Samsung has officially unveiled a slew of products today and top of which is it’s 2020 Galaxy Note lineup. This year we have the regular Galaxy Note 20 and the high-end Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Both feature the main thing that differentiates the Note line — an included S Pen stylus — but the new Notes are more different from each other than you might expect.
The regular Galaxy Note 20 lacks the paramount features like a high refresh rate screen, microSD storage expansion, and periscope zoom lens, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t expensive. The cheapest will cost $999.99 for a model with 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM.
The Note 20 Ultra, meanwhile, has everything Samsung knows how to throw at a phone (short of a folding screen) and the price to match those specs: $1,299.99 for the 128GB storage / 12GB RAM model and $1,449.99 to bump that storage up to 512GB.
Both Note 20 series share some key specs. The one you’re most likely to be told about (because it’s what carriers are pushing) is their support for both types of 5G networks. Samsung has improved latency on the S Pen and added a few more ways you can wave it about to control your phone remotely. They support fast charging, wireless charging, and reverse wireless charging. And Samsung is also using the brand new version of Gorilla Glass that’s supposedly more resistant to scratches.
The Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra have stereo speakers with some Dolby technology, IP68 water resistance, and ship with Android 10. Both can record video at 8K (which seems like overkill for a phone) and support external microphone options. Dex now works wirelessly (via Miracast) and both phones have some important new Microsoft software tie-ins.
Both still feature Bixby, at best the fourth-place digital assistant behind Google, Alexa, and even Siri.
The Note 20s also have a new kind of finish, which Samsung calls “Mystic.” It amounts to a textured finish on the glass that should hopefully do a better job of repelling — or at least hiding — fingerprints. The Note 20 Ultra will come in bronze, black, and white. Note 20 will come in bronze, gray, and green.
The Note 20 Ultra Specs
On a spec level, Samsung does get to claim to be at the very top of the Android heap —with the Note 20 Ultra. It has a massive 6.9-inch 1440p OLED display capable of refreshing at 120Hz. It has three cameras on the back, one of which is 108 megapixels, while another includes a periscope. It has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus processor and 12GB of RAM, plus the ability to expand its base storage with an SD card. The battery is 4,500mAh and it supports both flavors of 5G.
So flagship specs for the Android world are a check — though it should be said that Apple’s A13 Bionic processor from last year is still faster than anything Qualcomm is putting out.
Note 20 Ultra is to try once again to turn its Samsung-made 108-megapixel camera sensor into a category-beating camera. Samsung’s Space Zoom is now capped at 50x — still enough to be impressive, but hopefully not so much that all you’re getting is a pile of pixels.
Samsung also tossed in an Ultra Wideband (UWB) radio to make it easier for phones to transfer files by pointing them at each other and — eventually — to support unlocking cars.
The Note 20 Specs
Sadly, the Note 20 lacks a few specs that you get on a Note 20 Ultra. Its display has the usual 60Hz refresh rate you see on any phone. You also can’t expand its storage with microSD cards, and there’s only a 128GB model available.
The Note 20’s camera system is essentially equivalent to the S20’s, at least. It has a main 12-megapixel camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide, and then 64 megapixels for the telephoto and its non-periscope-enabled version of Space Zoom — which goes up to 30x.
