5 Attachment(s)
Galaxy Note 20 Ultra first impressions: practical luxury
Let's admit it: smartphone these days, even the affordable ones, are usually fast enough and you can get a quite decent camera without spending more than a thousand dollars. If, however, you want more than just good enough, if you want your phone crafted with meticulous precision and with a design refined and shiny as a jewel, that's when you start looking at premium phones. That's the feeling I got after using the new Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra for about an hour in a socially distanced briefing Samsung held shortly after the Unpacked event. It felt luxurious, exquisite.
The new Note features a boxy, rectangular body that makes it instantly recognizable and different than Samsung's S series of phones. Its new design cuts down on the bezels further so it really feels like you are holding just one giant screen, with no interruption. The screen is 6.9 inches in size and it's vast. The previous Note had a 6.8-inch screen, and Samsung has managed to somehow cram in a slightly bigger display, even though the Note 20 Ultra is just a hair taller, but otherwise identical to last year's Note.
But the big difference is in the camera: when you hold last year's Note against the new one, the contrast is striking. The new one protrudes from the back in a way that is bold and noticeable, it alone makes a statement.
There are a few other tiny changes: the buttons are now on the right hand side where they belong and the S Pen is on the left. A few other things haven't changed: the screen is still slightly curved (something that is less noticeable on such a giant display by the way), and there is still no headphone jack.
You have three colors to choose from, all of them neutral and far less striking than the explosion of colors that we had on the Note 10 Plus. The signature one is called Mystic Bronze, and then you have a white model, and then the one you see in the photos here is the Mystic Black one, which in reality looks more like space gray on iPhones. This particular finish was still glossy and got stained with fingerprint smudges, even though it was not quite as noticeable as on the S20 Ultra which is an absolute fingerprint magnet. Another cool thing the Note has is a glass body that is tougher than on any other phone. The technology goes by the name Gorilla Glass Victus and ups the scratch and drop resistance (theoretically, the Note should be able to survive a head-high drop, just don't try this on purpose).
The number one reason people buy a Note is the S Pen, and if that's your reason, you'd be happy to know that the S Pen upgrade here is the biggest ever in history of the series. Samsung has reduced latency on it down to just 9ms, an improvement of over 4x times. What this means is that there is no visible delay between the moment when the S Pen touches the screen and the actual drawing appears. It feels almost exactly like using pen on paper, and it's surreal. Samsung has also improved its Notes app with cloud sync, and it will convert and straighten even ugly handwriting in digital text. There are also 5 new "Air Gestures" that you can use to remotely control your phone. I tried them out and they did not always work from the first try, plus they feel like a gimmick that I am not very likely to use much in the future.
