S20, S20+, S20 ultra, Note 20, S20 FE these are all the other new series S models for 2020 give or take a A 5G here or there. I am not going to be talking about those. I have been playing with the Note 20 Ultra 5G. Lets talk about that.
I shall refer to the Note 20 Ultra 5G as N20U5G Because these names are getting ridiculous. Seriously Samsung it took me longer to Say these names out loud then it took the phone to boot up. Shorten them dang it.
We are going to break this down into 4 segments.
- Initial experience. What is in the box, feel and design
- Real world use and how did it hold up day to day
- THE NERD STUFF.
- Final Thoughts. Likes and dis-like
Initial experience. What is in the box, feel and design:
Box is a box it hold stuff. In the case of this phone it is not holding a lot. The phone, Warranty info, sim tool, charger and USB cable. No headphones in this very very very expensive phone.
I got the sexy Mystic Bronze (its pink without saying pink). The note stays true to its historical boxy design. All 4 corners come to a 90-degree edge. I have large hand (fat) so this does make the phone feels bigger then s20+ but more comfortable by far. One handed use is not what this phone is meant for. If you want a one-handed phone look elsewhere. The display is a meaty 6.9” display with curved edged on the sides (curved edges annoy me) With an acceptable sized camera punch hole. Along the left edge is nothing at all and I love it. Right hand side is volume up and down and just under that is the power button. Along the bottom you will see Mic, USB-C port, speaker and S-Pen. On the top is clean with only the SIM/Micro SD tray and a mic.
The back is where the magic is a matte kind of frosted bronze back glass with the Samsung logo and imei beautifully etched in the bottom ¼ . Then the major business looking camera bump. The bump is pretty big housing 3 camera, Laser Af sensor and flash. The lens openings unlike other S phones are all the same size with a 2 toned etch look around each one.
All and all it is a stunning phone. I love showing it off.
Real world use and how did it hold up day to day:
I am going to hit the biggest annoyance of this phone right off the top. I am not a fan of the battery. After using the A70, Huawei P40 Pro. The N20U5G 4500mAh battery just doesn’t hold up. I normally have to top up the charge once on most days. I do watch a lot of video and stream music. But I did that on the other 2 phones, and they lasted almost 2 full days. Now I know it has 120hz display and I could save battery but dropping It to 60hz but it’s a $1800+ CND phone. I shouldn’t have to. Maybe with a software update this can be enhanced.
Now everything else is smooth like butter. Being a left-handed person, the S-Pen moving to the left corner makes me happy. LEFTIES REPRESENT!!! The refresh time on the pen makes it feel almost as fast as paper and pen. I would live to see better pressure sensitivity like the apple pen but it still nice to write with. Unless you try to write on the phone while it is lying down on a table with no case, then that camera bump makes it mostly useless.
The Charging is fast on cable or wireless, Transfer rates are super-fast over USB-C 3.2 gen 1and the UFS storage and 12gb ram with that 120hz display makes it so so so nice. So very nice. Did I mention it was nice?
I miss the headphone jack, but they sent me the free Buds live because I pre ordered it. There will be a review soon on those.
The display being 6.9” makes my video watching a pleasure. I normally watch in 1080 because I want 120hz but if you drop to 60hz you can bump resolution to 3088 x 1440.
Colors and detail are superb. Hooked up xbox cloud to the phone and it is a super cool feature and looks amazing when you have fast enough internet. But there is lag and a slight delay. But really no one should be using that for serious games. I was playing Doom Eternal in a coffee shop. That was pretty cool.
Camera…. Pretty good. I am glad the dropped the 100x zoom (looked gross) they have a 50x and it is actually kind of functional. Colors are bright as Samsung loves. But you can go into pro mode where there is some amazing manual controls. The AI assisted setting are reasonable better then some other phones. The 108mp shooter gives great detail and a lot of data in the photo for you to edit them on the computer. No zoom options while shooting but at 108mp you ca post zoom a lot. The wide angle shot have little to no fish eye which makes me happy. A lot of phones out there do that and drives me nuts. No macro mode. I like it but I guess they didn’t think it needed it. ☹. Also when zoomed way in at night looking at the moon AI cleans it right up for a moon shot.
Here are some various shots I took with the phone no edits.
Overall good daily driver minus battery stuff.
THE NERD STUFF:
Here are the specs.
Processor
Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+
Display
6.9″ edge Quad HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X Infinity-O Display (3088×1440)
496 ppi, HDR10+ certified, 120Hz refresh rate
S-Pen
Bluetooth enabled
Lithium Titanate Battery: Up to 24 hours of battery standby time,
Pressure levels: 4096, Pen tip diameter: 0.7 mm, IP68
CAMERAS
Front Camera
10MP Selfie Camera, Dual Pixel AF, Pixel size: 1.22μm, FOV: 80˚, F.No (aperture): F2.2
Rear camera
12MP Ultra Wide Camera, Pixel size: 1.4μm, FOV: 120˚, F.No (aperture): F2.2
108MP Wide-angle Camera, PDAF, OIS, Pixel size: 0.8μm, FOV: 79˚, F.No , aperture): F1.8, 1/1.33″ image sensor size
12MP Telephoto Camera, Pixel size: 1.0μm, FOV: 20˚, F.No (aperture): F3.0
Laser AF Sensor, Space Zoom 5x Optical Zoom Up to 50x Super Resolution Zoom OIS (Optical Image Stabilization), Tracking AF
Battery 4500mAh
Connection
5G Non-Standalone (NSA), Standalone (SA), Sub6 / mmWave
LTE Enhanced 4×4 MIMO, Up to 7CA, LTE Cat.20 Up to 2.0Gbps Download / Up to 200Mbps Upload
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax 2.4G+5GHz, HE80, MIMO, 1024-QAM Up to 1.2Gbps Download / Up to 1.2Gbps Upload
Bluetooth® v 5.0, USB type-C, NFC, Location (GPS, Galileo, Glonass, BeiDou)
Ultra Wide Band
Memory options
12GB RAM (LPDDR5) with 512GB internal storage / 12GB RAM (LPDDR5) with 128GB internal storage
Final Thoughts
This is a beast with a very small battery but compensates with a massive display, great features and hardware. If your Note person you will love it. If you are not a note person you should love it. Its great.
Worth buying IF you have note upgraded in a bit because it will last you another 2-3 years easy. Do not upgrade from note 10. That is silly.
My issues are the battery and price tag. Besides that, easily the best phone of 2020
