note 20 is a big boi. Not Note 20 Ultra-big, not even Galaxy S20 Plus-big, but still taller than, say, the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

It also sports the Note series’ rectangular-style and, of course, a pop-out S Pen stylus. The front glass melds effortlessly into the metal frame, the hardware buttons — a standard power key and volume rocker — are firm yet tactile, and every time you remove or dock the S Pen there’s a subtle vibration which is a nice reminder of the phone’s perfectly measured haptics.

The Galaxy Note 20 oozes the kind of finesse and delicate attention to detail that you’d expect from the world’s most successful smartphone maker. And then you turn the phone around…

Rather than the ubiquitous glass sandwich build, the Note 20 opts for a rear casing with a brushed-like feel that Samsung calls “glasstic.” We’ve seen this material on a handful of mid-tier Galaxy A series phones. It looks like plastic and it feels like plastic. If you tap it, it sounds like plastic and if you press on it, it compresses like plastic. Why? Because it is plastic.

Samsung can dress it up through fancy marketing, but there’s no way to obfuscate the fact that this is a $1,000 phone that’s almost 50% plastic on the outside. That’s not to say there aren’t some advantages to plastic over glass. Plastic doesn’t attract a smorgasbord of smudges and fingerprint smears. Scratches are more common, but nowhere near as problematic as cracked glass. It also means the Note 20 is fairly light — just 192g compared to the Note 20 Ultra’s 208g.

Samsung’s glasstic looks like plastic and feels like plastic… because it is plastic.

The front glass also gets a downgrade from the all-new Gorilla Glass Victus found on the Note 20 Ultra. Instead, the vanilla model uses Gorilla Glass 5 to cover the display. That’s the kind of trade-off some may be prepared to make for a $300 price reduction. But when every other part of the Note 20’s design screams premium and you’re trading blows with other immaculate $1,000 devices, the unsatisfying feeling of plastic on your palm — itself exacerbated by the faux-frosted texture — acts as a constant reminder that Samsung cut a huge corner that’s very hard to justify on a flagship phone.

Sadly, the head-scratching design decisions don’t stop there. Like the Galaxy Note 10 before it, the Galaxy Note 20 doesn’t offer expandable storage. However, what’s more puzzling is a seemingly innocuous change from the Note 10 series. The S Pen and bottom-firing speaker are now on the left side of the base of the phone.

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The S Pen placement is fine, the speaker location is not. When playing a game or watching a movie my palm always covered the grille. You can still hear what’s going on because there’s a top speaker in the earpiece, but you can kiss stereo audio goodbye. The speakers themselves offer limited depth and bass, but are clear and can get quite loud without distorting.

The Galaxy Note 20 is by no means a poorly designed phone. In fact, it’s arguably better than the Note 20 Ultra from a pure ergonomics standpoint, as that almighty camera bump isn’t anywhere near as chunky. Yet while the quality standards are broadly excellent, that plastic back represents a trend that defines the Note 20 — not quite premium for a premium price.

Display: Solid, not fluid

6.7-inch Super AMOLED Infinity-O
Full HD+
HDR 10+
20:9 aspect ratio

Samsung has an incredible pedigree for smartphone displays and that level of quality is maintained for the Galaxy Note 20’s 6.7-inch AMOLED panel. Mostly.

Peak brightness hit a respectable 640 nits in our testing. This tallied with my experience of solid outdoor visibility, but I found it lacking in direct bright sunlight. The display trends towards warmer temperatures and colors pop with that quintessential high contrast look you find in a top-end Samsung phone. There are also options to adjust RGB or the white balance to your liking in addition to a blue filter, adaptive brightness, and plenty more toggles and tweaks in the Settings menu.

The overall caliber is impeccable then, but sadly there are compromises here too. The least impactful concession is the 1080p maximum resolution. It’d be fair to expect Quad HD in this price bracket, but even on a display this size it’s hard to tell the difference unless you actively look for one.

In fact, if you’re really into tech and you’re using a modern Samsung flagship you’ve probably set your phone to 1080p to take advantage of the higher refresh rate — and there’s the rub. The Galaxy Note 20 is a 60Hz panel. For a phone ostensibly designed for power users, this is a shocking omission that makes navigation on the Note 20 feel sluggish. Other Samsung phones ask for a trade-off: lower resolution for a faster refresh rate, up to as much as 120Hz. The Note 20 is the worst of both worlds.

Samsung set its own bar for high refresh rate displays and the Note 20 falls way under it.

This is especially frustrating as the Note 20’s display has a few points in its favor over the Note 20 Ultra. The screen is flat, which should delight curved display haters. I didn’t experience any accidental touches and the phone retains features like the handy Edge Panel despite the lack of curvature. Plus, what bezels there are remain razor-thin, though the punch-hole cutout is oddly a little larger on the Note 20 compared to the Note 20 Ultra. Otherwise, the front-facing camera is identical, so I’m not sure what the reason is for this.

There’s also an in-display fingerprint reader of the ultrasonic variety. It’s quite slow, taking 1-2 seconds to register my fingerprint, though generally this comes at the benefit of greater accuracy compared to an optical reader. I definitely found this to be the case. The Note 20 almost always unlocked first time.

Overall, the Note 20 has a big and beautiful screen that is only undermined by its refresh rate. 60Hz/Full HD on a flagship phone in 2020? That’s poor form.

Performance: Lukewarm

Samsung Exynos 990
Mali-G77 MP11 GPU
8GB RAM
128/256GB storage

Folks buying the Galaxy Note 20 over in the US get their hands on the model powered by Qualcomm’s latest flagship silicon — the gaming-optimized Snapdragon 865 Plus with its 3HGz-barrier-breaking prime core. In Europe and Asia, however, the entire Galaxy Note 20 series features Samsung’s own Exynos 990 chipset. This is the same processor that powered the Galaxy S20 family outside of North America.

Based on raw specs alone the divide between Snapdragon and Exynos should be getting much worse, but the benchmarks tell a slightly different story.

Based on an average across multiple runs, the Exynos Galaxy Note 20 completed our Speed Test G test in one minute and 52 seconds. Unsurprisingly this comes out slower than the Snapdragon Note 20 Ultra tests we performed which averaged out at one minute and 32 seconds in 60Hz mode and one minute and 34 seconds in 120Hz mode.

The good news is that Samsung has clearly made some tweaks behind the scenes following the backlash over the performance disparity between the two Galaxy S20 models. Instead of a 30-second gap in Speed Test G scores between Galaxy S20 variants, the Exynos Note 20 managed to cut that time to 20 seconds. That’s small progress but progress all the same.

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Performance in the standard array of benchmarks was also respectable but not world-beating. The most notable result is the 3DMark score which exposes the weakness of the Exynos 990’s Mali GPU compared to Qualcomm’s superior Adreno GPUs.

This all tallies with real-world use. While the Exynos Note 20 is technically underpowered, it never exhibited any lag or slowed down when I was zipping around menus or multitasking. Navigating around the phone can feel slow due to the 60Hz refresh rate, but the CPU proved to be a perfectly capable performer. It also ran every Android game I could think of, though it struggled to hit consistent frame rates when emulating GameCube games in Dolphin.

Read more: Samsung Exynos processor guide

The bigger worry was heat. The Galaxy Note 20 gets hot very quickly, especially when playing games. It never became too hot to the point where you couldn’t hold the phone, but it wasn’t comfortable either. This echoed our experience with the Snapdragon Note 20 Ultra, so it’s not an Exynos issue. There’s already been some confusion over Samsung’s different cooling systems, but the heat concerns across two variants suggest there’s more to the story.

Elsewhere, the Note 20 comes with 8GB of RAM as standard and 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage. This is actually one area where the Exynos version wins out in the specs race, as the base Snapdragon Note 20 model only has 128GB storage. The lack of a microSD card will really sting for those buying the latter.

Battery life: Acceptable

4,300mAh battery
25W wired USB Power Delivery
15W wireless charging
4.5W reverse charging

There was a time when the Note series was renowned for industry-leading battery life. Those days are long gone.

In my time with the Galaxy Note 20 I was regularly hitting the end of the day with ~25% left in the tank and an average of 6-7 hours screen on time. This was based on relatively standard usage. Some Twitter here, a quick ten-minute PUBG Mobile game there, plus checking emails, Slack, and other daily tasks for work and play. I’d call the results solid, but unspectacular.

Under stress, the Galaxy Note 20 begins to falter. Our Rocky test, which repeatedly runs Speed Test G until on a loop, managed to take the phone from a full charge to zero in three hours and 22 minutes. This is well below the top battery performers of 2020 and it’d be fair to expect more from a phone with a 60Hz, 1080p display and a reasonably-sized 4,300mAh cell.

The Note 20’s battery life is solid, but unspectacular.

Power management on Exynos SoCs is notorious for being sub-par, so this may explain the average results considering the specs. On a positive note, there are plenty of power management options available, including Samsung’s own adaptive power saving mode in addition to Android 10’s app management feature.

As for charging the phone, the Galaxy Note 20 averaged out at ~70 minutes to hit maximum charge from flat when using the 25W USB Power Delivery brick that ships with the phone. It also supports 15W wireless charging and Samsung’s 4.5W Wireless PowerShare technology for reverse charging accessories. These aren’t the fastest speeds in the market by any means, but it at least offers parity with the Note 20 Ultra.

Camera: Notably good

12MP OIS wide-angle Dual Pixel PDAF (ƒ/1.8, 1.8μm)
64MP OIS telephoto PDAF (ƒ/2.0, 0.8μm, hybrid optical 3x zoom)
12MP ultra-wide (ƒ/2.2, 1.4μm, 120 degree FOV)

Front: 10MP Dual Pixel PDAF (ƒ/2.2, 1.22μm)
Video: 8K at 24fps in 16:9, 4K at 60fps

Samsung typically reserves its best camera tech for the Galaxy S series and that remains true for the Galaxy Note 20. Nevertheless, the Note 20 is no slouch in the photography stakes and, in the right conditions, can deliver spectacular results.

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The Galaxy Note 20 features a triple camera on the rear with a 12MP main sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, and a 64MP telephoto camera that supports up to 3x hybrid optical zoom. If you’re familiar with the Note 20 Ultra then the drop from Samsung’s top-tier 108MP primary shooter to a modest 12MP camera will be the big takeaway.

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In daylight, the Galaxy Note 20 produces the kind of crunchy, contrast-heavy images Samsung phone cameras are known for. Do you like your snaps to look Instagram ready? Then you’ll love the saturated look of images taken with the Note 20’s main camera. This works especially well outdoors where blue skies and green fields threaten to burst out of the frame.

The auto HDR does a lot of heavy lifting in landscape scenes, white balance is fairly consistent throughout, and the dynamic range is solid, though detail falls off a little if you crop in. The Note 20 lacks the laser autofocus found on the Note 20 Ultra, but the Dual Pixel phase detection does the job just fine.

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: Standard

: Night mode

The praise continues for low light performance. The dedicated Night mode takes a while to process images but is capable of transforming dimly lit shots into almost daylight-like photos. The shots of the cat statue above were taken at 8PM as the evening drew in with light coming from a nearby window. Even the regular shooting mode retains plenty of detail and manages to keep noise to a minimum.

The telephoto lens may be underwhelming if you’ve been reading the marketing for the ridiculous 50x/100x Space Zoom of Samsung’s recent Ultra phones. Technically, the Note 20 can reach up to 30x digital, though images turned to pure mush at anything beyond 10x zoom. For truly usable results, the 3x hybrid optical mode is perfectly fine.

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: Standard

: Ultra-wide

The ultra-wide camera mirrors the main shooter very well. While there is a loss in detail, you still get the same overly-saturated, dynamic results, only this time with a much wider 120-degree field-of-view. I really enjoyed using the Note 20’s ultra-wide sensor.

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The 10MP selfie camera dials down the contrast and has some clear smoothing going on in post-processing, but generally the quality is decent. Portrait mode — or Live Focus, as Samsung calls it — zooms in slightly for both selfies and regular shots, though you can change that with a quick tap. Edge detection was good-to-great in all cases and there are plenty of additional filters and effects for selfie-holics.

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As for the camera app, Samsung strikes a reasonable balance between ease-of-use and offering a variety of modes to keep your photography experience fresh. The Pro mode is there for tinkerers and there’s an AR Zone for those that want to decorate shots with emojis and the like. My only gripe is the prime spot for Single Take in the carousel. The gimmicky mode captures 10 seconds of video and produces various different images and clips. It’s fun, but not particularly useful. It really should’ve been replaced with Night mode in the core camera UI.

Samsung’s big draw for video is 8K (or so the endless YouTube ads have told me) which you can capture at 24fps in the 16:9 aspect ratio. You’ll probably want to stick to 4K at 60fps unless you want to annihilate your storage, or 4K 30fps to take advantage of the reliable tracking autofocus. Video captured on the Note 20 looks very crisp.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 camera delivers the goods. It might not boast the mouth-watering specs of Samsung’s Ultra devices, but it proves yet again that numbers aren’t everything for mobile photography. You can check out full resolution sample images in a Drive folder here.

Software: One of a kind

Android 10
One UI 2.5
Three years of updates/patches

The Galaxy Note 20 runs Android 10 out of the box with Samsung’s custom One UI skin on top. The latter is instantly recognizable and among the more unique skins available — or at least it was before OnePlus’ heavily One UI-inspired Oxygen OS redesign.

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Like the Note itself, everything is big, bold, and quintessentially Samsung. App icons are huge by default, while the notification bar and quick settings engulf the screen. The Settings menu isn’t afraid to fill the display with white space (or black space if you have dark theme on) either. This is intended to make one-handed use easier and works really well for the Galaxy S series. I wasn’t quite as taken with this approach for the Note 20. This is a phablet with a built-in stylus. It’s meant to be used two-handed! It would’ve been nice to see some specific tweaks to the UI specifically for the Note’s many use cases.

Samsung is also fairly heavy-handed in pushing its own ecosystem with its own apps and services. If that’s not your thing, you can replace almost all of this with Google apps if you wish. Extra features like the swipe up Samsung Pay card and the Samsung Daily feed can also be deactivated. That’s not true for Bixby, but Samsung’s oft-maligned assistant keeps to itself these days unless you go out of your way to use it. Plus, Bixby Routines are actually kind of useful. Give Bixby some love, it needs it.

Samsung’s growing relationship with Microsoft is also evident when using the Note 20, though once again you’re not forced into anything. This manifests as a Link to Windows option in the Settings and is basically the Your Phone app but directly integrated into the device. If activated, the feature lets you share SMS messages and photos with a PC or laptop and see notifications on your desktop. You can also mirror your entire phone screen so long as you’re on the same Wi-Fi connection on both devices. While it’s nowhere near on the same level of integration as Continuity for iPhones and Macs, it’s a neat optional bonus for Windows users.

Not a Windows user but still want a PC experience? You’re in luck because DeX is back and this time it’s gone wireless… sort of. The desktop-style interface is now compatible with TVs that support Android screen mirroring. If that sounds like vague criteria, that’s because it is. Samsung recommends a 2019 or later Samsung TV (because of course it does) and sadly I don’t have one of those to test it out. It still works just fine via USB-C-to-HDMI on PCs/Macs if you have a suitable cable though.

Before we move on from software, it’d be remiss of me to not mention Samsung’s welcome promise of three years of Android upgrades and security patches. That means the Note 20 should be supported all the way through to Android 13. Good stuff, Samsung.

S Pen: Bonus points

105.08 x 5.8 x 4.35mm
3.04g
Bluetooth enabled
26ms latency

You can’t talk about a Galaxy Note phone and not discuss the S Pen. The Note series’ iconic stylus doesn’t get as much love for the Note 20 compared to its Ultra compatriot. Instead of the latter’s frankly crazy 9ms of latency, the vanilla Note 20 is rated at 26ms. That’s still barely shy of the Apple Pencil and Surface Pen and a big improvement over the Note 10 series’ 45ms. In practice, the S Pen felt extremely responsive.

The S Pen feature set has also been expanded. There are new Air Actions for taking screenshots, launching the camera, and generally navigating around the phone. I used them once to test them out and promptly forgot all the commands.

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Samsung Notes received some love too. I especially liked the new folder paths as you can now organize your scribbles into sub-folders rather than dump them all in one place. You can also sync them across other Samsung devices.

In brief, the S Pen is better than ever and still the Note’s defining feature.

Galaxy Note 20 specs

	Samsung Galaxy Note 20	Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra
Display	6.7-inch AMOLED Infinity-O FHD+ resolution 20:9 aspect ratio 60Hz refresh rate	6.9-inch AMOLED Infinity-O WQHD+ resolution 19.3:9 aspect ratio 120Hz refresh rate
Construction	Plastic (aka Glasstic) body Flat display Gorilla Glass 5 display cover	Metal and glass body Curved (Edge) display Gorilla Glass 7 display cover
CPU	NA: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus Global: Samsung Exynos 990	NA: Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus Global: Samsung Exynos 990
Storage	NA: 128GB internal No microSD card support Global: 256GB internal No microSD card support	NA: 128GB or 512GB internal microSD card support up to 2TB Global: 256GB or 512GB internal microSD card support up to 2TB
RAM	8GB LPDDR5	12GB LPDDR5
Power	4,300mAh battery 25W wired charging 15W wireless charging 4.5W reverse wireless charging	4,500mAh battery 25W wired charging 15W wireless charging 4.5W reverse wireless charging
Cameras	Rear: 12MP 2PD OIS wide-angle (ƒ/1.8, 1.8μm) 64MP telephoto (ƒ/2.0, 0.8μm, hybrid 3x zoom) 12MP ultra-wide (ƒ/2.2, 1.4μm) Front: 10MP 2PD AF (ƒ/2.2, 1.22μm)	Rear: 108MP PD OIS wide-angle (ƒ/1.8, 0.8μm) 12MP telephoto (ƒ/3.0, 1.0μm, optical 5x zoom) 12MP ultra-wide (ƒ/2.2, 1.4μm) Laser AF Front: 10MP 2PD AF (ƒ/2.2, 1.22μm)
Video	8K at 24fps in 16×9 or 21:9	8K at 24fps in 16×9 or 21:9
Security	In-display fingerprint sensor Ultrasonic technology	In-display fingerprint sensor Ultrasonic technology
Durability	IP68 certified	IP68 certified
Connectivity	5G (separate sub-6GHz and mmWave models) Wi-Fi 6 4G only model available in selected markets	5G (sub-6GHz and mmWave) Wi-Fi 6
Colors	Mystic Gray Mystic Green Mystic Bronze	Mystic Black Mystic White Mystic Bronze
Dimensions & weight	75.2 x 161.6 x 8.3mm 192g (sub-6GHz only) 194g (mmWave supported)	77.2 x 164.8 x 8.1mm 208g

Value and competition

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 (4G only, Exynos): 8GB/256GB — £849/€959
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 5G (Snapdragon): 8GB/128GB — $999
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 5G (Exynos): 8GB/256GB — £949/€1,059

Let’s not sugar coat things: the Galaxy Note 20 is overpriced.

The Galaxy Note 20 5G starts at $999 in the US, £949 in the UK, and €1,059 across Europe. Considering all of the downgrades from the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and the laundry list of absent flagship-tier features, those prices are extremely hard to stomach.

The model I tested was the 4G-only model, which is only available in select markets, not including North America. This variant goes for £849/€959, which is slightly more palatable if you’re not interested in future-proofing your phone with 5G data speeds. I’m not sure you should have to force yourself to make that additional compromise, but it’s there for those that can buy it.

Unless you really, desperately need the S Pen, there’s very little reason to buy the Galaxy Note 20 over one of the Galaxy S20 models. All three have dropped in price significantly since launch and the Galaxy S20 Plus can be had for under $800 on sale. If you want the full-fat version with that 108MP camera, ludicrous specs, and monster battery life, the Galaxy S20 Ultra is going for $1,099 on Samsung’s official store — just $100 more than the Note 20.

Look further afield and the competition gets even hotter. The OnePlus 8 Pro won our mid-2020 Best of Android Editor’s Choice award for a reason. It may not have the very latest Qualcomm silicon, but the rest of the package represents peak flagship quality for just $899. Big phone fans may also be tempted by the LG V60, another Note 20 rival for just $899.

If you absolutely need the S Pen in your life, last year’s Galaxy Note 10 Plus bests the Galaxy Note 20 in a frankly embarrassing number of categories. Faster charging, a higher resolution display, a better grade of Gorilla Glass on both sides no less, expandable storage, and more RAM as standard. It’s still a great buy as we found in our one year review and that’ll only become more true as the price continues to fall.

The elephant in the room is Samsung’s history of aggressively discounting its phones. The Note 20 has recently dropped to under the $900 mark in various promotions which is much closer to where it should be. However, while the MSRP is still set at $999 and while that’s the case, the Note 20 represents poor value for the money.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 A “cheaper” Note

The standard Galaxy Note 20 has some trade-offs to hit a lower price point, but it should still satisfy many Note users.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 review: Should you buy it?

The Galaxy Note 20 is not a bad phone. Samsung doesn’t make those, especially in the flagship space. But it does lack almost all of the wow factor features you might expect from a premium phone in 2020.

Taking the inexplicably high price aside, the Galaxy Note 20 is an exercise in playing things safe to a fault. Perhaps imagined as the low-key counterpart to the Note 20 Ultra — a phone we already deemed to be a little uninspiring. Instead, you’re just left wondering what on Earth happened during the decision-making process to result in such an underbaked final product.

See also: Best Samsung phones you can buy

The glass sandwich blueprint of smartphone design is well overdue a rethink, but the solution isn’t swapping out glass for plastic. Samsung itself has set the industry baseline for high refresh rate displays with the S20 series, yet the Note 20 is locked at 60Hz in 1080p.

Things get even worse for buyers outside of North America. The Exynos SoC is competent, but you’re still getting an inferior version of an already sub-par value proposition.

As the biggest smartphone marker in the world, it’s really no surprise that Samsung releases a ton of phones each year. What is surprising is the sheer number of premium phones on offer from the South Korean giant in 2020.

Three Galaxy S20 models, two Galaxy Z Flips, one Galaxy Z Fold 2, and two Galaxy Note 20 devices — that’s a lot of hardware for a calendar year. It’s hard to shake the feeling that something has to give, and it appears Samsung may be thinking the same thing if the rumors about the Galaxy S30 possibly having an S Pen are to be believed.

The Galaxy Note 20 is overpriced and underbaked.

For two generations Samsung has produced a true Galaxy Note phone intended for power users in the Galaxy Note 10 Plus and more recently the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Meanwhile, the last two entities in the vanilla Note line have muddied the legacy of the Note name beyond recognition.

The sad part is it didn’t have to be this way. If Samsung rebranded this phone to something like the “Galaxy Note 20 Lite” and dropped the price below, at the very least, $800, then all of the trade-offs would suddenly become tolerable and the high points — the strong all-round camera performance, solid battery life, the vibrant display, the S Pen — would heavily outweigh the negatives. But it isn’t and they don’t.

If the Galaxy Note 20 does prove to be the last of its name, Samsung will only have had itself to blame.

That’s it for our Samsung Galaxy Note 20 review. What do you make of the standard Note 20 device? Let us know in the comments.

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The Internet is Littered in ‘Educated Guesses’ Without the ‘Education’

Published

1 week ago

October 8, 2024

Nick Kossovan

Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.

The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.

Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.

The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.

Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.

On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.

The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.

More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.

Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:

You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!

Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.

Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.

There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.

Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.

Successful people tend to be secretive.

Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.

Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.

Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.

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Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s

on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan.

Tech

Tight deadlines on software projects can put safety at risk: survey

Published

2 weeks ago

October 8, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.

Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.

The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.

The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.

The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.

Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.

“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.

The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.

“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”

The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.

However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.

That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.

“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.

“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”

The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.

About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.

“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.

Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.

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Tech

Beware of scams during Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sales event: cybersecurity firm

Published

2 weeks ago

October 8, 2024

Anne Joseph

As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.

In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.

The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”

“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.

“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”

Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.

Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.

In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.

The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.

Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.

“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.

“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.

Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.

Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.

“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.

“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”

Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.

As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.

But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.

Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.

The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.

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