As the unusual and exceedingly unpredictable year of 2020 is finally coming to a close, the majority of the smartphone brands are done releasing their flagship smartphone lineups for the year.
Since Samsung has two major flagship lines, it has an additive advantage of being in the headlines twice, and hence, it gets more dedicated and undivided attention.
The Galaxy Note series has always turned heads around whenever there’s a discussion about flagship smartphones and of course, the enhanced style statement.
Therefore, although the Note series is slightly pricier than Samsung’s S series, the loyal Note users expect to get value for their big bucks every year.
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Galaxy Note 20 Ultra
Just like every year, Samsung continued to live up to its commitment(s) of providing a premium experience to its users. The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra continues to be the flexible and insanely powerful flagship king it always is, every year.
The phablet comes with a detailed and heavy spec sheet consisting of a variety of features that continue getting enhanced every single year. The highlights of the features that receive upgrades include the enhancements in battery life, camera quality, enhanced connectivity performance alongside the supreme stylus that has enhanced Bluetooth capabilities, and last but definitely not the least, the gigantic screen.
Design and Display
Samsung has always managed to go above and beyond when designing their flagship Note series. On multiple occasions, the South Korean tech giant says they strive and work hard to provide their customer base with the most premium look they could get, every single year. This is why Samsung has always maintained a strict boxier and firm design that guarantees a premium and high-quality feel.
The new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra yet again continues to appease its fan-base and the neutral crowd, too. The flagship smartphone is as big as it could get, quite literally. Compared to its predecessor Galaxy Note 10+, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is noticeably taller and well, classier. It is slightly difficult to use it single-handedly considering the huge 6.9-inch full AMOLED display on the smartphone that consists of surprisingly thin bezels giving maximum screen to the user.
Although the design of the phone can not be considered as one of the most slippery ones, but due to its tremendously huge screen size, users are expected to have accidental edge-touching issues. Generally, this problem can be averted by installing an external case that can also vouch for the protection of your device.
As I mentioned earlier, Samsung did go above and beyond in this year’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra by being the first phone to use Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus which is believed to be the strongest strengthened glass Corning has ever produced. As per Samsung, the glass slab is twice as scratch-resistant as the Gorilla Glass 6.
Anyone who is even slightly familiar with the Samsung lineup will agree that Samsung does not provide the brightest of displays, but they are well above average, every year. However, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra upped its game in this aspect too as it comes with a 25% brighter screen than its predecessor Galaxy Note 10+.
Moving on to the most discussed feature of the display in smartphones, the refresh rate. Samsung has been slightly confused with its stance on higher refresh rates as they thrive to provide a complete phone that consists of no imbalance. It has been observed that the majority of the smartphone companies who have introduced higher refresh rates in their phones are bound to compromise in other aspects of their phone.
Luckily, Samsung is now slowly and swiftly introducing this as the new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra comes with a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The new Note can do WQHD, 3088×1440 at 60Hz, or FHD(1080P) 2316×1080 at 120Hz. This variable nature of the smartphone allows it to be battery-efficient and only use higher refresh rates where it is required.
According to various users, the real bummer for the fans is the same slow fingerprint detection mechanism that disappointed the fans in the Galaxy S20 series, too.
Camera
Samsung got its fair share of criticism on its attempt to magically increase its phones’ capabilities of the camera in its most recent models Galaxy Note 10+ and the Galaxy S20 series. With the addition of the 108-megapixel camera last year to its lineup, the company empowered its customers to achieve a supreme feature of 100x zoom that absolutely blew everybody’s minds off.
However, the only caveat in this upgrade was the massive drop in the camera quality due to Samsung’s urgency to release this great of a zoom feature. It was clear that 100x zoom isn’t something that a user would use every day and it was plain disappointing for those who wanted an overall premium camera experience.
Furthermore, Samsung’s Auto-focus feature on the camera was lagging far behind its competitors and there was a visible lag in shifting focus swiftly and with ease.
Fortunately, the new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has this covered. The flagship Note has a triple camera setup on the rear; a main 108-megapixel camera, a 12-megapixel 5x zoom camera, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera. According to the company, it has fixed the zoom issue limiting the maximum zoom to 50x but enhancing the quality even at such a high zoom quality.
Meanwhile, the front camera sports a powerful 10-megapixel lens.
The phase-detection autofocus issue on the 108-megapixel main camera in the S20 series is now fixed by the addition of a laser auto-focus module in the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra which allows the focus shifts to be more instant, accurate, and give a flagship-level feel.
Performance
Performance and Note, these two words are made for each other. Samsung has ensured that every year, their Note series is slightly sharper and more premium than the S series. This is why the performance metrics of the Note series have always managed to remain on top each year.
The same is the case this year with the new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.
The new Note comes with a Snapdragon 865 Plus processor that is currently the fastest processor. It has a capacity of increasing the system’s performance metric up to 3.06GHz which is a big deal for a smartphone (not so much for the Galaxy Note). As per the Geekbench scores, the new Note gets a straight five-percent increase in performance as compared to the S20 series. In terms of scores, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra managed to score a remarkable 13,340 on the PCMark benchmark test which is believed to be the highest in all smartphones.
Following the global trend, Samsung is now consistently enriching its smartphones with the latest 5G network technology. Other than the hyped 4G and 5G capabilities, the new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra comes with the enhanced WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 that compliments the overall premium design and build quality of the flagship.
One would think that a smartphone with so much hardware greatness must need a heavy-weight battery to withstand the pressure and provide optimized performance, and that is exactly what Samsung did. The new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra comes with a 4,500mAh battery that has the capability of providing up to 12 hours of Screen-on-Time with WQHD resolution at maximum brightness. It is believed that the battery might perform slightly less than this if the user chooses to use the advanced features such as the 120Hz variable refresh rate or the enhanced S-Pen features.
All things aside, the highlight on this year’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is the massive upgrade in the S-Pen lag. Haven’t heard of it yet?
Well, Note users will understand when I word this issue out that the S-Pen, despite its premium greatness, lags a bit in its full flow. However, Samsung has been working tirelessly to reduce this latency and provide a smoother experience to its users.
The headline of the new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is that the company has managed to decrease the latency from 40 ms to a surprisingly low amount of 9 ms which is now similar to that of the Apple Pencil.
Considering all the upgrades in the new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, it is safe to say that Samsung went berserk with its flagship Note series and is not ready to compromise on quality while increasing the price of their smartphone lineup. The initial response of the new Note has been fantastic, being a Samsung Note fan, I believe it will remain as the top flagship of the year 2020.
