samsung galaxy note 20 ultra 5g
Thursday, March 18, 2021
samsung galaxy note 20 ultra 5g
Now normally you do getsome nibs for the S Pen as well as a removal tool. This is not here on my review unit because this is an early sample. So your retail unit willmost likely have that but as well as some other bits potentially that will vary depending on your region. Now let's get to what youguys are all here to see and that is the removal ofthe plastic from the back. Get ready. Landed back on the tablefell, but so, so satisfying. And here it is. I absolutely love thismystic bronze color. This is also available ina black as well as a white, those have a glossy back. But I absolutely love this matte finish, which doesn't attractas many fingerprints. And I love the way it lookswhen the light hits this. It's got this really elegant look. Yeah, I think that'sthe right word, elegant. Now, this is also the firstsmartphone in the world that has Gorilla Glass7, which is more durable. And it's also more scratch resistant compared to Gorilla Glass 6. So let me just go out andbring my tools, no I'm joking.
I'm not really going to dothat, this is my device. I'll leave that for Zach totest out how durable this is. We've got an aluminum frame, which is also in this bronzecolor, looks really slick. And then there's this camera module which does protrude quite a bit. It is quite a big camera bump. Now one thing that a lotof you guys want to see is how this compares to say theSamsung Galaxy S 20 Ultra, which also has quite a large camera bump. And now looking at these side by side, the Note 20 Ultra, thecamera bump isn't as wide but it is slightlytaller and it is thicker. However the device is thinner. So overall, I'd say that the Note 20 Ultra does feel a bit more comfortable for me. If you want to see a detailedcomparison between these two, I've already done a video, you're in luck, I'lllink that in the chords, and you can watch that after this video.
Now we've still got IP68water and dust resistance, which is great. And the Notes has the squared off edges, which we've seen fromthe Note series before, makes it really stand out and look unique amongsteverything else out there. And let's turn this round andhave a look at the display. And here it is guys,this looks so, so good. It's a 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, that's what Samsung call it. And this has a peakbrightness of 1500 nits which makes it one of the brightest, if not, the brightestsmartphone displays out there. And we do have a quad-HD+ resolution, so it's a very high pixel density. But I think more importantly, we do have a 120 hertz refresh rate. Now this is only going to work at full HD. So you can't have QuadHD as well as 120 hertz on at the same time. Similar to what we had on the S20 Ultra. This is to preserve battery life. But what you do haveis an adaptive display. And this will adjust the refresh rate depending on what you'reviewing on screen. So if you're viewing something static, there's really no need for 120 hertz.
And that should giveyou better battery life. Now within this display, there is the ultrasonic indisplay fingerprint scanner, which is the same as what we've seen on previous Samsung devicesover the past couple of years. I mean, it works really well, it's fast. I generally don't have manyproblems with the ultrasonic in display fingerprint scanner. Although I was hopingfor the 3D Sonic Max. Maybe we'll see thatfor the next generation. Also within this displayis the front facing camera. Now this is a punch out. I really don't mind the punch out because the bezels are very, very small and it is smaller comparedto the Note 10 plus that we had last year. It is a 10 megapixel front facing camera with an F2.2 aperture, can film at up to 4K 60 frames per second. But what we're most interested in is the cameras on the back. That's all new on a Samsungdevice not having fingerprints when you turn it around. I love this color. anyway so on the rear facing camera is where we've really had some changes.
The camera module, Ido like the look of it, it looks much better in my opinion to what we had on the S20 Ultra and we've got three different lenses. The primary camera is the 108megapixel sensor from Samsung. It has been refined fromwhat we had on the S20 Ultra And this time we also have a dedicated laser auto focus sensor, and that's going to help with auto focus. The S20 Ultra did have someissues with auto focus, which a lot of experienceand although some of these were improved with software. Having the laser autofocus hardware on here should make things much better. We have a 12 megapixel ultra wide camera. As far as I can see, it'svery similar to what we had on the S20 Ultra. I hope there have beensome improvements on here because I did prefer theNote 10+ ultra wide camera to the S20 Ultra this year. And finally we have a telephotoperiscope zoom camera. This is again at 12 megapixels, and it can give you up tofive times optical zoom, and up to 50 times spacesuit,that's what Samsung call it. It's essentially digital zoom.
Now that's improved on thefour times optical zoom that we had on a the S20 Ultra. I'm glad Samsung have goneaway from the 100X zoom, which was cool but it reallydidn't work that well. So I of course cannot waitto test out these cameras and put them against something else. SuperSaf style, definitely letme know in the comments below which device you'd like meto put this up against first. Now disclaimer, I am going to have to wait till a another softwareupdate on some embargoes before I can publishthe camera comparison. So do bear with me, but I do promise that I will get ontoone as soon as possible. For video, we do have 8K once again adds up to 24 frames a second. And we do have someimprovements for the software. So we've got to the pro video app, which is going to allow youto do a few different things. You're going to be able toget a much smoother zoom rather than just having to snap. So if you are filming and you want to get more of a cinematic zoom, you're going to be able to do that.
And we've also got some improvedaudio recording options. So you can select omni mic front rear, you can also plug inan external USB C mic, and there's also Bluetooth. So with the Galaxy buds live, if you've got those plugged in, it can actually pick upthe audio from there. So if you are in a noisy environment, then that should help kind of clear out a lot of that background noise. Moving on, let's take alook around the device. So on the right hand sidewe have the power button as well as the volume buttons. These have moved from the left hand side that we had on the Note 10+and now on the right hand side. There's actually nothingon the left hand side. At the bottom, thereis a USB type C ports. There's a speaker, which is one of two, we've got another one in the earpiece. So we do have stereospeakers tuned by AKG, which sound really good. And then we have the S Pen. Now, this is on the left handside, not the right hand side. But it's really what makesthe Note series unique.
Now you can see that assoon as I've taken it out, we do get the air actions screen and it lets you try this out. Air actions lets you do certain things with the S Pen remotely so youcan kind be far away from it and you still going to be ableto do a few things like move up, do a kind of left arrow,we've got a shake action, and we've got a clockwise circle action. Okay, exit tutorial now. Honestly speaking, I'm not somebody whopersonally uses air actions, the only thing I really use it for is as an remote trigger for the camera, which I find very, very useful. If you want to take a group shot and you don't reallywant to be using a timer and quickly running across, just having that S Pen is so useful. And this S Pen has been improved, we've got latency downto nine milliseconds, which is, I believe thesmoothest writing experience that you're going to get on smartphone. It's at the same levelas the Apple Pencil. And there's also some new features such as improved handwriting recognition, as well as the ability toimport and annotate PDFs. On the top, we've got the SIM card tray, which does have space for a micro SD card, so you can expand the storage on the Note 20 Ultra which is great.
And that is on top of the base storage, which is a little bit confusing128 gigabytes in the US, 256 gigabytes in the UK,Europe and other regions. And you can also get aversion with 512 gigabytes. Now why is there thisdifference between the storage in the UK and the US. Well in The UK and Europeetc, you will be getting the Exynos 990 series chipset, that's what's going to bepowering the Note 20 Ultra. That is the same chipsetthat we had on the S20 Ultra. But in the US, you will be getting, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 plus chipset. Now this is something thatI've endlessly ranted about. We already had a gap inperformance between the Exynos and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 on the S20 Ultra, Icovered that in detail. Now we've got even more of a gap because the 865 Plus isa more superior chipset. Now how is this going toaffect your day to day and how is it going toaffect the battery life? Well, this is something thatwe're going to have to wait and see. I'm going to try to get theQualcomm Snapdragon 865 plus variant over as soon as I can, and I will try to do a long term review and really let whatthe performance is like and what the battery life is like.
We do have 12 gigabytesof RAM and the battery is 4500mAh. Now I would expect goodbattery life on here because of the adaptive refresh rate. But obviously this is somethingthat I will feed back on. We do have support for 25 watts charging which I mentioned earlier. There is no 45 watt charging supports like we had on the S20 Ultra,15 watts wireless charging as well as reversewireless charging support. So you can charge things like your buds on the back of the Notes 20 Ultra. For software Of course, wehave Android 10 with one UI. And the note 20 Ultra does come with an ultra wideband chip in built. And going forward, it should help with thingslike unlocking your car. I'm not too sure what thebenefits will be long term. So we'll take a look at that. And we also have supportfor wireless decks. So you'll be able toconnect the Note 20 Ultra to to an external display as long as it supportsMiracast technology, and you'll be able to have somewhat of a desktop experienceon that external display. Previously, you had touse a cable of some sort to have this connected andhaving that completely wireless is obviously a big, big advantage.
Now let's talk about the price. So the S20 Ultra in the UK isgoing to be starting at £1180, that is for a 256 gigabyte option. And in the US, it's goingto be starting at $1300 for the 128 gigabyte variant. Now this is more comparedto what the Note 10+ came in at last year, but it is cheaper comparedto what the S20 Ultra came in at this year. Are you going to be picking this up and what additional coveragewould you like me to do with the Note 20 Ultra. Do drop me a commentbelow and let me know. Let's now move on to the Galaxy buds live. Now one thing to mentionstraight away is that if you do preorder the Note 20 Ultra, I believe in certain regions, you can get the galaxy buds live included. So do go ahead and check up on that. The release date is the 21st of August. Let's check these out. So inside the box, we'vegot the usual stuff. There's a quick start guide, there's a USB Type A to USB type C cable, we've got some ear tips. And then we've got the Galaxy buds live. These are in this mystic bronze color, which looks really really nice.
They are also availablein a white and a black. Let's go ahead and open these up and see how quick the connection is. All right, so I'm going to open them here. Shiny and took a few seconds, but we now have theGalaxy buds live pop up. The device has been connected,connect, allow ,allow. We get an indication of howmuch battery life we've got on the earbuds as well as the case. And it immediately brings up the app with all of the instructionsand how to wear these. So let's go ahead and trythem out you're all set. Okay, that was that waspretty easy, I like the setup. It was very straightforward as it was with the Samsung Galaxy buds plus, which are currently my go twos. And in terms of the fit, I have to say it does. My first impression isobviously I'm sat down here, I'm not going to go for a run right now. But they do seem to be quite comfortable. And I have the weirdestshape is in the world, because most earbudsjust don't fit my ears. But these seem to be sitting in very well. And they also look quite different to the traditional earbuds that we've been seeing forthe past many, many years.
So props to Samsung forcoming up with a design that is very unique, althoughthese do look like beans. Yeah, I'm sure there's beenlots of beans jokes already. Okay, they sound pretty good to me. I of course, can't test outthe active noise cancellation. My good friend Ede, from bought out wack has actually done a review ofthese and he's an audiophile. So, I will link to his video in the cards so you can go ahead and check that out. I'm definitely not anearphone expert shall we say, for battery life we do haveeight hours of listening on the buds themselves. But with the case youcan get up to 29 hours on a full charge which is very impressive. A five minute charging hereis going to give you about an hour of listening andthere is wireless charging supported so you can dropthis on a wireless charger . And for pricing, these dostarts at £180 in the UK or around $170 in the US. And guys, that's the SamsungGalaxy notes 20 Ultra as well as the Samsung Galaxy buds live. Hope you guys enjoyed thisunboxing, if you did then do hit that thumbs up button for me. As mentioned,