Galaxy S21 Ultra vs. Note 20 Ultra By CNET

Samsung now has two premium phones to choose from the galaxy s21 ultra and the Galaxy Note 20 ultra released within six months of each other. They both share some similar features, including excellent cameras and s pen support, but choosing between the two is not as simple as deciding based on price alone, because they're actually kind of similar when you look at the outright cost. So in this video I'm going to compare everything from the design performance, battery life, cameras, screen, quality and, of course, the s pen, so there are chapters also included for your viewing pleasure down in the description below all that said, let's get started now. These two phones not only look different from the outside, but they also were designed for slightly different purposes. The note has traditionally been Samsung's line for productivity, whereas the galaxy s line has traditionally been the flagship line, and because of that, they do have some stylistic differences to talk about. The first is the physical design in terms of the squared off edges, on the note, 20 ultra and more rounded edges on the s21 ultra now, both of these phones are pretty hefty.

I definitely feel like I need to do some weight training to use these one-handed, not just kidding, I'm actually not that weak, but in terms of how they feel one-handed to use. I actually think that the galaxy s21 ultra the weight is distributed a little better for my hand and using it with one hand just because that camera module is balanced better than the kind of domino style on the note 20 ultra, which is a little more top-heavy. Now, let's talk about screens, they both share a dynamic AMOLED display, although slightly different. The note 20 ultra is just a touch bigger at 6.9 inches, whereas the s21 ultra is 6.8 inches. They both have that infinity.

Oh, display with that cutout for the selfie camera at the top, and of course they both have 120 hertz refresh rate. It is adaptive on both of them, so it's dynamically changing, depending on what you're doing now, there is a little of a difference when we are talking about using 120 hertz on both of them. So yes, they both have the adaptive refresh rate, but in terms of the maximum resolution that you get when you are using 120 hertz, you actually get the highest who plus resolution on the s21 ultra at 120 hertz, whereas, if you're using 120 on the note 20 ultra, you are only able to get full HD plus resolution. So that's something to keep in mind. These phones also both have an in-screen fingerprint reader.

Now the s21 ultra, as you would expect to use a slightly newer technology. The Qualcomm ultrasonic fingerprint reader is a little larger and supposedly a little faster. I don't know if I can actually say scientifically if it's faster, definitely anecdotally in my testing. It feels perhaps a fraction of a hair faster, or maybe that's just the new shiny phone feeling, but overall it works effectively on both. I say it's a little more accurate in terms of fewer fails on the s21 ultra.

How about that? Now? Let's talk about the glass now, both of these phones have a glass on the front and the back, which is gorilla, glass, Vitus, which is gorilla, glasses, latest and strongest glass side. Note. We have done a drop test on both of these phones and uh. Let me just give you the bad news, you're going to have to put a case on one of these phones, whichever one you get both of them actually, because glass will break and the IP rating of both of these is ip68, which means that they are water and dust resistant, um, but again be careful because none of this is covered under warranty. If you hurt your phone in the swimming pool and finally colors the s21 ultra is back in black baby.

I think that I'm okay, so I'm not a color person. I don't get obsessed about what color, what finish a phone comes in, except when it comes to this phone. Furthermore, I don't know, there's some alchemy about that matte black finish. It just looks fantastic and honestly, film photos, don't do it justice. It looks great nothing against the rose gold or the mystic bronze of the note 20 ultra.

There are other colors, of course, on both of the phones, but I'm kind of focusing on their flagship colors. It just feels a little 20 20. Now this is the first generation of galaxy s, phones that offer support for the s pen and that might make you feel a little panicked. If you are a fan of the note series, I know that I definitely love the note series, so I was a little concerned going into using the s pen with the galaxy s21 ultra, but the functionality is actually slightly different. So what you need to know is that there is Bluetooth support for the s pen and, of course, the integrated s pen into the actual phone body on the note 20 ultra and the s pen is compatible with the s21 ultra.

However, it is not Bluetooth compatible, so that means you lose out on certain functionalities, such as. If you leave the s pen behind and walk away with your phone, you don't get a notification that you've left it behind just kind of sad. You get that on the note 20 ultra. That being said, there is going to be an s pen pro that does have Bluetooth support coming out later in the year. The things that they share, you can take notes.

You can annotate screenshots. You can translate text that you've scribbled into words and convert that or align your handwriting, for example. But what you can do on the note 20 ultra as well are air actions and air gestures, so you can use the s10 to do things like swipe back and forth between pages or apps songs tracks, open the selfie camera switch to the main rear camera and use it as a remote shutter, which is kind of nice, but to be fair, I really didn't feel like I missed out on any of those actions when I went to the s21 ultra, because most of the time when I was using those air actions on the note 20 ultra, I just felt like a awful mad conductor, but one thing that might sway your decision to choose the note instead of the s21 ultra. If you are thinking about s, pen support is latency. Now the note 20 ultra has a latency of nine milliseconds when using the s pen, we don't know what it is on the s21 ultra, but assuming it's not going to be as fast as the note 20 ultra.

That said, I did some side-by-side tests of doing scribbling. I really didn't notice that much of a difference- maybe my brain- is super slow, but I really couldn't tell much of a difference. I would say if you were an artist or someone who likes to do a lot of precise drawing the note.20 ultra probably feels a little more precise, but for most people myself included the s21 ultra was perfect. Let's talk about the camera and the hardware and image processing, because there's actually a bit of a significant difference here now both of them share an ultra-wide, a regular wide-angle camera at 108 megapixels and a telephoto camera, which is five times on the note 20 ultra and three times and ten times on the s21 ultra. And let me tell you if you like to zoom, you know we all like to be able to use camera zoom right, the s21 ultra is going to be your best bet.

Now I did a couple of different comparisons at different focal lengths to show you just how close you can get with each camera. Now, at the guess, five times, optical zoom range. It's obvious that the note 20 ultra looks better compared to the hybrid zoom, that is on the s21 ultra at five times. If you want the most flexibility at three and ten and then beyond the s21 ultra does look better now I'll show you a photo comparison at the regular one times or just on the wide angle, camera and then at 50 times, which is the maximum that the note 20 ultra can go to and half of the maximum that the s21 ultra can go to, and you'll see. The difference is pretty clear.

The s21 ultra definitely has much more definition captures more detail at that extreme length than the note 20 ultra now. That being said, I would not go any further than 50 times with this yeah. You can go to 100 times, but it looks pretty bad. I would avoid it at all costs for regular shots taken at 12 megapixels. I honestly think both of the phones do an excellent job in good lighting conditions.

It's really hard to tell the difference between the two I mean sure you could probably pick it a little apart in terms of like contrast and color saturation, for example, but overall they both look perfect and that's thanks to pixel binning technology, which is taking all that data from the big 108 megapixel sensor and consolidating it into a much more manageable 12 megapixel file. While both have that 108 megapixel sensor, the s21 ultra does seem to have better focus, and I do prefer how it renders the shallow depth of field compared to the note for night mode photos. The s21 is generally a lot sharper, especially if you look at photos at full magnification, but the processing really ups, the sharpness and the saturation compared to the same shot. On the note, I'm not really a selfie kind of gal, but I will tell you that the selfie cameras are fairly similar in performance, except for the fact that the s21 ultra has a 40 megapixel sensor. But that's not really what I care about.

I care about the accuracy of the color rendition and finally, Samsung has given us a normal and a bright setting as for video performance. Well, I think that they both do a perfect job, although I can see some improvements when shooting at 4k 60, which is my preferred resolution to shoot at on the s21 ultra. It just looks a little cleaner in terms of the image overall. The stabilization also looks to be improved for me and I think the dynamic range is just a little better on the newer phone, which is not a surprise. They can both shoot at 8k at 24 frames.

A second. If you want, we do have some 8k samples available for you on our cents highlights channel. Although this video is rendered in 4k, so you will not see 8k right here, but definitely click out and go check out those samples for yourself battery and processor. Now, as you would expect, the newer phone has the latest snapdragon 888, processor or Enos 2100, depending on where you are in the world, whereas the note 20 ultra has the snapdragon, 865 plus or the Enos 990. Now I can't comment on the performance of the Enos versions, as I only have been using the snapdragon phones.

Now to me, the real test of performance is real-world testing, rather than showing you the benchmarks. So I have done a lot of different things in my testing, including playing games, shooting and editing a lot of 4k and 8k video, as well as regular day-to-day tasks and really honestly, there's nothing that I could have thrown at these phones that they weren't able to cope with. The only thing is. I did anecdotally notice that the s21 ultra was a little faster when it came to doing some really resource intensive stuff like cutting down a 8k video, for example, it was just a little faster on the s21 ultra now both of the phones are 5g, as you would expect, given they have 5g in their official names, which I'm not going to say all the time. Battery life is also going to vary between the two now yes, the s21 ultra has a larger capacity battery 5000 milliampere hour batteries compared to 4500 on the note 20 ultra now, bigger is not always better.

As some people might tell you, because it does come down to performance and how you use the phone and what settings that you have, that also plays a huge part in battery life and overall performance. Now I will say that both of these phones 100 will get me through the day with juice to spare. I generally think that the standby time, though, on the note 20 ultra, is a little better than that on the s21 ultra, and I'll. Tell you why, when I have a new phone, I'm sorry I'm going all out, I'm going large, or I'm going home, because I use everything I can. I'm shooting 4k video 8k video, I'm using the who plus screen, I'm using 120hz refresh rate you ain't gonna, make me go to 60.

So that's why this standby time and overall battery life for me on the s21 ultra with all of those features. Maxed out, is not as much as the equivalent. If you are a numbers person and do like the specific amounts, you can go to our full review on cnet. com, and you can find the full results of our battery tests on both of these two phones. When it comes to wireless charging, of course, they are both wirelessly charged enabled, and they also wired charge through USB at 25 watts.

However, there is no charger in the box for the s21 ultra, whereas there is on the note 20 ultra, so many points to the note 20 ultra, because again I spent a lot of money on this phone, and now I have to buy another charger. I mean I probably have one in the house, but I think I want another one now. The base storage on both of these is 128 gigabytes, but by now you are also probably aware that, and uh not having a charger, the s21 ultra does not have micro, SD, expandable storage. The note 20 ultra does add to a maximum of one terabyte come on. Samsung like I am shooting 8k videos, because my crazy future self has come back in time.

To tell me that I now have a 8k television and I should have been filming all my memories in 8k, so 128 gigabytes, ain't really going to do it for me. Fortunately, there are two other storage tiers of 256 and 512, although that, of course, ups. The cost ram as well is different on the highest model. Now 12 gigabytes is what you'll get on the note, 20 ultra on all models and storage capacities, so that's 128 and 512, and you're also going to be able to get 16 gigabytes of ram. If you choose the highest spec s21 ultra the 512 gigabyte model, still not enough storage.

For me, just I'm done now. If you use Samsung pay, you will know that one of the flagship features of Samsung pay is MST or magnetic secure transmission technology, which means that you can use your phone pretty much any terminal, even if it doesn't have NSC. I was probably one of the five people in the world that loved to use MST and see the look on people's faces when I held it up to a terminal that wasn't NFC enabled, and they were like. No. No.

No, this doesn't take Apple Pay, Samsung pay, Google Pay, and I'm like. No, no, it really does watch this, and it works. So I'm sad that the s21 ultra lost that feature. The note 20 ultra, though, does have that feature so something to bear in mind. If you are a big Samsung pay user now time to decide which phone is the right one for you now.

Obviously this is always a decision that comes down to what is your use case for the phone? What do you use more, not necessarily prices we discussed unless the price of this phone comes down significantly over the next few months, which it may very well do now? If you like to use the s pen, then I would suggest that the note 20 ultra is the better buy until we get the s pen pro on the s21 ultra later in the year, and that is just because it feels a little more precise, and obviously you have that Bluetooth connectivity, which may be very useful in many situations but for most other applications. I actually think this time, which is probably a first for me because most times when I do a comparison between an older phone versus newer phone, I often find that the older phone is much better, but in this case I actually think the s21 ultra is the better all-around package and definitely worth the money, especially if you are considering the choice between a note or a s21 ultra thanks to the camera technology, the screen, the adapter refresh rate. I also really just like how this feels in the hand. It feels much more balanced and much more usable, and I also have the flexibility of s pen support if I want that, but you know the fact that I don't have MST. I am still on about that, and I'm still mad, but I guess I'm just going to have to start shopping at places that only accept NFC.

Thank you so much for watching. I hope this has been helpful for you in working out the differences between these two phones and which one might be the best for your particular application. If you have any other questions for me, please leave me a note in the comments. If you want to sound off about MST, maybe micros storage, let me know if there's any other questions that you have just ping me down below. Follow me on social media, every single platform.

You can imagine at redivides thanks for watching, and I will see you next time, MST for life club, where you at it's me, MST, okay,.

Source : CNET