why do i still daily drive a two generation old note 9 well thing is when
i switched to the note 10 for a few weeks for my review my complaints were
as follows it lost features over the previous gen
like the headphone jack and iris scanner pinhole cameras are obnoxious the side
bezels were too small and because of that last one there wasn't enough space
at the top of it making the note 10 work better as a vibrator than it did as a
speaker when you turned up the music so i jumped ship immediately back to my
note 9 after handing the 10 off to our camera guys for b-roll fortunately
though the time has come again i have samsung's next iteration of their
flagship of flagships the note 20 ultra
let's see if it's going to end up in my pocket or
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before we get into my experience we need to talk about positioning because this
phone is in a bit of a confusing spot and it's funny because
samsung's lineup hasn't always been this messy even just a few short years ago it
was a lot simpler if we ignore the
mid-range mess the s-series was the daily driver with
top-tier specs in a reasonably sized chassis at a high but not exorbitant
price then for those who wanted the biggest and best of what samsung had to
offer there was the note sure it cost a pretty penny but as you'd expect it was
a mostly zero compromises experience
until the note 10 started shedding features compared to the previous gen
and launched alongside a confusing smaller note 10 with a lower pixel
density display and no expandable storage so no longer was the plus model
simply a larger version of the same phone there was this weird feature
disparity sure enough when the s20 launched it got even more confusing
there was the s20 the s20 plus
oh that's the ultra whatever the point is there are three different phones so
the ultra ended up with a completely different camera array different RAM and
storage options and a mammoth price tag
at the very least at least the s20 ultra looked like the other devices in its
family which is more than i can say today this is the note 20 ultra
and this is the note 20
really very not ultra not only does this look like a completely different device
but it's actually plastic instead of glass has a 60 hertz screen compared to
120 hertz on the ultra not to mention that all the s20s also have 120hz
displays it's got less memory than all the s20s and the ultra no expandable
storage no ultra wide band connectivity more on that later and it's got a
thousand dollar price tag so here's my quick review of the note 29 ultra buy an
s20 or s20 plus unless you need a pen in which case you should just save yourself
a bunch of that hard-earned bunny and buy a used note 10 or note 10 plus
or pony up for the note 20 ultra honestly
it kind of feels like the note 20's only reason to exist is to make samsung's
other phones look better by comparison like this one because on paper the note
20 ultra is looking pretty fine improving on the note 10 lineup in
practically every way while managing to actually cost less than the s20 ultra
now as before i am not a huge fan of the
hole punch display see look at it but to samsung's credit the hole is way
smaller to the point where it's in line with the notification shade icons and
all right i'll allow it don't get me wrong i still can't wait for these to be
replaced with under screen cameras but if the punch is this small it's
probably worth the slight aesthetic hit over the durability concerns of a
motorized camera at least for clumsy people now the actual screen itself
though is visually stunning the bezels are still tiny but samsung seems to have
tweaked their edge rejection enough that accidentally opening the notification
shade during a movie or accidentally bumping letters when you're reaching
across the keyboard is practically a non-issue i also noticed what appears to
be a proper earpiece speaker grille up top unlike the note 10 meaning that it
doesn't vibrate when you turn up your movie like a cheap toy but man
back to the screen if you guys thought samsung's industry-leading displays
couldn't get any better you obviously haven't been paying attention because
they just keep doing it not only is the note 20 ultra around 20 brighter than
last gen but samsung continues to set the standard for color accuracy and
outdoor readability believe me if there's one thing this phone is amazing
at it is content consumption it will probably be the best looking display in
your household and it'll probably look closer to brand
new for longer than you'd expect corning's brand new gorilla glass victus
is on both the front and the back of this device with corning claiming that
for the first time they've made significant improvements to both
drop and scratch resistance within a single generation this new version can
apparently withstand a drop of six and a half feet compared to five and a quarter
for their previous gen and they've also improved drop endurance with victus
typically surviving 21 meter high drops
while gorilla glass 6 could only handle about 15. as for in the real world well
i did drop it a few times without a case and it didn't break so um
mission success now you might remember that i bashed samsung when the note 10
launched for sticking to 60 hertz when competitors were shipping with 90 and
even 120 hertz displays this time around though the note 20 ultra features a full
fat qhd plus 6.9 inch amoled display
with the option for crispy 120 hertz smoothness really does look
great but like the s20 series it's limited to full hd resolution when it's
running in 120 hertz mode something that samsung still has not offered an
explanation for although like i said last time i don't personally find much
of a difference in daily use at this size it's more just that it's like kind
of a tease right to not allow both the full refresh rate and the full
resolution at the same time especially given that the exynos and snapdragon
processor versions of this could technically support it and competitors
like oneplus already do on the subject
of processors inside our note 20 ultra we have the latest snapdragon 865 plus
it's lightning fast um i don't really know what else there is to say about
that phone processors have gotten to the point where honestly they were fast
enough that you're not really going to notice slowdowns
a couple of years ago but power management was also excellent
which is definitely a plus and i even survived an overnight lakes day without
a charger that's a win in my book now there are some reported issues with heat
and power draw on the exynos variant but unfortunately we weren't able to
validate that so if you live in those regions hey you'd best do some more
digging underneath the screen what has become a staple for samsung is a
characteristically samsung ultrasonic fingerprint sensor it's
not the fastest in the world but it does work well and consistently so
good job and then alternatively there is face unlock but with the current
situation in the world i imagine most people are going to be sticking with the
fingerprint sensor by the way can i actually just take a moment to say uh
iris scanner master race love you note 9
thanks anyway the rest of the device will be pretty
familiar to note 10 series owners save for the side buttons which have been
swapped to the right hand side like the s20 series something that most people
will probably find easier to reach on a device this size
the iconic node s pen is virtually identical save for the vastly lowered
latency nine milliseconds down from 45. now i mostly use my s pen for taking
quick notes or annotating screenshots
so for me that wasn't exactly a game changer but it definitely felt more
fluid while i was sending late night memos to my staff like hey why this you
know writing on things could just be a placebo effect though back to size
around back we've got sweet honey barbecue
the largest camera bump that i have ever seen
i mean do you remember when people complained about the bump on like do you
remember when people complain about the iphone 6 bump oh a camera bump this is
disgusting or the one on the pixel 4 or the s20
they got nothing on this how did samsung think this was at all reasonable like
like if you put the phone down on a table and touch pretty much anywhere on
the screen it's gonna wobble around now fortunately if you rock something
like a dbrand grip it takes up the space where the camera bump isn't
but i usually don't run a case so it's a
little awkward for me in fairness though there's at least a solid technical
reason for the massive bump under it is the periscope super zoom camera this
time with lower resolution but larger pixels and locked to 50x compared to the
maximum of 100x on the s20 ultra as
usual i tried it once said wow that's
pretty cool and then promptly never touched it again
i mean at least samsung realized that 100x was a joke because of all the
post-processing required and they limited it to assume that they can
somewhat with a straight face say is usable like i don't know maybe if you're
into wildlife photography but on your smartphone because i really don't know
what else that 50x zoom would actually be useful for that's not illegal you can
of course shoot and edit 8k video again just like the s20 series but again it's
mostly just a marketing gimmick yes there is slightly more detail in the
8k footage but when i say slightly i mean slightly
the overall image on the 4k still feels better and if you shoot a lot of video
well quite frankly you're probably going to want an iphone anyway photos off the
note 20 ultra consistently have samsung's usual cooler white balance but
hold plenty of detail their automatic HDR was not as good at balancing the
highlights in the sky to the darkness by the wheels in this shot here compared to
the pixel 4 and the amount of detail was definitely less but if you're not pixel
peeping the note 20 ultra like the rest of samsung's lineup it's eons ahead of
where they were just a few short years ago and they even cleaned up the focus
issues from the s20 ultra with the addition of a laser autofocus so kudos
to samsung for the camera here as for the rest of the changes this time around
the note 20 ultra got something brand new which is ultra wideband uwb is a
short-range wireless communication protocol a lot like bluetooth or wi-fi
but what makes it special is that it operates at very high frequencies
allowing equipped devices to accurately track the relative position and motion
of each other now it doesn't really have a use case
yet aside from speeding up google's airdrop competitor nearby share but in
the future we could see devices like a smart door lock that could sense exactly
where you are in relation to the door allowing it to proximity unlock only
when you're right outside it instead of unlocking you know when you're
approaching from the inside for example that that'd be
cool right and then samsung's desktop replacement dex is also now wireless on
the note 20 series so you can cast to a compatible samsung tv it works fine but
it's just not something that i've ever really had a use for so your mileage is
going to vary there so that's it then the pinhole is smaller
cool and the edge rejection issues are solved awesome it doesn't shake like my
old lambo when you turn up the volume so you should buy one
or should you well the unfortunate truth is that
regular smartphones like samsung's series have gone up so much in price and
feature set that they've actually taken over a lot of what used to make a note
a note it's 1300 us dollars for the base
version and that's a pretty penny i mean i guess if you want a phone that does
pretty well everything really well with a gorgeous big 120 hertz screen a
chungus of a battery and a massive camera bump then hey maybe the note 20
ultra is for you but the pixel still takes better photos
an iphone still takes better video and if you don't want to spend that much the
regular s20 is really only missing the pen and a fancy zoom camera that i think
most people probably don't need to spend 300 on as for me the note 20 ultra is
going back in the box right next to its older brother you know what dbrand had
enough of your bullsh what's up with these awesome textured
vinyl skins that are available for laptops phones tablets consoles
controllers and more i'm sick of it they're made from such high quality 3m
vinyl that it just it makes all your competitors look bad okay the patented
adhesive it leaves no residue on my devices what's my excuse for replacing
my phone all the time if it doesn't have an ugly gross you know residue on it
when i change out my skin to another color and the and the precision it's
uncompromising it's like a factory fit for my device
it even keeps it protected when i accidentally drop it all the time i mean
look at this i don't have my phone on me so i'm gonna pick up my prompt remote
see we all know that i do that and your customer service i mean i've never used
it because i'm an influencer so i just talked directly to the the higher ups
but like i heard it's pretty good too so you can well it's pretty rude but but
other than that it's good so check them out at the link in the video description
dbrand they're bad people but with good stickers thanks for watching guys if you
enjoyed this video then maybe check out the actually go check out our short
circuit channel where i checked out a xiaomi phone with a 120x zoom
predictably the zoom is bad but the phone was really cool so
go watch that