Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra unboxing and first impressions By Neowin

Hi everyone- this is Rohit Edwin, and today we're taking a look at the Samsung Galaxy note, 20, ultra 5g and the galaxy birds live. This won't be a little note at the end, so I'll just set it off to the side. For now, let's focus on the start of the show. Here I think everyone is familiar with the Galaxy Note 20 series. By now it's basically Samsung's ultimate phone there's. The idea, I think, is that if you can think of something a smartphone should do or that you would want a smartphone to do, then this probably does it.

It's got the flagship specs, the camera, the display and, of course the highlight of the note series is the s-pen: that's what really sets it apart from something like the s series, and so this is the cream of the cup crop. For this year the note 20 itself was actually kind of a mixed bag, but this as everything you would expect from the note series. This is a European configuration, so you got the Enos 990 chipsets inside you've got 12 gigabytes of ram and 256 gigabytes of storage for the mystic pond. Scour which is different from what you get in the United States version, because that one starts with 128 gigabytes for the mystic pond, and then it jumps directly to 512 if you get the black version, so we have this tier with 256 gigabytes instead and in Portugal. I believe this costs uh 13.49 uh, something like that. So it's actually a reasonable price.

It's not what I would have expected, because Portuguese prices usually suck, but it's actually reasonable. So, let's just open this up, uh the manuals get stuck in the top part of the box for some reason. But whatever this little cardboard thing, the phone is right there. I have to say this thing feels massive. I don't know if it feels so big um.

Let's just take a look at the rest of the box, um charger, 25 watts, Samsung comes with superfast charging, and I mean it's good.25 watts is pretty solid, but it's hard to be impressed by that when you've seen phones with like 65 watts, so nothing mind-blowing, but definitely fast enough. Here we have the charger uh. It is type c of the charging cable. I mean it is type c to type c, which is very interesting, and here we have earbuds by AKJ, which is owned by Samsung, so not really a big difference there and if I can take them out, which is a big. If their you go, you don't see that obviously they're wired, but they're braided, which is very interesting um, definitely makes it a bit more premium and like take care of it more, so that's cool so setting all that to the side.

Let's just focus on the phone itself, and this is the mystic buns collar. Like I said it looks beautiful. I have to say it's: it's really nice, it's very elegant, very classy. It's a really nice balance of like being subdued without being boring. I would say and feel it just feels nice and touching it.

It's super smooth like this is a super smooth finish. It makes me think of satin. I think I saw someone else describe it and said it as SN and that's just been on my mind since then it feels super smooth to move my finger across. It's really nice and the design as a whole um. I guess this is sort of a trademark for note phones, but it's the flat, the completely flat top and bottom here, they're, so unique.

They give the phone this very boxy look, but it's really elegant and I think I kind of like it the way it looks that way, it's very different from what I'm used to then. The sides here are thin metal rails, which I think makes it even more strange how it's so big at the top and then the here it's just the super thin frame, but it's definitely unique. I would say, even though the general design isn't that different from most phones, then we have this absolutely massive camera bump. This thing is huge. Look at that, and it's I mean if you put it down on the table it is that's something uh, but the cameras themselves are on good, are on paper they're good, so we got 180 megapixel primary camera with Samsung's pixel building technology, which combines, I believe, nine pixels into one.

So you get 12 megapixel results at the end, then a 12, megapixel, wide angle, camera and the 12 megapixel telephoto, which is actually a periscope lens. So it's got 5x optical zoom, 50x, digital zoom, and I really like those setups where you can go from a wide angle to a demo photo, and you just zoom in all the way- and you can see so much from in the form the same place and then gets so close. I think that's really a really cool effect and the telephoto lens, the being periscope really helps with that. Usually normal telephotos are like 2x out to consume. So that is very cool, but I don't know much about the quality itself.

This is actually the first Samsung flagship I use, so I don't have to test that out. Uh. Of course, the big selling point of the note phones is the s pen, but I'll turn on the phone first and try to set it up. So you can actually use the s pen once it's on. So the display here is a HD, I believe, 30 44 by 1440.

So it's taller than usual. I don't know what that makes the aspect ratio, but it's its pretty tall and high resolution. It's 120 hertz, but usually you have to choose it's either: 120 hertz at 1080p or 60hz, um 1440p. But that's fine. I guess it's its just so you don't kill the phone that quickly anyways.

Let's just change the language to English here, agree to all of this: let's just set it up. So one thing that's definitely um annoying about this is that Samsung promotes a lot of stuff when you install it, they have their own services, their own ecosystem, and they also have partnerships with Microsoft. So there's a bunch of apps that they try to recommend here at the start, um I'm not going to select most of them right now. I will actually I'm just going to not select any of them because I'm not going to be using I'm going to reset the phone anyways later, so a bunch of Samsung stuff that they try to install. You can't opt out of most of it there.

So that's not a huge deal, and then they recommend a couple more for some reason: they're separate, because these are not related to Samsung, but they're seemed to be just more recommended for your local market. So this is like Portuguese stuff that I'm no I'm also not going to install right now, so we'll just skip out of this, and then they want you to sign up to one of Samsung's to Samsung's account Samsung accounts, which I'm also not going to do right now. I find this is annoying when they promote their own ecosystem on top of android, when everything google offers, because a lot of the surfaces are duplicate, it's just adding more confusion. In my opinion, I really don't love that, but it's whatever they're, not the only ones Oppo does it to lg. I think might do it as well.

So there's a lot of manufacturers that try to promote their own ecosystem, like that not just Samsung, but I do think Samsung is probably the one that does it the most anyways once you've set it up. The display is beautiful, just looking at it, it's its a gorgeous display. It's I don't know if it's set to 1080p or not, but it's just a beautiful display. The cameras look great, the result yeah. This is full HD, because it's set to 120 hertz, I'm assuming it doesn't actually say the refresh rate here, which is interesting but yeah even at 1080p.

This is a beautiful display. Everything looks sharp, and I've said many times that I really don't mind being at 1080p. If you got good display scaling, which Samsung usually does because I mean everything here- looks: there are no elements that are too big for my liking. Everything looks fine, so the display is very nice. The cameras look amazing um, usually when I have troubles with this place, it's in low light.

So I would like to test that later, but right now it is a beautiful display. I don't think this image probably is the best thing Samsung could have chosen here. I and I think vibrant cameras would have been um more interesting. No, this is a video, no, no whatever. Oh, that's just for the lock screen interesting, but it is a very, very nice display.

I don't think the camera does a good job of taking that in, but it's this is beautiful. Uh anyways in terms of the software experience very much Samsung everything looks familiar. This is still one UI 2.5. There is no update for one UI 3.0 and android 11. This is still android 10.

, but it sounds very familiar if you've used a Samsung phone before I do remember using the galaxy a51 earlier in the year. So everything here looks very similar, just everything's super smooth because of 120 hertz and the very high quality display here. A few things that are worth noting is Samsung messages, for example, on other apps. Samsung has really been working hard on well, not hard, but they've been working with Microsoft to integrate Samsung's uh experiences with the phone app on Windows, 10 and other Microsoft services. So a lot of things are now linked and that's one of the.

I think one of the big selling points for Samsung phones now is that um, if you use Samsung notes, for example, the notes you take here, they're going to sync with OneNote and even sticky notes on Windows 10. So you can start things here, then you go to your computer, you open sticky notes or OneNote, and then you can find the same notes there or if you, if you want to you, can even just. I think this is in beta stages, but you can connect your phone to your PC, and then you can actually just run apps on your PC instead, even in individual windows, that's something that's being added now, where you can just have apps open in individual windows, and you're, not just seeing your phone screen you're, just using the phone to power, the app experience on your PC, and it's like you're running android apps on your PC, and it's really cool. So that's an advantage of that Samsung ecosystem is that they get to make these partnerships with Microsoft and have that those exclusive features that work way better than other android phones. So that's definitely an advantage there and also Samsung has its own ecosystem, with the galaxy watch, for example, which I also have here.

I'm going to do a video on that next, but, for example, you can reply the messages on your galaxy watch, but that only really works with the Samsung messages app. So if you're using android messages that wouldn't work, I don't think at least, so it's its part of that Samsung ecosystem to have those features enabled which I think is really cool. I mean it is interesting. It's it definitely makes it more justified to be in the Samsung ecosystem. If you have a bunch of devices, then you want to use Samsung's services, so you can have the full experience, but whether that's go or not, it's probably up for debate.

But yes, that is a bit of the software. Let's just pull up yes pen now and see what it's like, so there's a bunch of tutorials here about the air actions, because the pen uh, since the note 10 I believe since last year, you can actually use it, there's a bunch of wireless features. So if I press the pen button here, I don't think it's actually doing anything for some reason. Maybe it just doesn't support anything in the home screen, but, oh there you go so if you press and hold it opens the camera, for example. So there's a bunch of wireless features now with a pen, and it has a battery because of that.

That's why it's bigger and a bit thick, but it's its really cool that it that you can use it like this now, because you can use it as a remote shirt. For example, if I press the pen button, it takes a picture and this is going to like to set your phone down somewhere uh further away to take like a group photo or something you put it down. Take the pen with you just press the pen button, and you take the picture and that's and that's pretty cool, but there's more to it. So of obviously you can draw or take notes and stuff like that you can take a screenshot and just annotate it with a pen like this is the weather. I can't read that I don't.

How do you change the color on this uh? Okay, you can like annotate that that's the weather widget. You can just like whatever you, that's, not a name, but whatever you get it, so you can take annotate the screen easily, or you can just actually take notes in Samsung notes, and this is a one of the new things that they've added now is that if you, you write something with the pen, and then you can tap this button here. I don't recognize the text and convert it to actual text. So then you can take handwritten nuts in it, and they become searchable in your notes and I think that's very cool. Actually, I'm not even sure you need to convert it.

I think you might be able to write it and then search for the written text from the notes, app, and it'll just work. I believe, that's possible uh. Let me try to perform a search here, so if I search for hi that still shows up, so I miss there, we go, so it actually recognizes your handwriting, and you can search for it. Now, that's a relatively new feature. I believe that was introduced with this phone, but it might have rolled out to previous versions now, but that's one cool thing that you can do with.

Yes, man now with the Samsung notes app, and this should all sync to OneNote, and you can then see your notes there. All right- I don't- I don't know what's up, but I don't care okay. So that's one of the very cool things you can do with the s-pen and, of course the gestures are very interesting. There's a lot of interesting things in the s-pen and I really want to try it see if I actually use it, because that's, that's the thing, there's a lot of things that are going to be cool as gimmicks and I feel like the pen has a lot of potential for being- is sort of a gimmick that you end up not using a lot, but it's also got a lot of potential to be useful. So I wonder if I, in the in my review period, I'm going to find it very useful, I'm really curious to see that, but yeah.

That is a summary of what the phone offers you can see there in the corner that as soon as you pull out the pen, it actually takes the connection and because it's wireless now it actually has a battery inside, and then you put it back in the phone it charges in there and that's one thing that I have to say: I kind of admire with Samsung is that this is a regular phone. It's got everything you could want it to. It's got the flagship, specs, the cameras, the big battery, it's 4500 William hours. The display is very nice. Uh, dual speakers.

It's its a song, a very good flagship phone, but they still find the room to put the pen in there and even the technology to charge it wirelessly, so it kind of have to admire the engineering that goes into making such a solid looking phone with all of that inside that's still somewhat manageable. I mean it's huge for sure, but I don't know it's its kind of impressive when you think about it, so that that's something I have to give Samsung credit for, even though this is ridiculously expensive for 13.49. For this for a phone, it's uh, it's pretty crazy, but it's its hard not to admire what they do now for the Galaxy Buds here um. I actually don't have a lot of experience with earbuds with well premium mirrors, I should say um. I do have some Xiaomi earbuds, but these are super cheap they're, like 30 bucks, um, they're, still truly wireless, and I kind of like them and that's kind of the problem for me that I'm happy with the cheap one.

So I don't really know what to expect out of these but uh. Just looking at the case here, it's very adorably designed- and I believe this has a always says here- the battery capacity yeah, it's 500 William hours for the case itself, and I'm thinking it says 120 here for the year, but I'm assuming that's 64 each, and they promise up to eight hours of wasting time per earbud and then 21 hours more from the case. They have active noise cancellation, so there are two mics on the outside and one on the inside and there's actually also a voice pickup unit, which is what they call it. So it's supposed to help you empty earbuds recognize your voice, so you can use the voice activation, they mention Bixby. I hope it works with Google Assistant.

I doubt it though, but with just Bixby, and you might need to use touch or something to use. Google system um, but yeah noise cancellation is cool. I've never actually used it. So I hope it's cool um and then, in terms of the design. I actually really like the way they look.

It's this sort of being shaped. I mean we people refer to them as the galaxy, but it's been before they were announced, and it's adorable. I just think it looks really cool and the way it goes in your ear. It's pretty subdued like it doesn't stick out too much and with my skin color it actually doesn't stick out that much at all. I mean it's glossy, so that makes it a bit more visible, but it's its subtle enough, and that's really all I know I can expect from this because, like I said, I've never used premium wireless earbuds um.

So it's its all up in the air right now. I don't know what to expect. They also have a game mode which is supposed to reduce latency with your phone. So if you're, gaming and stuff the sounds are more in sync or even if you're watching a video or something it might make a difference, they could also share audio, there's a feature that allows you to pass in here, but to someone else and make it so that you can listen to the same music. I believe that's how that works.

Without you know the stereo effect. Basically uh they use touch controls like most premium earbuds again, that's something I don't. I also not I'm not familiar with, because the ones I have are. I have a little button on them, but that's really all I can say: there's not a lot that I know about them. Furthermore, I haven't used them yet, obviously, and I'll just be reviewing them alongside the Galaxy Note, so I'll see what I think of them, but I don't really have any expectations in particular I'll just have to see how they do um by the way they don't have uh ear tips, because they just rest in your at the at your ear at the entrance to your ear, but they this little part up here.

This is replaceable the wing tip. So you can take this out. There's another one here in this box where the charging gear was, and you can replace those, but that's really about it. I'm I'm not sure what to expect, like, I said, so I'll, be reviewing these alongside the phone here. We'll have to see how that goes, but that's all for now.

Thank you for watching. I hope you liked the video I'll see you guys next time you.

Source : Neowin