Note 20 Ultra: The Best of Mobile Productivity?

So, Samsung’s Note 20 Ultra caught my attention. It’s a month old phone, and one that people might ignore, but I thought that it was worth talking about. It’s a nice phone, but the price seems to have driven people away. It was advertised as a phone made for enterprise, top-of-the-line users that can spend a ton of money on their phones. Today, we’ll see whether it’s worth the money that it takes to own it.

The first thing is the price. This phone has a high price, starting at Rs. 1,04,999 in India and $1,099 in the US. You might think that the price is too high, but you should remember the fact that this is a phone meant for enterprise users, so they can probably afford to spend this much on a phone. 

The next thing is the CPU. This phone has Samsung’s own Exynos 990 chipset everywhere except the US, where you get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+. The global CPU, Exynos 990 is Samsung’s CPU, so we can’t compare it, but it’s a very powerful chip, and it is great for productivity. The US chip, Snapdragon 865+ is also powerful, but I don’t know why Samsung chose to change the specs for the American version of the device. 

Then there’s the memory. This phone has different variants based on the storage and the variants you get are different according to your country, but in total there are three variants: 128GB 12GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM, and 512GB 12GB RAM. In India, you can get the 256GB variant, and in the US, you can get the other two. I think that the storage options on this phone are great, and the 12GB RAM will give you great performance, whether you want to play games or do work. I personally like the 256GB variant, because I think that is enough storage for all purposes, for storing games, important work files or a large number of notes. 

Then there’s the one thing that you just can’t ignore when talking about a Samsung Note: the S Pen, the signature of the Note series. It gives an extremely satisfying stylus experience, one that some people call “the best stylus experience you can get on a mobile phone.” The S Pen is great, and it works wonderfully, but this time, Samsung has added a small feature: scribble. I mean the scribbling sound that you get when you write on paper. Whenever you use this pen, you get that sound, but if you think it’s annoying, you can always turn it off in the settings.

Next, we come to the camera, and we need to take a look at the camera bump on this phone, by which I mean the metal square on the back of it that houses the cameras. That thing is HUGE. It’s gigantic, and just because of the amount this phone wobbles when put on a desk, I think it should be called Note 20 Wobble. But all jokes aside, the camera on this phone is pretty nice. There are three rear cameras, the main one being 108MP, with 8K@24fps, 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps, and 720p@960fps video. There are two other 12MP cameras, one 50X zoom camera, and one ultrawide camera. The selfie camera is a tiny 10MP punch-hole in the display, with 4K@30/60fps and 1080p@30fps video. The camera on this phone is great and will succeed in capturing anything anyone needs it to.

Then there’s the display and audio: a 6.9 inch Dynamic AMOLED. It’s a curved screen going all the to the edges, and sometimes you can accidentally touch the part of the screen on the edge, but that won’t happen after you get used to it. It has a stereo speaker on the underside of the phone, and though sometimes you can cover it with your hand if you hold it in certain positions, it’s a nice speaker. The phone does not have a headphone jack, but that’s becoming common among flagship phones as everybody is now starting to move to Bluetooth audio devices.

The battery is 4500 mAh, and that is acceptable but it would have been better if it were 6000mAh considering Samsung’s budget segment devices - the M series - already do that. Still, it’s a good battery, and although it could have been better, the software optimisation makes up for it.

In conclusion, I won’t say whether you should buy it or not (because of the price), but I will say that I recommend it. It’s an all-around nice phone, and I think enterprise users would like the performance in this phone, and might even like to make it their new main phone. Samsung has made a nice phone, and if they keep going like this with the Note product line, its previous glory will be restored.