The Notes first split into two last year
and the gap has grown significantly this generation. Perhaps this is why
Samsung went with Ultra for the premium offering, rather than sticking with
Plus. The Galaxy Note20 comes with a larger screen than its predecessor – 6.7”,
up from 6.3” – making it only slightly smaller than the Ultra. However, it is a
flat panel rather than a curved one.
This is a 1080p+ panel with the old
Gorilla Glass 5 (even the Note10 used GG6). Those aren't the only downgrades
compared to the Ultra either. The one that hurts the most is the refresh rate,
a standard 60 Hz. This is also bad news for the S Pen as it misses out on the
low latency upgrade.
The battery is also significantly bigger
than before. At 4,300 mAh it trails the Ultra model only by a little (and it
has a less power-hungry screen to feed). The vanilla Note10 had a 3,500 mAh
battery. Anyway, the new battery will charge from 0% to 50% in half an hour
using the included 25W charger.
The rear camera is lifted from the
S20/S20+. The main 12MP sensor has large 1.8µm pixels, which features Dual
Pixel autofocus and OIS. A 64MP sensor (1.0 µm) is used both as a telephoto
camera (3x lossless zoom, 30x Space Zoom) and as an 8K video cam. Finally,
there’s the familiar 12MP ultra wide-angle cam.
The chipset situation is the same – the
original Exynos 990 in Europe and India, the upgraded Snapdragon 865+
elsewhere. However, RAM capacity is 8GB and the only storage option is 256GB
built in and no microSD slot. The 5G model will also be available with 128GB
storage. The Samsung Galaxy Note20 4G will start at € 950/£ 850, same as the
vanilla Note10 last year. The 5G model starts at US$ 1,000/€ 1,023/£ 950.
The vanilla model comes in three colors –
the same Mystic Bronze, but an interesting Mystic Green as well. Also black
gave way to the slightly lighter Mystic Gray.
