The Ultra experience
Over the years, the Galaxy Note line has become more or less synonymous with big screens, powerful processors, and, of course, the S Pen. Both the Galaxy Note 20 and the Note 20 Ultra pack all of the above, but between the two, the Ultra caters more to Samsung's most demanding fans.
First things first: With its 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, the Note 20 Ultra is a big phone. For those keeping count, that's the same size as the Galaxy S20 Ultra's display, and both of these screens refresh at up to 120Hz. Just like last year's Note, there's a tiny hole punched out of the top of the screen to accommodate a 10-megapixel front-facing camera, and the lack of bezels around the display once again means you'll have plenty of real estate for jotting down notes during your (remote) meetings. The screen's tall aspect ratio also makes the Ultra a little narrower and easier to handle than you might suspect, though folks with big mitts are still Samsung’s real audience here. (Even I had trouble one-handing it.) Unlike last year, there is no version of the Note for people with smaller hands, which honestly feels like a compared to what Samsung did this year.
Speaking of big, the Note 20 Ultra's camera array looks (and feels) absolutely enormous. From what I can tell, it's very similar in size to the Galaxy S20 Ultra's hump, but it really stands out thanks to the new, bronze finish Samsung is pushing this year. What's inside, however, should sound pretty familiar. Samsung's 108-megapixel main camera is back and seemingly identical to the one found in the S20 Ultra -- ditto for the 12-megapixel ultra-wide, which still captures a 120-degree field of view.
That's not to say Samsung hasn't tweaked its formula, though. This time it opted for a 12-megapixel telephoto camera, and while that doesn't sound nearly as impressive as the S20 Ultra's 48-megapixel sensor, the Note 20 Ultra's long-range shooter has a slightly wider aperture which should help in low light. Samsung's crazy Space Zoom feature is back too, though it's been neutered a little. The Note 20 Ultra can push in 50x, compared to the 100x on the S20 Ultra. Frankly, this is fine. In addition to being creepy, those 100x photos looked downright terrible most of the time.
Based on its name and those oh-so-similar cameras, it would be easy to assume that not much has changed internally from the Galaxy S20 Ultra. That's not exactly the case. Inside is one of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865+ chipsets, and since its CPU cores are clocked slightly higher than the standard 865's, the Note 20 Ultra should have a slight edge when it comes to horsepower. Of course, considering just how fast the standard Snapdragon 865 was, I suspect most people would be hard-pressed to spot any meaningful differences in performance. (I certainly didn’t.) That's especially true because, like the S20 Ultra, all versions of the Note 20 Ultra pack 12GB of RAM -- apart from the color, the only choice you'll have to make is whether you want 128GB ($1,300) or 512GB of storage ($1,449).
A few other things to note: The Note 20 Ultra has a 4,500mAh battery, which is notably smaller than the S20 Ultra's. (Samsung swears that the two phones are rated for the same longevity, but we'll be the judge of that.) Long-time Note fans will also have to reset their muscle memory since the Bluetooth-enabled S Pen now slots in on the bottom-left corner. I can already imagine myself thumbing for the stylus where it used to be, and I'm getting frustrated. That said, actually using the S Pen should feel a little more natural than it used to. Thanks to some software improvements and the S20 Ultra’s fancy new screen, the delay between writing something on this glass and seeing it appear is minimal -- think about nine milliseconds. Seeing Samsung demonstrate this minimal latency in person has made me wonder if it might finally be time to give writing on glass another try.
The Note 20 Ultra is also the first Samsung device to pack an ultra-wideband (or UWB) radio for short-range data transmission. UWB has plenty of applications, but it’s perhaps most widely known in smartphone circles as the technology that allows Apple’s iPhone 11 series to AirDrop files by pointing one device at another. Samsung told us that the Note 20 Ultra will include a similar feature so you can quickly move files from one Ultra to another, and before long the company plans to use the radio to locate Samsung devices with AR and unlock doors.
New year, new tricks
If the Note 20 Ultra seems like an S20 Ultra with a stylus and a bit of a makeover, that’s not surprising. The overlap here is considerable, and more than a little concerning.
Let's run through the software additions that help define the Note 20 experience. And naturally, we need to start with the S Pen. All of the classic features are here -- check out our Note 10+ review for a closer look at them -- but now you can navigate the Note's interface with swishes and flicks of your wrist. Imagine drawing specific kinds of zig-zags in the air will reveal your recent apps, go back one level, bring you back to the home screen, and even grab a screenshot. These gestures are much more angular than the ones that debuted on last year's Note 10, and that should theoretically make them a little easier to pull off. Emphasis on "theoretically” -- from what I’ve seen, it still takes some practice to get them working just right.
Adding new Air Actions like these was inevitable, and the idea of navigating your phone with a magic wand of sorts is ambitious enough to be charming. Still, how often will you actually need to multitask on your phone when you're not holding it? Even for avid stylus fans, I suspect the answer is "rarely." Thankfully, some of Samsung's other S Pen-centric features are a little more practical. You'll finally be able to mark up PDFs in the built-in Notes app, and if you're the sort who likes recording meetings or classes while jotting down bullet points, you can tap specific scribbles on-screen to jump to different parts of the audio file. Honestly, where was this when I was in college?
Samsung also seems quite proud of its new wireless DeX feature, which will let you "cast" a desktop-like interface to any Miracast-enabled display. (Naturally, that includes all Samsung Smart TVs from 2019 onward.) But, Samsung hasn't explained the feature in-depth yet, so it's anyone's guess how helpful it'll really be.
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