Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G Review: Pinnacle of Android Flagships

|In In Reviews |By By Ritesh Bendre

The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G is the first smartphone with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus .
The smartphone flaunts a massive 6.9-inch display with a refresh pace of 120Hz .
It features a triple rear television camera set-up with a 108MP primary camera detector .
2020 has been a difficult year after the COVID-19 outbreak. But that has not stopped smartphone makers from innovating. The year started with the launching of Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, with features including 108MP quad cameras, 5G and high refresh rate display. Xiaomi entered the ultra-premium section with the Mi 10 while OnePlus matured from being a flagship cause of death to flagship degree with the OnePlus 8 series. Oppo introduced its ultra-premium Find X2 Pro, whereas Vivo innovated by adding a gimbal television camera system to the X50 Pro. And that brings us to the highly predict smartphone of the year, the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G .
With a start monetary value of $ 1,299, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is one of the most progress smartphones available in the market today. Compared to final year ’ south Galaxy Note 10+, Samsung has improved the note-taking know on the newly smartphone. There are design refinements, upgraded cameras with 50X zooming capabilities, and a high refresh rate expose. The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G is besides more tightly integrated with Microsoft productivity and gaming apps. In a nutshell, the smartphone has all the bells and whistles that world power users could appreciate. But does it deliver on the promise ? We will answer that in our recapitulation as we take a deep dive into each aspect of the call starting this workweek .

CMF: Mystic Bronze is the new gold standard

The Galaxy Note lineage has always been the first to embrace Corning ’ s new Gorilla Glass solutions, and the same continues with the Note 20 Ultra 5G besides. It is the first smartphone to feature the new Corning Gorilla Glass Victus both on the front man and the back. The caller says it is twice angstrom scratch-resistant as the previous generation. It can survive drops of up to two meters, compared to 1.6 meters on the Gorilla Glass 6 .

The Galaxy Note 10 with Aura Glow color was one of the sexiest looking phones that changed colors as light reflected from different sides on the back. But having a glossy come on had two major disadvantages – it was slippery and was a boastful fingerprint attraction. With the Note 20 Ultra 5G, Samsung has opted for a frost glass end which takes caution of both the issues. It is not slippery and does not attract fingerprints easily .

far, as we continue to talk about the CMF ( Color Material Finish ), Samsung deserves a shoutout for the new Mystic Bronze color. It is undoubtedly one of the most strike, elegant and sophisticate looking Galaxy phones yet. The air of this color is such that people had been asking me about the call every time I took it out in front of my family and friends. And there is a small gradient effect to it besides. When looking from an angle with balmy sunlight, at times, it appears like the Rose Gold semblance .

Samsung has nailed the CMF share in making mystic Bronze the newly gold standard .

Design: Minor tweaks bring some learning curve

Design-wise, you still get a large slab of metal sandwiched between the glass on the front and the back. The edges are curved on the sides, which is something that we have seen since the Galaxy Note 7. There are two major changes that the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G brings on the design front, and it will need some learning curvature to get used to, particularly if you are a Note 9 or Note 10 drug user .

To begin with, the volume rocker and might buttons have been moved from the leftover to the right. This is effective news for people who use their phones with the right hand. But for people who use their phones with the left hand, it will need a bit of time to get adjusted to the newly layout. I, for once, have been using the Galaxy Note 10+ for a year now, and right after switching to the Note 20 Ultra 5G, the brawn memory of my left hitchhike always acts whenever I want to control the volume or lock the screen .

Second is a major variety, which has happened after 10 generations since the first Galaxy Note was launched. I am talking about the S Pen stylus hera. From the first Galaxy Note to the Galaxy Note 10+, it has always been on the right edge, but with the new Note 20 Ultra 5G, the S Pen is now on the left .

What prompted this change in placement ? I believe it has to do with the big television camera detector and 5G RF antennas that Samsung had to accommodate in the design. Again, there is a small learning curve, but two or three weeks after using the call, you will likely get used to it .

The Note 20 Ultra changes the placement of S Pen, volume rocking chair and exponent button, and it takes time getting used it .

There is one more annoying part of the invention which may bother some users. The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G brings a elephantine triple television camera module on the spinal column with a big camera demote. From an engineering degree, I get that this was needed to accommodate the periscope-style soar functionality. But it makes the weight distribution odd. even Oppo has offered a periscope-style zoom without needing a big camera demote .
The problem with the dislodge is that when your earphone is placed on a mesa facing its back, it wobbles. And unlike the previous models, Samsung has not even shipped the smartphone with a cover character, so that becomes an extra purchase for the users .

The big camera bulge at the back makes the call wobble when placed on a flat surface .

Display: One of the best-looking screens on a smartphone

There is no doubt that Samsung is a pioneer of AMOLED screens. With every modern iteration of the Galaxy S and Note-series smartphones, the company has improved the touch and display experience. The notice 20 Ultra 5G flaunts a big 6.9-inch WQHD+ Dynamic AMOLED display. The screen has a resolution of 3088×1440 pixels and a refresh rate of 120Hz. It is besides HDR10+ certified which makes content viewing on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video a enjoyable experience .

It is besides the beginning Note-series smartphone to come with a variable, high-refresh-rate shield. The movement is incredibly polish, and it is visible to your eyes when scrolling through menu or webpages. But the direction this varying freshen pace works here is different from the early smartphones .

Motion smoothness is well obtrusive when playing games or scrolling through the menu .

The refresh rate varies from 60Hz to 120Hz depending on the screen resolution you choose. If you want to enjoy the high review rate benefits, you will have to scale down to FHD+ solution and choose the Adaptive choice under display settings. It will automatically adjust the refresh rate depending on the contentedness and assistant save battery life. Though, I think an choice of at least 90Hz by default for WQHD+ resolving power would have been better. Since I got the Note 20 Ultra 5G, I have been using it at FHD+ resolution, and there is no visible dispute in the reduce asperity .

otherwise, the gore is gorgeous. It is bright adequate to offer bang-up legibility under harsh sunlight. The colors are punchy, blacks are deep and whites are brilliantly. Viewing angles are well excessively. No matter what capacity you are viewing on the riddle, be it movies or games or merely scrolling through Instagram timeline, the display is a pleasure to look at .

Specifications and BoM Cost: Qualcomm’s Highest Share in a Samsung Flagship

After spending the survive one year on the Galaxy Note 10+, while switching between unlike review devices along, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G feels very snappish and responsive. The smartphone is equipped with ace hardware which includes a 7nm+ Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ SoC, with a utmost clock frequency of 3GHz for the prime core. It is a bit underclocked compared to the Asus ROG Phone 3 that features the same chipset, but a higher clock focal ratio of 3.1GHz for the price core .
however, only the US discrepancy of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra comes equipped with a Qualcomm chipset. In other regions, like India, the smartphone comes with a Samsung Exynos 990 SoC, which is besides made on the 7nm+ process. But the core configuration is different, with two customs prime cores clocked at 2.73GHz, two Cortex A76 cores and four Cortex A55 efficiency cores .
As mentioned above, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra besides supports 5G connectivity. In the US, the Qualcomm form comes with Snapdragon X55 5G modem, whereas early regions get Samsung Modem 5123, both supporting mmWave and Sub-6GHz spectrums, along with SA and NSA networks .
interestingly, according to Counterpoint ’ s Components Research Practice Bill of Materials ( BoM ) cost analysis, Qualcomm ’ s share in the Samsung flagship is close to 40 %. The full BoM cost of the Snapdragon variant is $ 548.90, whereas the retail price is $ 1,299. The Exynos random variable, on the early hand, sees Samsung share increasing to about 70 % .

Both the global and uracil variants come with 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB/256GB/512GB of UFS 3.0 onboard storage to ensure faster read and write speeds. A hybrid microSD card slot is besides present for further repositing expansion of up to 1TB. As the smartphone supports eSIM functionality, users no longer need to worry about missing out on a irregular SIM for adding extend memory .

Performance: Multi-tasking Workhorse

In terms of the RAW specification sheet, Samsung has done adequate to ensure the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is a powerhouse. For a few years now, there has been an ongoing argument around the operation of Qualcomm vs Exynos chipsets. On the benchmarks and battery life side, Qualcomm may be a little ahead, but the overall performance is what matters for the drug user. It has been over a month, and I have been using the Exynos discrepancy .
With 12GB of RAM and Exynos 990, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra just zips along with any app that I throw at it. Multitasking is a cinch, where I constantly keep switching between apps like Microsoft Teams, Twitter, Feedly and WhatsApp through most of the day. The adaptive 120Hz filmdom freshen pace makes the have flush silky smooth. But it is not merely about the hardware, the new One UI 2.5 hide on top of Android 10 and software refinements play a large function in delivering this dapper have .

The hardware and software combination delivers ace performance .

The gambling have has besides been good. You do not get any extra gambling modality, but Samsung has included Game Launcher where all your installed games are in one locate. It shows you the list of games, the sum playtime, and for how long you played it daily. There are some world wide web clamant games excessively that you can play, merely that you need the internet to play them. Samsung has besides included a game promoter and Discord integration. My only problem hera is that it would have been better if there was a gambling mode to block notifications and calls while gambling, and other features like 4D vibrations, which would have made the feel even better .
last, the smartphone is armed with a 4,500mAh battery with hold for 25W firm charging using USB Power Delivery. sadly, unlike the competitors, there is no support for faster-charging electrical power. But despite all of this, the charge is immediate, where you can reach from empty to 40 % in about 25 minutes and up to 75 % in an hour. Full charging takes about an hour and 25 minutes. There is hold for radio receiver tear and reverse wireless charging to charge the Galaxy Watch or Galaxy Buds devices .

The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G offers an all-day battery animation with moderate to big use .

Talking about battery animation, even with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, it sails through the day without any hiccup. My typical use includes sociable media, listening to music via Bluetooth, a smartwatch connected throughout, and gaming and binge-watching for an hour each. With all this, I systematically get close to five hours of riddle time, which is not capital but not badly either considering the diaphanous ability and performance it offers .

Cameras: Brings Improvements over Galaxy S20 Ultra

With the Galaxy S20 Ultra, Samsung introduced a quad-camera set-up with a 108MP primary detector. Unlike the earlier 12MP sensors, the new television camera system did not feature dual-pixel autofocus, which resulted in auto-focusing issues, particularly in close-up shots. Samsung has fixed the consequence by adding a laser-assisted autofocus system, which not only offers faster focusing but besides allows for capturing blur-free photos .
Talking about the set-up, the basal camera is a 108MP detector with f/1.8 aperture and 1/1.33-inch detector size, and supports ocular prototype stabilization ( OIS ). The elementary television camera besides supports up to 8K video recording recording ( 24fps ) capabilities and extremist slow-motion at 960fps ( 720p ) settlement. I shot some videos while on a drive, and the results were dear. The OIS helps in compensating the jerk and getting a postpone footage, but a Gimbal like organization, like on the Vivo X50 Pro, could have been an even better addition .

The S20 Ultra featured a 48MP periscope telephotograph lens ( f/3.5 aperture ) with up to 100x space rapid climb capabilities. With the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Samsung went with a lower resolution 12MP periscope telephotograph lens ( f/3.0 ) with up to 50x space soar capabilities. It besides supports OIS and 5X ocular rapid climb. The third is a 12MP f/2.2 detector with an ultra-wide lens with a field of opinion of 120˚ .
Upfront, the smartphone features a 10MP detector with dual pixel PDAF and corroborate for up to 4K video recording ( up to 60fps ). now that the specifications are out of the way, let us talk about the television camera operation. Just like the S20 Ultra, even the note 20 Ultra manages to impress with its photograph choice. I shot a bunch together of photos in different lighting conditions, and they offered crisp details along with punchy colors. One of the coarse problems when switching between wide and ultra-wide lenses is the inconsistency in color temperature and flip colors. But that is not the lapp in this event, which is impressive. Below are some television camera samples .

Daylight: Great details, punchy colors

Though the chief camera is of 108MP resolution, it uses a 9×1 nona-binning technique to capture 12MP photos by default. These are about 5MB in size. If you want to click full 108MP settlement photos, you can manually choose the modality from the aspect proportion settings. Do note that these full-res photos are about 28MB in size .
Quality-wise, the television camera offered big details and was able to capture the greenery, monsoon clouds and blasphemous sky. The first photograph below was captured using an ultra-wide lens, whereas the second one was captured using the main camera. The color consistency here is visible .

Samsung algorithms ensure color consistency even when switching between different lenses .

The next is a close-up photograph of a leaf where evening the thin strands and pores created by insects look detailed while the background is blurred .

Moving on, portrayal photos are detailed besides, and we can see some estimable separation between the background and the foreground. Edge detection of the television camera is besides good, where the sphere around the cat ’ south ears and each hair of mustache are open excessively .

Zoom: Powerful and Capable

The 12MP telephotograph lens can capture some good soar shots. For zoom levels up to 4X, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra uses the 108MP independent detector as there are enough details that it can crop and zoom-in. Starting at 5X ( manually top and soar in the television camera app between 5X and 10X ), it switches to the telephotograph lens. Above 10X and astir to 50X, the smartphone offers digital soar capabilities .
I would want to highlight that even at 50X, some photos are quite available. Below are two sets of photos, the first where the focus is on a slide in the park some 80-100 meters away. The photos are shot in ultra-wide, 10X, 20X and 50X soar levels. These are all hand-held shots, and I had to ensure my hands were equally steady as possible. It is impressive how the OIS and other algorithm study to offer a blur-free concluding photograph. This is where I liked the Vivo X50 Pro ’ south Gimbal television camera execution a bit better as you do not have to ensure being excessively stable. even the OIS along with periscope rapid climb arrangement on Oppo Find X2 Pro did a bang-up job in keeping the capable stable when taking zoom shots .




The second base set of photograph focus on a build about 800 meters aside, and the soar levels remain the same as the above. intelligibly, in both cases, photos shot at 50X soar grade are not a shrill as the one at 20X level, but they are slightly useable and show how capable the compact camera system is. These photos were shoot keeping the call on a rail to get stable shots. For capturing better soar shots, using a tripod is recommended .

Photos improving to 10X hybrid soar levels offer good details while retaining colors .

This photograph of a dame was captured from 15 meters, and even at 10X, the camera has done a dear occupation capturing enough details to identify an amerind Myna .

Low-light: Impressive and sharp results

Low-light photos were impressive, offering effective pungency, color retentiveness, and scantily any coarseness. The big pixel size helps in capturing more light, whereas the software algorithms polish the persona to show the baron of computational photography .

Selfies: Excellent quality, indoors and outdoors

last, the front camera on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has been pretty impressive excessively, delivering excellent results. In day, the camera was able to capture accurate peel tone and background. even edge detection in the portrait modality works well .

The third photograph below was captured indoors in artificial light by placing the television camera on a tripod. The camera has done an excellent caper of capturing the colors of our skin tones, clothes, sofa, and the foreground wall ampere well .

The front camera does a great job in capturing excellent selfies, regardless of the light conditions .

S Pen: The Magic Wand is More Functional Now

Every year, Samsung brings fresh improvements to the S Pen stylus to make it evening more functional. This year, Samsung has reduced the allude latency to just 9ms, thanks to the higher screen refresh rate. And it is not fair about impressive numbers, you can notice the remainder while writing on the Note 20 Ultra ’ s shield. The S Pen good glides over the screen smoothly as the virtual ink flows out of the stylus. The new “ Air Actions ” features and “ Samsung Notes ” enhance the experience even further .

Air Actions

With the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung introduced the Bluetooth feature in the S Pen. It allowed you to perform basic tasks like using the S Pen as a distant manipulate for the camera, music and video apps. With the Note 10, Samsung added a gyroscope, unlocking motion gesture feature to rapid climb in and out in the television camera app, addition and decrease media bulk, and more .
so immediately, when you are on any screen or in any app, drawing an inverted “ V ” will take you to the home screen, whereas drawing a “ V ” will open the smart blue-ribbon menu. Drawing zigzag in the publicize will open the “ Screen Write ” menu. similarly, drawing entrust and right arrow will take you “ back ” or open the “ recent ” menu. Under Settings > Advanced Features > S Pen > Air Actions, you can besides change the default option app that opens when you long press and hold the S Pen button .
These features may sound gimmicky, but they have been helpful at times. When clicking group selfies, I normally give the telephone to the tallest guy in the group to hold so that everyone comes in the skeletal system, and then use the S Pen to click photos. At times, when I am listening to music on a Bluetooth loudspeaker and the phone is on charging on the desk, the S Pen comes in handy to change tracks, change volume and to play/pause music .

Air Actions is an matter to addition that comes in handy at times .

Samsung Notes: More Powerful with New and Interesting Features

Samsung has even updated the Notes app which is much more functional now. Until now, you could precisely jot down notes, and convert handwriting to text. With the new update, you can now annotate it with sound recording. For example, you are in a meeting and jotting down notes. You can now record the audio excessively as you write. You can then look at your notes and play the audio to listen if you missed out on something. These are minor things that in concert make the Galaxy Note a brawny note-taking creature .

The other improvement comes in the shape of determine detection. When taking notes, you may want to add some shapes like a lap, triangulum, or square, and thus on. It is a handy feature for those who like jotting down notes and figures the old school way .

via GIPHY
last, another new addition to the Samsung Notes app is the ability to convert your notes into different formats. These include PDF, Word, PowerPoint File, Image and Text files. The accuracy is not 100 %, but it does the job well. I tried both ways to convert the notes into documents, but converting handwriting to text first, and then converting it into the craved document type offers better results .

The ability to convert handwritten notes to text and then into Word or PDF format makes the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra a unique productivity tool .

Samsung and Microsoft Partnership
The Galaxy Note series has constantly been positioned to be enterprise-grade and productivity-centric devices. The Note device excels with a mighty combination of a larger optimize display and the S-Pen to enhance the work-related tasks while on the motion, correct from note-taking to composing multimedia-rich emails. With the Galaxy Note 10 launch last year, Samsung announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft, the drawing card in productiveness tools, cloud and services, to take the “ function ” experience on the Note devices to the future flat .
Samsung complemented the pre-bundling of core Microsoft 365 apps on the Note devices with deeper integration of other Microsoft services such as OneDrive cloud and YourPhone company app for seamless PC-to-smartphone connectivity, cloud synchronize and continuity .
With the Note 20, the integration deepens across multiple fronts :
Email and calendar: Outlook emails and calendar synchronize with Samsung calendar and is backed up in the mottle, making it everlastingly available across devices .
Notes: Samsung Notes syncs into the OneNote app. OneNote feed into the Outlook on the web will be available soon .

Gallery : Samsung Gallery immediately seamlessly backs up all the photos and videos into the OneDrive Cloud to easily access the solicitation across devices .
Xbox : A particular version of the Xbox Game Pass app in Galaxy Store will allow players to make in-app purchases, like DLC items and skins, potentially bypassing Google Play store ’ s 30 % mission. Further, Samsung is besides offering a gambling pack that includes three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PowerA ’ s MOGA XP5-X Plus gamepad accessory optimized for the Microsoft xCloud game-streaming servicing. This could potentially extend to Samsung TVs for cross-device maneuver continuity over the mottle .

Reminders : Samsung Reminders will be able to sync across Microsoft To Do, Outlook and Teams apps .
YourPhone App : The deeper integration of Galaxy devices with the YourPhone app on a Windows 10 personal computer is one of the missing pieces of cross-device continuity between a smartphone and personal computer .

This integration with Windows 10 allows the drug user to access the Galaxy telephone ’ s notifications and messages, and receive or make calls immediately from the personal computer. The exploiter can besides entree, edit and contribution pictures in the earphone ’ second gallery directly from the YourPhone app on the Windows personal computer .

It besides gives you full access for interaction with the applications installed on your telephone properly within your personal computer easily with the mouse and keyboard. You can pin the Android apps to the Windows Taskbar or Start menu for quick access .

far, you can start shop or copying text on your mobile and continue the crop or spread the copy clipboard seamlessly on your phone-linked personal computer applications .
This eliminates the want to unlock, pick up and touch your call a million times while you are working .

The partnership thus allows users to remotely access Microsoft 365 obscure, applications and services on the run to remain generative for solve and play with Microsoft ’ south Xbox offerings. This fills in a big gap for Samsung to differentiate in the herd Android space and boost the overall measure suggestion with a highly complementary and meaningful partnership with Microsoft .

Conclusion: The Premium Do-everything Business Phone

overall, Samsung has done a fantastic job with the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G. It is undoubtedly the ultimate Android flagship of 2020. From the Dynamic AMOLED control panel with adaptive 120Hz screen refresh pace to the brawny camera apparatus with 50x zoom capabilities, knock-down hardware and overcast gambling capabilities, the smartphone offers the best bounty experience. The enhanced S Pen features, 5G and Microsoft integration sweeten the deal further for casual and business users .
however, there are a few areas where there is room for improvement. For exemplify, the television camera bump could have been a bit thin. The 4,500mAh battery offers good survival but it could have been better. Talking about charging speeds, Samsung can bump the current 25W fast-wired charging speeds to 45W, 65W or even more, like its competitors such as Huawei, OPPO and realme .

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