1 year with the Galaxy Note 20: How does it hold up?
Phones
Speaker 1: Samsung released the galaxy note 20 ultra in 2020, and one year on, I have a whole new appreciation for this phone. Not only is it still a great piece of hardware that holds its own today, but it's also kind of symbolic. It could be the last of its kind that we ever see.
Speaker 1: We know there won't be a new galaxy note phone released in 2021. Now the Z fold three and the S series [00:00:30] of phones have Spen support. So does that leave any room for the poor old note? Well, I certainly hope so. I'm a long term user of the note series of phones and admittedly the at 10 plus was one of my top five favorite phones of all time. So when this phone was released, it definitely had a lot to live up to in my eyes. And over the past year, this phone has really won me over. So let's get into some of the reasons why, and some longterm impressions after having used it for [00:01:00] an entire year
Speaker 1: While I've been really careful with this phone, I haven't babied it and I've definitely dropped it a couple of times. The grill of glass Victor has held up pretty well. There are a couple of small scratches on the screen that I do notice under certain lighting conditions. The reason why I generally decide to put a case on the note 20 a ultra is not necessarily to protect from things like drops and scratches, even though that is an added benefit, it's really to provide a better balanced [00:01:30] one-handed feel to the phone because that camera module is still a little bit, top heavy. So a case really does help to balance it out. The case also does help me with some of those accidental touches that I was initially experienced. Thanks to the curved screen, which looks beautiful. It just does mean that there is a little bit more muscle memory required to not accidentally load apps or type something incorrectly on the keyboard.
Speaker 1: The screen still looks fantastic and I am incredibly pleased that it still holds its own even against newer Samsung [00:02:00] phones say like the S 21 ultra. Now the only thing that I've really encountered that has been a little bit of an issue when comparing it to newer Samsung phones has been the lack of 120 Hertz or the adaptive refresh rate on the w Q H D plus resolution. There is a way I kind of getting around it, but honestly, I don't wanna go back to 60 if I don't have to, but there are some cases where I want that extra resolution and the full potential of the screen. The way I've got around that is [00:02:30] to set up a Biby routine. So every time say I open the gallery app or even YouTube, it will switch back to that standard refresh rate. And also give me the boost to the WQ H D plus resolution. But all the other times I'm usually sticking to 120.
Speaker 1: The fingerprint reader is still not giving me 100% accuracy. I do feel like it's almost a little bit moody. Some days it really wants to unlock with my thumbprint and other days it will take me at least two or three tries. I haven't really found any of the one UI updates or software updates [00:03:00] have improved that, but it's still much better than not having a fingerprint reader at all. And it is something that I've used all the time, especially in the past year, since we've, you know, in a pandemic, this phone is still a total beast one year on in terms of performance. Now, if you've watched any of my previous videos, you know, I don't generally like to give you things like benchmarks. I don't find that they're really representative of the real world performance of this phone. Everything that I've thrown at this still works as well as it did out of the box 4k [00:03:30] video, editing those videos, playing games, loading multitudes of apps. This thing has not slowed down and it doesn't miss a beat they're in mind, this is the snap and version. So if you do have the exon OS version, I would love to hear your impressions. If you also have this phone one year on,
Speaker 1: Let's talk the Spen, because this is obviously a huge reason why you look at the note series of phones in the first place. Now that the Z fold three and S 21 ultra, and presumably the S 22 ultra released next G [00:04:00] are going to have Spen support. It does feel like Samsung is getting us used to having the Spen independent of the phone. And I am not here for that. I love having the Spen integrated into the phone. I don't wanna have to think about storing it independently in the case and potentially losing it. It just makes so much sense having it in the body. And I don't have to think about it.
Speaker 1: [00:04:30] Now. The camera has actually genuinely surprised me. I have taken some of my favorite lab landscape shots on this phone. And one year on, I am still impressed with the results that it gives me. Yes, I think on default setting, some of those saturation and sharpness levels are a little bit too pumped up for my liking, but I can of course go into manual modes and shoot in raw. If I want to, to be able to tweak things to my liking. [00:05:00] Now I have, I used that 50 time zoom since the initial camera testing that I did. No, I'm gonna be honest with you. I really didn't. I find that 10 time zoom is the sweet spot and it's the one that I always gravitate to. It's the perfect mix of getting in close enough and also retaining as much detail as possible. I kind of feel the same way about the 108 megapixel mode on the note 20 ultra I've used it a few times at the beginning, but more often than not now, I actually do stick to the 12 megapixel mode because the pixel beating does produce [00:05:30] some fantastic images.
Speaker 1: I shoot a lot of video on this phone, as I mentioned, primarily 4k at 30 and 60 frames, a second and provi mode is one of those things that I didn't realize how much I it, until I got it. I use that all the time on this phone. I know newer Samsung phones also have pro video mode now, but the ability to be able to record say from Bluetooth microphones and have that audio on your track, as well as the new update that brings me multi mic connectivity. So recording from a Bluetooth headset, [00:06:00] say for example, and the phone mic itself is so good now for some underrated features that I've really come to love over the past year. The first is split screen mode. Now I kind of feel like this gives me more of the foldable experience without necessarily needing to upgrade my phone or have the form factor of a folding phone.
Speaker 1: And the actual physical size of the screen means that things like when I'm watching a video, the whole punch camera doesn't [00:06:30] get in the way, even if the video is got a really wide aspect ratio. And that's what makes watching movies on this device really pleasant. The battery generally gets me around one and a half days of usage before I need to charge. Again, that's fairly moderate usage, maybe five to almost six hours of screen on time a day. Now it's not the best overall battery life, but I think for my usage patterns, I've definitely learned to work around it, but I would love a little bit more who wouldn't and finally phone call quality, which is [00:07:00] something that I don't think a lot of people talk about. Even though this is a phone has actually been really good. I have had people really compliment the mic quality on this.
Speaker 1: When I have been using it just to take a regular phone call saying that I sounded really clear and my voice sounded clean. And to me, the caller sounded really good as well. I used it across a couple of different carriers in San Francisco and all the results were really consistent. One other reason this phone has really won me over is that it's the last Samsung phone along with the Z default two and the galaxy S 20 fan edition [00:07:30] to have MST, which is magnetic, secure transmission. It is a feature of Samsung pay that lets you use your phone to pay it any terminal, even if they don't naturally support NFC or contactless payments, no newer Samsung phone from 2021 onwards in the us will have MST. So that's another reason to really like this phone and really hold onto it as long as possible. The other reason is micro SD, expandable storage. If you can take a lot of photos [00:08:00] and videos like me, you know how important that is and the fact that newer phones are not getting that, I'm definitely hanging onto this as long as possible.
Speaker 1: As I said at the start of the video, I've got a newfound appreciation for this phone. Not only because we are gonna potentially be waiting yet another year for another note, but it also has a lot of features that sounds like has started to phase out on its phones and it still performs as good as it did on [00:08:30] day one in 2020 as always. I would love to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below, maybe you've had the note 20 ultra, as long as me potentially. You're looking at upgrading to the note or you're just thinking that uhoh Samsung song might not have a new note and you wanna sound off about that. Hit me up in the comments below. Thank you for watching. My name is Lexis. If you have any questions for me, you can hit me up. As I said, in the comments, Instagram, Twitter, or the usual places, and make sure to stay tuned here on, seen it for lots more phone content. See ya.
