Samsung Galaxy 20 Ultra Review – The Ultimate 2020 Travel Phone

Last year I bought the S10+ and early this year I had bought the S20 but the Note 20 Ultra is something else altogether. I had ditched S10+ because of its terrible in-display fingerprint censor and I had ditched S20 even sooner because I feared the resale value would plummet with the start of the Corona pandemic. Now to be fair, if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know I buy and sell phones. Eventually, there will be a time when I will sell this phone too but I suspect that might not happen until S21, if that at all.

So why is it this ultimate travel phone? Because it does everything that I would expect from a phone during travel. It might not be the best at everything but it does more or less everything well which is why it can appropriately be called jack of all trades and master of some.

The specs on Note 20 Ultra are good (you can google them yourself) but there are phones in other market that offer just as good if not better for better price. But those phones, like the Xiomi Mi 10 Ultra, are not meant for US market.

The stylus support in the Note series is nice. The build in stylus holder is an amazing idea. I am not exactly sure why no other phone has copied this tech. The convenience of having a stylus with you all the time is real. The stylus holder being moved to left doesn’t seem like a great idea but I suppose when they eventually put it back on right, the reviewers can rave about it and call it a “great upgrade”.

I don’t “get” all the features that come with this stylus. I felt that Samsung did not make it very easy to understand them but more importantly for whatever reason I did not feel the urge to understand them either. My lack of interest on S-pen came as a huge surprise because I love tablet stylus and use one every day for hours and hours. Hopefully my view on the stylus changes (and it just might when I am not at my desk all the time post-pandemic) but for now it is a novelty feature that I only use here and there.

However, when I do use the S-pen, I enjoyed it. I kind of liked the sound it made when writing. I doubt it is very comfortable to use for an extended period of time but then again that isn’t the point of this stylus.

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Alright, I have said more about the stylus then I really wanted to. Now let’s talk about the screen. Best screen ever yada yada yada but I can barely detect the difference in most scenario so I am not going to talk much about that. But it is nice to have such a huge screen. The screen is big enough that you can almost ignore some of the negatives that come from curves edges. I doubt this will be comfortable in my pocket for an extended period of time though. I must say that the typing experience in this phone is superb…maybe even the best one I have ever had. The screen gets too bright which is obviously a plus. But the brightness setting is something that alloys me a little as I feel there is a huge gap between the lowest and the next lowest brightness level.

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Before I get into the main focus of this article, let me briefly talk about the cases I was sent by Urban Armor Gear (UAG). You can see some of their S20 Ultra cases displayed in the picture above (and in other pictures in the article). In my opinion, this is a phone, you ought to use a case on, particularly because of the massive camera bump and even more so because this phone is expensive. These cases in particular solve the camera bump issue and that by itself is a huge plus. Additionally, they are easy enough to remove and add which is more or less a must for me. You may check them out through my amazon affiliate link here.

Now finally let’s talk about the camera because that is what makes or break a travel phone. This is a 2020 Samsung flagship phone so the camera is good. Heck, camera in any flagship phone from a major company has been good for several years now. One of the major differentiator between flagships is how colors are presented.

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The key differentiation now are things like additional lenses, how additional lenses behave in low-light, low-light photography in main lens, and inclusion (or exclusion of) periscope lens.

I am glad to see Samsung include 5x periscope lens. I think it rivals the one introduced and perfected by Huawei phones. I was hoping Samsung would include 10x periscope lens like that of Huawei P40 Pro+ but 5x is far better than nothing. I want to take a few moment to show you how comparable 5x from Note 20 Ultra is that to P40 Pro.

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Here is a hand held 50x zoom photography of moon taken on Samsung Note 20 Ultra and Huawei and I find myself leaning towards the one taken on Note 20 Ultra.

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It looks like Samsung has is doing really well as far as night mode goes. Overall I saw better performance than iPhone 11.

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In the picture below you can pixel peep to see that P40 does a better job but for regular purposes the images are more or less the same.

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The difference becomes far more obvious as it gets more darker. Here are a few pictures taken at more or less pitch black. But obviously none of these pictures are usable. The point I am trying to make is there is still a spot in between where Huawei phones are clearly better than Samsung but that gap has shrunk more than before.

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I think that is enough on photos. Let’s briefly talk videos. Samsung phones, in my opinion, are the best android phone at videography while only falling short to iPhone.

And as a huge credit card user, I can’t stop praising Samsung Pay. In the past I have said that Samsung Pay itself is a huge reason to get Samsung product, because lack of one actually costs money to those of us who hold Altitude Reserve credit card.

Oh and I must say Samsung DeX is pretty cool. “Mobile desktop” is the future for travelers. With the introduction of Note 20 series, Samsung has allows users to run DeX wirelessly just like Huawei does for their own mobile desktop.

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Closing Thoughts

This is quite possibly the best phone in US market. You won’t find a good night mode, telescope lens, and 5x optical lens vast majority of the phones that you can buy from carrier in US. DeX is very powerful during travel…simply hook it up to a monitor and you have a desktop experience. Samsung Pay with its ability to be used more or less everywhere a card can be swiped is super useful during travel, particularly to those of us who have dozens of credit cards.

But it retails at $1300. Or does it? You can already buy it for $1100 on amazon. Obviously there are lucrative deals going around all the time (that is the beauty of android phones). My net cost for the phone was less than half the retail price and I got $200 preorder credit with it. We tend to discuss phone details in our deal channel so if you’re into buying phones, you can join us there.