Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra Review By Best Buy Canada Product Videos

Hey teddy k here for the best buy blog and in this video review we take a look at the Samsung Galaxy note, 20 ultra. This is Samsung's latest flagship smartphone that features the vaunted s pen and some new features. It's becoming harder to distinguish the galaxy s line from the Galaxy Note line in the past, there were two things that always distinguish the note line from the s which was the larger screen and, of course, the s pen, well the screen's kind of out of it now, because the note 20 ultra is the same size screen as that of the galaxy s20 ultra. In fact, actually the displays are pretty much identical. Even so, it's not like Samsung, really reinvented anything or did anything different with this device, with a 6.9-inch display Samsung's, making it clear that there's now only one differentiating factor between the two- and that is, of course, the s pen and the s pen is really. I would say, the signature feature here.

Yes, there is the large screen, and there are some other tweaks that I'm going to get into that. I think really make this device very compelling, but the s pen is I'm going to start with the s pen, because I think it's its really the number one reason I think why you'd probably go with this phone, because, especially considering that now you have a Samsung device that is the same size more or less so the s pen, uh. You know, we've seen the last couple of years that Samsung has tried to give it something different to do so. You know, not only are we going to write on it, but we're going to use it for gestures. Furthermore, you know things like that: controlling the camera media playback by using the button uh, some of that's still great- I mean you know the fact that you can like wake up the screen uh, you know, or even I mean the gestures I think are still kind of gimmicky like you can now use gestures to go to the home screen or go back and- and I guess there are uses for that- I didn't personally find too many for them.

I really like the pen more so for controlling media playback, uh, or you know, or even snapping a photo with a camera, especially if I have it set up on a tripod, and I want you know, and I want to take a shot. I can do that, so those features are still useful, but really what stood out to me was just how much better it feels to write with it. Samsung added some AI. They used some AI here to I don't know if you can call the last mile, but certainly the last, almost millimeters uh so before there would always be a lag between whenever you wrote on the screen and when the line actually appeared on the screen, you may not have noticed it, but it was always there now this time around the line actually lines up with the tip of the pen, and it's AI kind of filling in that extra gap to make that happen, and it works, it works really. Well, actually I mean if it's the AI guessing what that last little is going to be.

It's done a perfect job of doing it, because this was by far the best time. I've had writing on the screen. I would like this more on a tablet because I like the actual real estate, but if you are used to writing on a phone like the note you're going to find that this thing is really responsive, and the writing is really, really good. There is one other element that helps, though, and that is the fact that the screen now has a 120 hertz refresh rate. Yes, the galaxy s20 ultra had the attitude, but that was in perpetuity.

So once you turn that feature on, it was always 120 hertz. The downside of doing that was that the battery life would sometimes suffer as a result. So what Samsung did in this case was to make it variable. So, in other words, it would kick in it'll kick in like when it needs to and then go back to, 60 hertz when it doesn't need to. This was actually a very smart idea because the battery life that I've seen on this phone is considerably better or more consistent, I'll say than the uh than the s20 ultra.

The s20 ultra was never amazing at battery life. It was good, but this actually stood out to me because I mean given the size of the screen and all that's going on in here. I wasn't sure what kind of battery life to expect- and you know having that feature on is great. Of course, if you do have that feature on that means that you cannot have the screen's full resolution going to. I didn't really care personally that I didn't have the full resolution.

The screen looks gorgeous regardless, and the refresh rate, I think is, is a killer feature. It's awesome. It just makes navigating the interface feel really smooth. There's none of that jerkiness and I love that it kicks in when it needs to, as opposed to just being there all the time. It's fine, if it's there all the time, but I just like the fact that it kicks in so even if you're playing a game, for example, it'll know hey, you know what I have to go to: 120, hertz and it'll.

Do that same thing with video? You know it'll do the same thing too, but you know I did mention gaming. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to try this with the Xbox ultimate game pass. I didn't get the controller uh with the phone, so unfortunately I wasn't able to test that, but this is from what Samsung is saying: a bona fide mobile gaming machine. I haven't tested it yet, so I can't be sure, but certainly the internal components make it compelling enough to feel like it could be. There's enough processing, power and ram here to do that, and we're talking about console level games.

I think Gears of War, five uh, you know forza horizon. I mean those types of games that we'll be able to play on here. Furthermore, I can't wait to try it out, but unfortunately I didn't get the chance to so for the camera. A lot of similarities also apply here from the s20 ultra as well. The array is the same.

There are some minor differences, so for one the telephoto lens here is a 12 megapixel and as opposed to the 64 that was used in the other phone now part of the reason for that is because here you're not using one like there's no 100 time spacing like that silly feature that was in that other phone. You don't have that here you have 50 times instead, which is I mean even those photos are not even passable in my opinion, but you know, I guess if you want to use it to just kind of get a closer look at something you can, but, moreover, the 108 megapixel sensor is still here and some you know. I guess some benefits of that are here too now it is an elective thing, so it is essentially it's at 12 megapixels by default, so you have to pick the 108 when you want to shoot with it, and ideally you're shooting with that in d. You know in perfect lighting, because the pixels are just so small. So if you want to shoot at night, then you can use the night mode, we'll drop it down to 12, megapixels, and you're good to go now.

The photo quality, I think, is actually better on this phone than the s20 ultra. Despite all those similarities- and I think part of the reason- why is that maybe Samsung dialed back some of that zealous processing that they sometimes apply to these? These photos yeah they're a little saturated okay. People seem to like that. But generally I found like there was just better composition there seemed to be better detail so and even with video, I found that video was okay. I shot some video in AK.

This is what you're seeing is not going to be 8k here. Uh, it's been, you know, it's been dropped down to accommodate the video, but either way the AK. Video is fine. I guess I mean that's a feature. I think that's not as useful now as it will be later on, but I will say I mean one thing that I did like, although I didn't have a huge problem with this with the s20.

Is that whole auto, focusing issue that a lot of people were bringing up with that phone? It didn't affect me as much personally when I was using that phone, but I definitely noticed that there was an easier and tighter lock on subjects on this phone. So clearly, Samsung has fixed that in this case, but there's one thing I mean if you, I don't believe that Samsung will not update the s20 ultra eventually to apply the same features that they tweaked here onto that phone. So I'm not convinced yet that this you know some of these camera improvements will be specific and only for the note 20 ultra. I do believe at some point. The s20 ultra will probably get all if, if not some of those features, especially that autofocus, there are a couple other things that I just really liked about.

Using the phone I mean it is a big phone which you would expect from any note device, but this one somehow feels somewhat bigger than the s20 ultra. I don't know how they're basically the same size a little heavier too, but that's understandable as well. The sound quality is fantastic too, so the AKG tuned speakers are great. There's Dolby Atmos support as well plug in a pair of headphones watch, something and adobe Atmos on Netflix or wherever else, and it'll. It's going to sound great.

So there's that's a really nice thing to have as well uh. I love, I got to say just aesthetically. The mystic bronze really grew on me uh as a color. It's very nice. It's elegant! Furthermore, it's classy, uh! You! You can't really like.

You can't really go wrong with this and so aesthetically speaking. The phone is quite nice. It's a little boxier if that makes sense, uh compared to the s20 ultra but uh, and even the note 20 actually uh the model that's below. This is a little rounder around the edges in the corners but either way um. My one gripe, though I just wish that Samson would finally just get rid of the curved edges just enough.

I've never been a fan of them really and, and it makes handling a phone like this more difficult uh I mean I mentioned the beauty of it. You got to get a case for this thing anyway, that camera bump is huge, and it's the one thing I was afraid of the most breaking more than the screen. I was afraid of this. The camera bump, breaking or scratching for some reason, so getting a case that at least levels that offer protects it in some way is probably a perfect idea, especially considering just how pricey this phone is, and that's my review of the Galaxy Note 20 ultra for the best buy blog, I'm teddy k, thanks for watching.

Source : Best Buy Canada Product Videos