Why I already sent my Note 20 Ultra back!

[oneandroidnut]

Well I am honestly shocked by this. I sort of expected the S20 Ultra not to meet my standards but not the Note 20 Ultra! Decided to stick with my Note 10+ for a bit until maybe Z Fold 2 or Note 20 Ultra drops in price or for another who knows how long.

Anyways thought I would share with you guys why I decided to stick with Note 10+ over the Note 20 Ultra.

First off the Note 20 Ultra is nowhere near a bad phone, much of an improvement over the S20 Ultra which I thought was junk. The main highlights of the device just didn't seem worth $1300+ to me.

Screen overall is literally just a hair bigger and actually a hair less vibrant and saturated then the Note 10.

Screen refresh rate still not sure why this is such a huge deal. Can you tell a difference? Yes slightly depending on what you are doing. Sort of like 4k on a tablet or small laptop really just not worth it imo

Cameras, oh yes the cameras. Glad to see the autofocus issue was fixed from the S20 Ultra and photos are great no matter what camera but the main sensor unless you are using the 108 mp for extreme detail and then you lose HDR look very similar to the Note 10. Only huge difference is the zoom lens on the Ultra and it is a big one. 5x zoom looks great and even 10x in most cases looks very good and usable. This is the only thing that made me actually want to keep the 20

Everything else is pretty much the same again as Note 10+ nothing else worth mentioning really

Few photos of the differences in whites and camera bumps and the pretty much same screens

 

[denism81]

Note 10+ physically looks a lot better to me.

 

[blackhawk]

Note 10+ physically looks a lot better to me.

Yeah I was reading reviews and wasn't pleased with what Samsung did.
The variable refresh rate is cool especially if it save battery, kudas there.
The cam has laser assist AF lock too I believe, well done.
5 G, good.
The fastest Snapdragon yet yields a real performance boost although the 10+ never seems slow.

The bad, price tag is through the roof for the 512gb model.
This Note is even harder to protect than the 10 due the cam hump. That also means it really needs a case. Reports of no factory screen protector, not good especially since you'll want to lay it face down because of the cam hump.
Doesn't hardware support AptX HD bluetooth, very disappointing.

Not enough gain to replace the Note 10+ however a good upgrade maybe for a Note 8 or older.
However the Note 10+ is still a viable option especially if you want Pie.
In 2 months my Note 10+ will be a year old and it's still looking great, running strong in fact better then it ever has. Truth be told I'm still learning to use many of its features... not bored or tired of it by a long shot.
Samsung gave nothing much new for HD audio in the 20; AptX HD should have been present... a 3.5 mm jack been nice too.

Samsung needs a top shelf flagship model to get many people to upgrade from the 10+; this isn't it.
Add to that the world economy is a mess.
Samsung should have tried harder and catered more to the performance crowd to set this new Note further apart from the 10+.
Part of the reason for the fail is Samsung doesn't listen to its customers very well. Oh well... I'll wait.

 

[freco]

On my Note 10+ I want:
A) Better battery.
B) Better fingerprint sensor. I see new pixels keep them to the back side. Well done Google.
C) Get rid of the silly front camera hole.

As long as these don't change, there is no reason to upgrade for me. Software updates, unnecessary camera and screen changes does not attract me. Especially with that price tag.

 

[ultramag69]

Speaking for those of us who get the Exynos chipset... Samsung sucks balls...
Thery are selling INFERIOR hardware for the same price, this relegates the 120Hz refresh rate to HD+ only and NOT to UHD, not because the phone can't handle it but because the Exynos chipset can't. They can't give part of the world this and leave everyone else out in the rain as that would highlight the inadequacies of the Exynos.
Exynos throttles, is a bigger drain on battery, it alters the picture quality of photo's taken and Samsung have the balls to charge us the same as the Snapdragon 865+ chipset...
For this the can shove the Note 20 Ultra, big camera bump and all, where the sun don't shine...

 

[null0seven]

The price is just pure GREED! Useless money spent on creap publicity!
Any "high end" phone with Exynos cpu is ****.
However 120hz screen is fine. For me. Don't care much for qhd+/8k bullshit. On a phone screen ?!?
I like Note 10+ 5g for the square screen (very rare these days) and the design. Only minus for me is that the display could be at least 90hz.
A good thing on 10+ and 20 ultra is sd card slot.
I will never buy 20 ultra even if the price will be 500 euros with exynos cpu!

 

[blackhawk]

Note 10+ physically looks a lot better to me.

Maybe enough returns will get Samsung's attention to listen to what their customers what... and don't want.

The large storage is great but not without easy 24 bit audio output. The 3.5 mm jack, there's room for it and spend the extra few cents for the bt chipset that supports AptX-HD.
Sad because this fix was easy and cheap to do.
This very expensive phone should have the best and latest chipsets in it, it doesn't. A locked bootloader doesn't give me any thrills either, Samsung Pay and Knox grrrr.
Fail, again.

As for the cams, at this price point buying a dedicated Canon for shooting makes more sense; much better interchangable optics and dedicated AF/image processors.
I use my 10+ more like a laptop than a cam...
That cam hump sucks and I see it as a major liability from a damage stand point. The Note 10+ is hard enough to protect, the 20 U is far worse.

Then there's wittle Bixby... other than it's cam smart functions it's completely worthless to me and a huge privacy invasive.
Wearables have the same privacy issues and need all the permissions under the sun to even load, really?
Samsung is very hard of hearing.
Kudos for jamming their Note 20 U were it belongs...

 

[Bwyan Benton]

The only thing I wish Samsung would do for their camera is when you turn off hdr it actually turns off. So ridiculous. Hdr is always on no matter what you do. Besides switching to pro mode.

 

[Raydianze]

I'm sticking with my Note 10+. Am very pleased with it and I've only suffered 2% battery degradation in the first year of use. Using it daily 4 to 12 hours screen on time.
I love how thin the device is and the camera bump on the Note 20 Ultra is not acceptable to me.

 

[xSil3nt]

Agreed, the Note 20 Ultra is a bit too overpriced, $1300 for almost no improvement over the previous year's device? No thanks.

 

[TonyGzl92]

I'm sticking with my Note 10+. Am very pleased with it and I've only suffered 2% battery degradation in the first year of use. Using it daily 4 to 12 hours screen on time.
I love how thin the device is and the camera bump on the Note 20 Ultra is not acceptable to me.

How is it possible to measure that? Battery degradation, I've been curious lately about that

 

[Raydianze]

How is it possible to measure that? Battery degradation, I've been curious lately about that

Using AccuBattery. Installed it first thing when I bought my Note 10+

 

[blackhawk]

Using AccuBattery. Installed it first thing when I bought my Note 10+

When you first set it up, the battery estimate it gives is from the Android system's battery degradation estimates. I have another app that can see it as well.

It's overlay ma meter is useful.

 

[Limeybastard]

Using AccuBattery. Installed it first thing when I bought my Note 10+

Seriously bro?
Accubattery isn't accurate at telling you the battery health on current devices. Its a known common fact on here.

 

[blackhawk]

Seriously bro?
Accubattery isn't accurate at telling you the battery health on current devices. Its a known common fact on here.

I consider it more a battery charging tool.
It's useful as a charge alarm, for it's milliamp overlay usage and battery temp info.
It's charge history is useful unfortunately it's highest resolution is in minutes.
I divide the total about of milliamps absorbed during the charge cycle by the time it took to gauge battery health. I consider anything above 85 [email protected] good in the 30-70% range.
As the battery degrades I expect this value will decrease.
Lol, the phone's battery life estimate isn't any better.

The app is glitchy, it stops recording charge history.. A reload every now and then solves that. This would make it's long term wear estimates inaccurate even if it's wear curve is accurate.
Short term though it's wear graph gives a good comparative indication of how much you're degrading the battery.
Graphically illustrates why you don't want to charge above 80% or go below 30% very often.

 

[Limeybastard]

I consider it more a battery charging tool.
It's useful as a charge alarm, for it's milliamp overlay usage and battery temp info.
It's charge history is useful unfortunately it's highest resolution is in minutes.
I divide the total about of milliamps absorbed during the charge cycle by the time it took to gauge battery health. I consider anything above 85 [email protected] good in the 30-70% range.
As the battery degrades I expect this value will decrease.
Lol, the phone's battery life estimate isn't any better.

The app is glitchy, it stops recording charge history.. A reload every now and then solves that. This would make it's long term wear estimates inaccurate even if it's wear curve is accurate.
Short term though it's wear graph gives a good comparative indication of how much you're degrading the battery.
Graphically illustrates why you don't want to charge above 80% or go below 30% very often.

Indeed. As bad as some of it's functionality is, I still use it and have done so since my Note 4 days. This and GSAM are normally the first two apps that get installed on any new Android device that I use.

 

[blackhawk]

Indeed. As bad as some of it's functionality is, I still use it and have done so since my Note 4 days. This and GSAM are normally the first two apps that get installed on any new Android device that I use.

Going to start unplugging the charger right after a battery percentage point flips to try to get better than a 60 second resolution for the charge history.

Lol, the first app I install is the package disabler.
Going to try Gsam, Thanks.... see how well it's battery tracker does.

 

[Limeybastard]

Going to start unplugging the charger right after a battery percentage point flips to try to get better than a 60 second resolution for the charge history.

Lol, the first app I install is the package disabler.
Going to try Gsam, Thanks.... see how well it's battery tracker does.

Just make sure to remove it off battery optimization. Similar to accubattery pro.

 

[blackhawk]

Just make sure to remove it off battery optimization. Similar to accubattery pro.

The only things I have toggle in Device Care are Optimize for power setting and fast charging.
Then I disable Device Care.
Using the old factory load Pie version which has 360° on it. I use it's cache cleaner as it cleans well but I put in airplane mode first.
All buckets show as active in standby apps; no power management is active other than the embedded Android ones. Runs great