Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Review: The Verdict
The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra feels like a misstep for Samsung. It's certainly not a bad phone, but poor battery life and an inconsistent camera make it hard to recommend, especially when you consider the asking price.
What we love
- Gorgeous display
- Snappy performance
- Matte glass finish is lovely
What could be improved
- Poor battery life
- Inconsistent camera
- Not great value
The essentials
- Performance: Very good.
- Battery: Poor. One day of charge max, with 5G and 120Hz disabled. Will struggle to last an entire day otherwise.
- Screen: Lovely, as you'd expect from Samsung.
- Camera: Can take lovely photos, but has issues with artifacting in lowlight and focus.
60/100
Hitting the the $2,000 mark is a brave move for any smartphone manufacturer. Two grand feels like a threshold, a magical number where you can't help but stop and ask why a phone costs that much, to ponder what else that money could buy. Two grand is a lot of money, after all.
Admittedly, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra starts at $1,849, but that's for the 4G model. You're looking at $1,999 for 5G. And the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G is clearly the option Samsung - and most telcos - want you to buy, with Telstra and Optus avoiding 4G models entirely.
So what should a $2,000 smartphone look like? What makes it twice as good as a $1,000 phone, or almost three times as good as the Pixel 4a? What does it need to do get you excited? To part with the kind of cash?
For one, a $2,000 smartphone certainly shouldn't make compromises. Unfortunately, this isn't quite the case with the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.
Large and out of charge
The first compromise you'll encounter with the Note 20 Ultra is battery life. I struggled to get through an entire day on a single charge, netting between three and four hours of screen time. Closer to three. On less demanding days, I'd make it through with a sliver of charge left. On others, I'd be reaching for a charger before the evening. It's not what you'd expect from a $1,999 phone. This lacklustre battery performance seems to correlate with the Note 20 Ultra's 120Hz reference display and 5G connectivity.
A 120Hz refresh rate screen displays 120 images per second, versus 60 images per second in a standard handset. This makes motion on the Note 20 Ultra look gloriously smooth, and is especially noticeable when it comes to animations and scrolling through apps. Of course, it also means the display has to work harder.
Out of the box, the Note 20 Ultra will set your refresh rate based on your activity. There's no way to permanently set the screen to 120Hz, but it will ramp up where appropriate and tone down to conserve battery. Switched off the 120Hz display helped eek more life out of the battery, but I was still struggling to push past four hours of screen time.
5G appears to have a more significant impact on battery life. When I dropped down to 60Hz and disabled 5G, the Note 20 Ultra was able to push closer to five hours, maybe a little more. While not stellar, it made it easier to go through through an entire day without needing to top up. For comparison, the iPhone 11 Pro Max is easily able to get between seven and eight hours of screen time per charge.
And let's be real, you shouldn't have to disable key features just to have your phone last the day. The 120Hz screen and 5G connectivity are arguably part of the reason Samsung is slapping a $1,999 price-tag on the Note 20 Ultra. If you're disabling them to save battery life, why are you spending $1,999 in the first place?
I'm curious as to why Samsung only put a 4,500mAh battery in the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, when the S20 Ultra - which also struggled to last a full day until you disabled features - has a larger 5,000mAh cell. The Note 20 Ultra supports fast charging - which should get you from flat to 60% in around half-an-hour - which might ease the pain, but the charging speed is also slower than what was touted on the S20 Ultra and last year's Note 10+. It's strange to see Samsung tone down specs on what should be its technological showcase.
Note 20 vs. Note 20 Ultra
While the Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra share a name, they're very different phones. The only real similarity is the processor.
In some ways, the Note 20 is best defined by what it's not. While the Note 20 Ultra has a curved Quad HD+ display running at 120Hz, the standard Note 20 is a little more conventional. It's a 6.7-inch 1080p+ screen at 60Hz.
It's a similar situation when it come to camera. The Note 20 Ultra has a 108MP primary camera, a 5x zoom lens, whereas the the Note 20 has a 12MP primary camera and 3x hybrid-optical zoom lens.Oddly, the Note 20 has a plastic back, while the Note 20 Ultra is built from glass. Plastic backs are still common when it comes to more affordable smartphones, but it's a pretty unusual choice for a phone that starts at $1,499.
Here's a quick look at how the Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra compare in terms of specs and price:
| Galaxy Note 20 | Galaxy Note 20 Ultra | |
|---|---|---|
| Display | 6.7-inch OLED | 6.9-inch OLED |
| Resolution | 1080p at 60Hz | Quad HD at 120Hz |
| Rear Cameras | 12MP + 64MP + 12MP | 108MP+ 12MP + 12MP + Laser AF |
| Front Camera | 10MP | 10MP |
| Processor | Exynos 990 | Exynos 990 |
| RAM | 8GB | 8GB or 12GB |
| Storage | 256GB | 256GB or 512GB |
| Battery | 4,300mAh | 4,500mAh |
| Water-Resistance | IP68 |
IP68 |
| 5G | Optional | Optional |
| Material | Plastic | Glass |
| Price | From $1,499 | From $1,849 |
Bronze, but make it mystic
Unsurprisingly, the Note 20 Ultra is a stunning piece of industrial design. The tapered glass on the front and back are joined by just a sliver of aluminium, making the phone feel seamless. Almost like one unified whole, rather than disparate parts pieced together.
This time around, Samsung has opted for matte finish glass, as we've seen on the iPhone 11 Pro and Pixel 4. Not only does this give off a reassuring grippy texture, it all but eliminates fingerprints. And when coupled with the new Mystic Bronze finish, it's rather striking too.
The Note 20 Ultra is however also very large, measuring in at 6.9-inches, which makes it 0.2-inches larger than last year's Note 10+. The sheer size makes it a phone that's difficult to use with one hand. Trying to type a message one-handed is close to impossible, and requires all sorts of contorting. More often than not, this led to false presses as my palm butted up against the screen, and in turn, typos I had to deal with. But even if it's not always practical, the Note 20 Ultra screen is stunning - as you'd expect from a Samsung display - and a complete treat to watch videos on.
As part of the Note family, the Note 20 Ultra naturally has an S Pen stylus, and it sure is an S Pen. While there are a few technical improvements in terms of latency, the experience is ostensibly the same as on any previous Note. If you like the S Pen, you’ll continue to like the S Pen. If you don’t, the Note 20 Ultra isn’t going to change your mind.
The one feature that takes away from the Note 20 Ultra's aesthetic is a rather sizeable camera bump on the back. Protruding around 3mm, it's much more significant than what you'll find on almost any other phone. You can't miss it. The camera bump noticeably unbalances the Note 20 Ultra when you've got it screen up on a desk, which feels a little like an accident waiting to happen. Conversely, I never feel great about leaving a phone face down on any surface (if it's not in a case) for fear of micro-abrasions and scratches. The Note 20 Ultra is however rocking the latest version of Gorilla Glass on both the front and back. This is said to not only be more drop resistant than past iterations, but more scratch resistant too.
Why don't you hit me with your best shot?
Given the downright chonky camera bump, you'd expect big things from the Note 20 Ultra camera. Unfortunately, this isn't quite the case. The Note 20 Ultra camera is fine. It can take goshdarn lovely photos at times! I'm a big fan of this shot I nabbed when caught in the rain:
And the depth of field here is excellent:
At the same time, there are a few issues that you need to be aware of. The S20 Ultra was marred by focus issues, where the phone struggled to get sharp images of subjects - especially with movement. A laser focus module has been added to the Note 20 Ultra to assist with this and it helps, but it also doesn't.
The Note 20 Ultra is less prone to completely losing focus, but can blur out an image entirely if you get too close to a subject. This isn't great if you're trying to take photos of flowers, for example. The only way to reset focus is to pull the Note 20 Ultra away from your subject, and then line up your shot again. It's not very point and shoot.
The Note 20 Ultra also struggles when it comes to fast moving subjects. Take this photo of a highway; I couldn't get a photo where cars weren't blurred.
Given there was plenty of light, this shouldn't have been a problem. And for comparison, the $599 Pixel 4a didn't have any issues getting a sharp shot. Most phones wouldn't.
In the same vein, animal photos were tricky. It took far too many attempts to get a sharp photo of Sooty, even when he was behaving himself and staying mostly still.
While the Note 20 Ultra can do a great job at lowlight, results are inconsistent. Some photos are stunning, whereas others look like they were shot on a potato. The camera has major issues with artifacting at night, especially when it comes to night mode.
But first, here's a set of images where the Note 20 Ultra did well. This shot is without night mode:
And this shot is with night mode:
It's certainly quite a contrast. However, if you look in the top left hand corner, you can see the sky looks digital and blotchy. At the least, it doesn't take away from the photo.
The effect is a lot more noticeable here, where the entire sky suffers from the image - especially on the right:
And here in the clouds:
Even in dark environments, other top-tier phones don't exhibit this same kind of blotchiness. For me, it ruins the photo, it turns it into something I don't want to share. Every phone camera has its limits when it comes to lowlight, but this one is quite unfortunate, especially when the night mode performs well otherwise.
The Note 20 Ultra doesn't have the same 100x zoom we saw on the S20 Ultra, instead capping out at 50x. Given photos at 100x zoom were more reminiscent of impressionist art, this is probably for the best . In the same vein, 50x zoom is mostly there for the sake of the spec sheet - you're almost never going to want to use that level of magnification
Images at 10x and 20x can look pretty good, however, provided you have decent lighting. Here's a shot at 1x:
And here's a shot at 20x:
Here's another zoom comparison:
This does of course depend on your subject. Architecture tends to come across much better than more complex subjects, like nature or people, for example. This 20x zoom shot certainly isn't bad, but the trees are somewhat flat, almost a little cartoony - especially if you look too close. It's not a terrible image, you can just tell something is off.
While the zoom lens can do a great job in the right conditions, it becomes a bit of a hot mess in lowlight. Focus is almost impossible, and images just look a little fake, even at 5x. This was one of the better images I managed to get, after a few attempts:
For what it's worth, most longer range zoom lenses in smartphones become harder to use at night - this isn't unique to the Note 20 Ultra.
All in the all, the Note 20 Ultra camera certainly isn't bad by any measure - it's just unfortunately inconsistent thanks to some focus issues and lowlight quirks.
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra - Final Thoughts
The Note series used to represent the best of the best of Samsung; genuine superphones designed to push boundaries. But as the Note series and S series have started to blur together, that no longer feels like the case. The Note 20 Ultra isn't exciting. It's just like any other phone. Its most interesting feature is the Mystic Bronze finish. Everything else we've seen before, and in some cases, done better.
Sure, the Note 20 Ultra is certainly a nice phone. It just doesn't feel like a $2,000 phone. A $2,000 phone should be exciting. There should be a clear reason to upgrade, to spend more. That's simply not the go with the Note 20 Ultra. Prices keep rising year-on-year, but upgrades are more iterative than ever. In some cases, the Note 20 Ultra represents a step back from the Note 10+, in terms of battery life at the least.
If the Note 20 Ultra is going to set you back a minimum of $1,849, it can't make compromises. Sure, no one phone is going to be everything to everyone, but you need to nail the essentials first.
If you're a Note loyalist, there's a good chance you'll still like - maybe even love - the Note 20 Ultra, assuming the battery isn't a dealbreaker. But quite frankly, it represents poor value. It makes a few too many compromises for the price. Especially when you consider the competition.
Announced in the same week, the Pixel 4a is the polar opposite of the Note 20 Ultra. Priced at $599 outright, Google's new handset is an unpretentious device with a laser sharp focus on simplicity. The camera is top-tier, often equalling or outperforming the Note 20 Ultra. The battery will comfortably last you the day. And the performance is more than smooth enough. It's not a flash, fancy phone, but the Pixel 4a does much more than you'd expect from $599.
Or if you're looking at flagships, the OPPO Find X2 Pro gets you more phone for less money than the Note 20 Ultra. You get better cameras and twice the storage for $1,599 outright. Unfortunately, the Find X2 Pro shares the same battery issues as the Note 20 Ultra - especially when connected to 5G - but overall, it represents better value.
And if you really want a stylus, pick up last year's Note 10+. The 4G model is down to $1,250 outright now. The camera is a step down from the Note 20 Ultra, but the battery is a step up. And importantly, it's not $2,000.
No matter how much you like the idea of the Note 20 Ultra, it's hard to like that price.
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Camera Samples
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