Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra review: There is one Problem
A TEST REPORT from Kenneth Fritsch 
on February 20, 2021, 11:01 am | 🔥 popular | 1 comment
This is the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra. And it can be summed up pretty well in one sentence: wasted potential. What I mean by that and whether it is still worthwhile with the Galaxy S21 Ultra as a competitor, you can find out in this article.
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Design
When I held the Galaxy Note20 Ultra in my hand for the first time, I was shocked. This smartphone is huge in all dimensions. I would rate it as one of the highest quality and finest smartphones on the market. The frame on the sides is wafer-thin, as is the auricle, which is still part of really good stereo speakers. I really like the matte, bronze color and the coating makes it quite resistant to fingerprints. The device looks stately and noble throughout and the color underlines the enormous size of the camera module. The device is also waterproof, which of course is always practical.
Picture: TechnikNews
Display
The highlight, of course, is the 6,9-inch display: 120 Hertz, QHD+ resolution, wonderfully narrow edges and a subtle rounding on the sides. In addition, the 120 Hertz are adaptive. That means that now that you're reading this article, the display is only updating XNUMX times a second, saving a lot of battery. The only catch is that this only works if the resolution is reduced to FullHD+. In addition, this display is living proof that OLED enables perfect viewing angles. The edges only change color a bit on extremely bright backgrounds, so this is not an everyday occurrenceproproblem The in-display fingerprint sensor was also amazingly reliable in my test! You keep hearing from some people that it is Probleme with him. But I never had any trouble with it. It's just not the fastest.
Picture: TechnikNews
The Proproblem with that Proprocessor
You've heard a lot of bad things about the Samsung Exynos 990, so I wanted to test it out very carefully. Unfortunately, what I found out is even worse than I thought - but let's start from the beginning. There are 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of super fast UFS 3.1 memory installed, which ensures a really good performance in everyday life. So far so good, but what is wrong with the Exynos 990?
Processor under the magnifying glass
To accurately test the performance and heat development, I first opened the Antutu benchmark. This is the benchmark for smartphone performance. Before I started the benchmark, the temperature of the Prozessors, however, already at 46 degrees Celsius, which reveals a lot about the chip. After all, he didn't even have to work until now. For the endurance of ProTo test the processor, I ran the Antutu benchmark three times. After that, the 3D-Mark stress test ran twice in a row and then I switched back to the Antutu app to look at the results.
Picture: TechnikNews
The Proprocessor of the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra had a temperature of 70 degrees Celsius after this load! This is alarming! But do you notice that as a normal user? Unfortunately yes. When I picked it up again after a few hours, I watched YouTube for another hour. And frighteningly, it was Proprocessor temperature back to 50 degrees Celsius. I tested the device against a Galaxy Note20 Ultra with a SnapdragonProzessor from Trading Shenzhen and I was shocked by the results. 505.000 vs. 582.000 points. In numbers: that's over 10 Procent lead and 15 degrees temperature difference. And the difference has unfortunately become even greater compared to the S20 Ultra! What does that mean for everyday life? Mainly a higher heat development. This represents a higher energy consumption because the energy used is lost in the development of heat. And unfortunately this is also reflected in the battery.
Battery
To start with the worst: Unfortunately, the battery doesn't get me through the day. At best, five and a half hours of display time are possible. But I rarely manage that either, especially since the standby consumption is relatively high. I don't use my smartphone for five and a half hours every day, and yet I haven't come over a whole day once. There is wireless charging, but it's pretty slow and charging with the 25-watt power adapter also feels pretty slow. And unfortunately that is the biggest criticism of the Note20 Ultra: the battery.
Camera
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- 12 MP ultra wide angle camera (Image: TechnikNews)
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- 108 MP main camera (Image: TechnikNews)
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- 12 MP 5x telephoto camera (Image: TechnikNews)
The camera shows that the device is actually at the top! The 108 MP main sensor is very large and light-sensitive, there is a 120-degree ultra wide-angle camera and the 20x optical zoom is wonderful for special perspectives. I think you can see that the Note20 Ultra takes good pictures. It improved all the flaws we still had with the S20 Ultra. At least almost. Laser autofocus helps with focusing, the Galaxy SXNUMX Ultra's XNUMXx optical zoom is now XNUMXx on the Note, and switching between lenses is now faster. However, due to the large sensor, there is quite a bit of distortion and ghosting towards the edges in macro shots. And focusproUnfortunately, there are still problems in rare cases. I wanted to shoot the LG Velvet 5G here and the autofocus just didn't manage to distinguish the background from the desired subject.
Picture: TechnikNews
Videos are available in a maximum of 4K with 60 frames pro second, in 4K with 30 frames pro Second also with ultra wide-angle and telephoto lens. And for people filming with a tripod, there's 8K mode. However, it is not stabilized and is therefore more of a gimmick. I would recommend everyone to get 4K30 as it gives the best results, especially with the ability to shoot at all three focal lengths. The front camera also has an autofocus, which means that you get one of the sharpest selfies and videos in 10K4 despite only 60 megapixels.
Software
The software here is OneUI 3.0 with Android 11 as the basis, and contrary to many others, I find the many soft focus in the UI even suitable. The security patch is from January, which is fine, and the system runs very reliably in everyday life, as expected.
Picture: TechnikNews
Other
A few more things that struck me: In landscape mode there are sometimes uneven black borders, which is due to the software, and the lower speaker is slightly covered in portrait mode, which makes the speakers sound heavily overdriven. In addition, the S-Pen has actually come into use quite often in my everyday life, because it is simply more relaxed to answer e-mails with handwriting. I also noticed that the vibration motor is very good, it feels really high quality.
Conclusion
That's all there is to say about the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra. The Snapdragon variant is definitely a better deal, but it also costs 70 euros more and can only be imported from China. If you do that, Bixby and a small part of other system apps are set to Chinese, which you should be able to cope with, especially since the device itself can of course be used in German. Because with the device available in this country you have a great smartphone, but the battery is simply too weak for the target group. To answer my original question: I might prefer the S21 Ultra, or the Note20 Ultra with Snapdragon. Because there it is Proprocessor no Proproblem, which is basically the only criticism of the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra.
Many thanks to Samsung Germany for providing the test device!
Picture: TechnikNews
If you are bilingual it is a diseaster because it doesnt change languages on the basis of sound….You have to physically change the language which is horrendous if your message includes words in both languages.