Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Review: It Better Be Good!

So here MKBHD, I was talking to a friend recently and he asked me what phone I was using and it was a Galaxy Note 20 Ultra sitting right in front of me and I said, “Oh cool, cool, how do you like it?” the moment when I have to try to summarize all my thoughts, my tests and my experience in a sentence that is easily digestible for an average person who is not in the world of technology and what came out of my mouth was yes. It's really cute, but it also costs thirteen hundred dollars, so it

better

be that way.

When I take a step back to really think about it and gather all my thoughts for this full

review

for you, that thought really keeps coming back to me. over and over again because at this price you really only see like the crazy experimental first generation foldable phones or the flagships, the best cutting edge that a company has to offer and this is a 1300 Flagship so it has to be the best of the line in Basically, everything to consider it worth buying and, for me, the Note 20 Ultra lives up to that. Firstly, this is the best built and best looking phone Samsung has ever made, in my opinion, the soft touch matte finish on the back.

Flat and square top and bottom, thin bezels, bezels, all metal rails and edges, even this color, this mystic bronze is normally not a style I prefer, it's a little pink from some angles, but also a little rose gold from other angles, but I actually like it and I like the contrast with the dark part of the camera, so as I said from the first time I picked up this metal and glass phone in my first impressions video, it screams quality and with Samsung flagships there are also always a lot of little things that also add up to make that premium feel experience things that we would be picky and complain about if they weren't here for this price, but they are here so the vibration motor is very high quality, the same

ultra

sound in-display fingerprint reader is back here and it's pretty fast, there's wireless charging, reverse wireless charging is here, there's IP68 water resistance, all the things we take for granted are on a Samsung flagship, but it's all here again, just no headphone jack And then I think the two main things that make this a

note

ultra

are the screen and the S Pen , so the screen, at the risk of sounding like Displaymate, is a plus, but it is an incredible screen, it's a 6.9-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED screen. it's HDR certified, 120 hertz refresh rate, a small hole in the top middle, outstanding maximum and minimum brightness, it's sharp, it's great, I mean it's just a great screen, but believe it or not, this screen Ultra has advantages and disadvantages.

The main downside is that it's absolutely huge and has curved edges and yes, I did experience accidental touches occasionally and I think that happened more often thanks to the manual gymnastics required to handle a screen as large as this. I have said it before. and I'll say it again. I'm on the side of preferring that we go back to flat screens, but this one is not flat but of course it also has a huge screen that goes all the way to the edges and a small cutout hole. That means it's a pretty solid multimedia experience, although I will say that perhaps my only disappointment with this phone's hardware is the speaker system and it's not that it's problematic, it's not bad at all, it's just easy to block the bottom speaker and it's a stereo pair with the headset, but overall, despite its Dolby Atmos support, I wasn't impressed with the actual quality or fullness of sound from the speakers.

The specs behind the screen are all high-end, as you would expect if you didn't already know about the Snapdragon a65 plus and this one. The unit has 12 gigs of RAM, you know, and that, combined with a 120Hz display, is really all I want in a smartphone these days. You've heard me talk about a high refresh rate. It comes to another flagship here on the

note

and yes, I still love it, there were no problems with the performance and the fluidity of my use was excellent. Also, behind the note screen is the same ultrasonic fingerprint reader that we saw on the s20 ultra and it's ultra impressive and ultra similar to last year's performance, nothing ultra special here and then. you got a 4,500 milliamp hour battery now I'm old enough to remember when the Samsung Galaxy Note was like the big battery phone, it was a battery champ, it was the phone that us nerds would take to CES because it was just the battery that you couldn't kill in a day it's not that you already know what a surprise, you can kill this 4 500 milliamp hour battery with a giant 120 hertz screen using it all the time, you can kill it even if it is not a Quad HD but with Typical use The The Note 20 Ultra's battery is

good

, like I get six hours of screen time on time, ending a day with between 15 and 25 percent battery remaining regularly and I have no problems with that, especially when this phone also supports fast battery charging. 45 watts and there is wireless charging. it's

good

if you really want the next level extra battery champ, there are other phones including this phone's sibling s20 Ultra which has the same form factor minus the S Pen which is a 5000 milliamp hour battery so is

better

, but this is Well, okay, let's talk about the camera.

I have a lot to say about this camera system, as you can probably imagine, but I'll try to be concise here first of all, this camera bump is huge, it's huge and there are other phones with big cameras. It clashes with big cam camera systems but something about this is just a straight shelf like it's not stepped like the s20 ultra or rounded or you know a double shelf like others, they're not trying to hide it it's just a big block on the back of this phone sticks out so much that it actually tends to collect dust in the corners around it, but I honestly don't hate it, it's like they are theirs, it's a character piece that you know might have time to grow.

On you, the rings around the three cameras, to me, I think it's a good look and you get a great variety of cameras. It's the standard 108 megapixel camera which rattles a little when you shake it because it's so big and then there's a 12 megapixel ultra wide angle and a 12 megapixel periscope zoom camera, if you really hate the camera bump and the fact Since it sticks out so much and wobbles like crazy when it's on a desk, you can always grab a grip case from channel sponsor dbrand, it's actually literally the perfect size to get rid of camera bump and then you have extra protection as well which I will leave a link below if you are interested, if not you can live dangerously like me and walk around with a glass phone and no protection.

So how are the cameras? They are great, first of all, the addition of laser autofocus really fixed the searching problems that the Galaxy s20 Ultra had with this same huge camera module. Now it's not the same tracking autofocus as a pixel, but the search has gotten closer. Aligned subjects are no longer problematic, but what it didn't fix is ​​shutter lag, so there's still a pretty noticeable delay between tapping to take a photo and the moment the capture is made, which is kind of annoying if you're trying to capture. fast motion or any type of action or just like trying to time a photo of a fire truck outside the hotel at 3 am so it doesn't shine in the lens, but I will say that with the caveat that you have to be a little more patient and keep the camera still and wait for the shutter lag this camera produces exceptional photos in all types of conditions in daylight on harsh shots in the sun shots at night shots indoors and outdoors this thing crushes I think you could argue that it is just above the pixel for versatility thanks to having a really good ultra wide angle that is almost as sharp as the main lens and of course the huge zoom capabilities that you will never have to use but if you do they are impressive, 50x is not as crazy as 100x, but it's far away. more than you'll probably need, so you can rest assured that every time you need a quick 4X or 8X zoom, the photo will still be plenty sharp.

The 10-megapixel selfie camera is pretty average but acceptable, and then for video, I'd put it on. again, just below the iPhone's system thanks to the super studio mode and all the 8K options and faster autofocus, but I was actually having more fun with the main sensor and taking photos that I think would often rival those I shots with any other phone. Huawei iPhone 11 Pro pixel 4 phones, this is right up there with Samsung, well done on these cameras, it just makes the gigantic camera bump seem more worth it. Are you impressed that we've gotten this far in a Galaxy Note

review

without talking about the S Pen?

However, the S Pen got some pretty dramatic technical improvements in the Note 20 Ultra this year, mainly because latency has now been reduced to nine milliseconds on this better display and that translates to Apple Pencil levels of realism and responsiveness. that you love to see. If you love listening to it, also maybe there's that sound now when you write with the S Pen that actually corresponds pretty well to what it would sound like if you were writing on a whiteboard or a pen on paper or something like that. It's pretty impressive, but you can also see that that's annoying for someone who uses the S Pen a lot, so you can disable it, but yeah, technically speaking, it's a big improvement, but the S Pen overall is the same as it's been. for a while, depending on who.

You're either a fun optional accessory that comes with this flagship or an absolutely vital tool for drawing, taking notes, or annotating that you may remember from my previous reviews. I'm not the best S Pen user, so for someone like me, a Galaxy Note probably isn't the best use of money, but there are people who wait for the latest Galaxy Note every year because this phone represents the best stylus experience on the market. a phone and, for those people, yes, this is it. I can do this like An hour and a half long video if I tried to cover all the hidden features in Samsung's software because they pack this phone to the gills The Edge lighting up the secure folder wireless music sharing air actions reverse wireless charging the Wireless Dex is super awesome, even the Bixby Bixby routines I mean, I found that there's always something hidden in here that you've never heard of or maybe you knew about but just didn't use it because Samsung's mistakes in including too many features instead The other way around, like trying to keep it super simple and leaving out things that aren't perfect, is the opposite of Apple's strategy and is seen throughout the use of this phone, from the launcher to the camera app. , the configuration and yes there are some advantages to that, it certainly makes you feel like you are getting more value for your money, but at the end of the day, are you getting a smartphone worth 1300?

Honestly, that's probably a stretch. I would say probably not. But the thing about Samsung's launch prices is that they are guaranteed to drop, as this phone in three or four months will probably cost a little less than what it costs now at launch, but if there is any phone that makes you feel like you're getting the absolutely complete package, from the spec sheet to the huge, amazing screen, the build quality, the cameras, the battery, the stylus, you can't get anywhere else to the software, It's probably this one, but I want to end it all with this.

It's a really good review, it gives us your opinion on something you've used, it tries to figure out if what you're buying is worth it or not, so Samsung sent all of us reviewers this Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, which is really a great phone for 1300 dollars so we are all out as we got it early we are all excitedly testing and giving this phone a chance but none of us as far as I know have the Note 20 which is the plastic of a thousand dollars 1080p 60 hertz in my opinion of a very expensive phone, none of us are enthusiastically testing and reviewing that public service announcement which is probably on purpose, so keep in mind that the 20 Ultra costs 1300 dollars if you can do it great if you're looking for something similar but want to save a little money.

In fact, I'd stop trying to go straight to note 20 for now. I would expect some reviews of that at least or maybe look at other phones, some other Galaxy s20 Plus or even some non-Samsung phones because and this is a new idea to have now in 2020 just attach the name of the note to something no longer necessarily means an emblematic quality as before. Becca from The Verge made a great comment in her video aboutSamsung line, which is the word you used to search for. to symbolize and describe the best of the Samsung line it used to be nodo, but now it's not, the word you should look for is ultra, ultra, it's a good phone, yes, but for thirteen hundred dollars it better be that way.

Thanks for watching, catch you. guys in the next peace