On the front, you’ll find one half of the stereo pair of speakers which is also the earpiece. It’s a barely perceptible slit at the top of the display as it was on the Note 10. Below that, you’ll see a 10-megapixel hole punch camera that supports face recognition. And below that, you won’t see it until you activate it, an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. That’s a good thing to have with so many of us wearing face masks these days. The right side of this beauty is where you’ll find the power button and volume rocker. The left side of the phone is bare. The top of the phone is where you’ll find the Nano-SIM tray, which also supports micro SD cards up to one terabyte. The bottom of the phone is where you’ll find another microphone, USB-C charge port, and speaker grille. And then we come to the S Pen. This year, it’s on the left side of the phone. Fellow lefties rejoice, this is ergonomically ideal for us. #LeftHandersMatter I know people tend to make a big deal about these things, but I really don’t get all the fuss, unless you don’t put a case on your phone. How many of you watching this doesn’t put a case on your device? You rugged smartphone user who likes to live dangerously. Since most folks are going to put a case on the phone, and those cases are going to generally sit flush with this camera module, it becomes a non-issue to me. Around that camera module though is that mystic bronze that I spoke of earlier. But this year Samsung has added this haze effect to the finish, which keeps it from being a fingerprint magnet and gives it a satiny, soft-touch feel. And underneath that bronze haze is a 4500-milliamp hour battery, which supports Rapid Charging 2.0. Meaning it will charge to 50% in 30 minutes. It also supports wireless charging 2.0, which means that you’ll get speedy top-offs wirelessly with any 10-Watt battery wireless charger. And that’s superficial. Sure, it’s beautiful no doubt, but skills are more important than looks once you’re in the door. Every time I put the S 20 Ultra down to review other phones, but then came back to it after a time, it never ceased to be a delight to my eyes, I missed it. And I was looking at some great displays on other devices. My only issue with this display is that Samsung makes that beautiful 120Hz refresh rate available on the HD+ resolution and not the WQHD+ resolution. In other words, if you want that super-smooth screen and scrolling, you can’t use the phone at its highest resolution. Now, the human eye can only see so many pixels per inch. This packs 496 of them. And if I asked 100 people to tell me the difference between 3088 by 1440, which is the highest resolution, and 2316 by 1080, very few if any would be able to tell the difference. As studies have shown that 2316 by 1080 is pretty much the limit at this size of the display that the human eye can discern. Anything above that is extra cost and effort with no real reward. But some folks may feel that if you’re going to give us that resolution option, and 120Hz, don’t restrict how I use my phone even though it means less battery life. That large camera module on the back is so for a reason. The periscope camera embedded in there enables some interesting tech. Thanks to the main camera’s large sensor, Note 20 Ultra does quite well in low light situations. One of the interesting things was that even at night in low light conditions, the zoom produces fairly sharp images. Unlike some cameras these days which have macro lenses, Samsung gives you a telephoto camera with Space Zoom. Now, in my testing of other cameras, I’ve seen where taking a photo with that camera’s highest megapixel shooter, then cropping in has provided better macro shots than some of those dedicated macro lenses. If you’re truly a macro photographer, you’re probably not looking at smartphones anyway. But if you’re a casual shooter looking to get a pretty close up of something like a flower or bug, use the 108-megapixel main sensor and then just blow it up a bit or crop in, as the pros might say. The new feature for 2020 is the ability to connect to mirror cast compatible TVs and streaming devices. For me, that meant my Roku Ultra. What that does is give you a near laptop or desktop experience from your mobile device. Your phone becomes the brain, and the monitor you’re connecting to is your computer. I think that to get the most from this experience, you’re going to definitely want to connect a mouse and keyboard to your phone. But if you’re only pushing Netflix, you can use the phone itself as an input device on-screen. On top of the new air actions, you will still get the things you already may be familiar with, like smart select. Which can help you copy the text you wouldn’t otherwise be able to copy. And the ability to determine content captured from your screen into GIFs, hard G, like I did with this clip from my Apple Ban’s Fortnight video. And if you’re going to have the ability to take notes, why not be able to access them from anywhere? That’s a pain point some may have had to endure using Samsung Notes in the past but not anymore. Not only does Samsung Notes now have a new folder structure, which mimics what you’d see on any modern computer, but it also syncs with Microsoft OneNote, so you can access your notes from any device. Well, you will be able to do that. Samsung says that functionality will come to users sometime later this year. There’s, even more, coming to this phone soon, which I haven’t even played with yet like Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which arrives mid-September. There’s so much more to fully journal for you, but I’m gonna look through them more fully before bringing them to you. If you’re going to pay this premium price for a device, it may as well do as many things in your life as it can. Quite frankly, it seems like this phone is up to that task. And go on and smash that notification bell to get updates whenever we put out a new video.
