Note 20 Ultra vs 11 Pro Max after 2 weeks: Sorry Apple.. By Max Tech

Let's forget about the specs and go straight to real world use and I’ll put it right out there. The Note 20 Ultra is a much better phone than the iPhone 11 Pro Max. So much so, that it hurts me going back to the iPhone after using the Note 20. It's been 2 weeks since I got it in and in this video I’ll share exactly what I love about the Note 20 and the few things that keep me from switching over completely, but with that said, I’m right there on the edge and may end up ditching Apple. I’ll also mention why I think the Note 20 Pro is a much better phone than the S20 Ultra and the iPhone 11 Pro and talk about a few things most reviewers don’t mention. Let's start with the look and feel in your hand.

My iPhone has a large 6.5” display which is big but the Note 20 Ultras is 6.9” which may not seem like a big difference but in the real world , trust me you definitely notice it. A big reason is the camera cutout is very small instead of a large notch and the corners of the screen are barely curved and with tiny bezels. Going back to the iPhone feels outdated. At this point I’d also ditch face Id for 3 reasons. The notch it requires is ugly, Face ID is a pain during these times, and no you can’t register your face with mask on, and third is Samsungs under display fingerprint tech has gotten super fast and reliable.

Believe it or not the Note 20 is also actually more comfortable to hold in the hand. It's taller but actually slightly narrower in the hand, and the super slim frame makes it feel slimmer. My biggest complaint with the S20 was the thickness and weight. Not only did Samsung slim it down but also lowered weight that makes it feel lighter in the hand than the 11 Pro Max and especially the chuky S20 Ultra. With that thinning the camera bump had get thicker to house the cameras but that change was actually for the good as my finger can actually rest there and help support the phone instead of just digging into S20’s camera bump.

And to top it off I love how the notes bottom and tops are flat which is perfect since I tend to rest my finger there to suppor the weight. Overall if you spend a lot of time holding your phone responding to emails comfort is definitely better than the iPhone. Speaking of productivity I tried to get used to the S-Pen again but its just not for me so it just stays in the phone. On that gorgeous display I’m still having auto brightness issues. Maybe the iPhone nails it or I’m just used to its algorithm but the samsung phones need more tweaking especially in dimmer lighting.

One thing that keeps shocking me every time I use the Note 20 are the… Speakers. Wow do they sound good. I was expecting the same loudspeakers from the S20 but no, Samsung made a bunch of changes to the, here take a listen.. They’re still loud which I love but now the sound is much more rich and full, and it's more balanced for stereo listening. On top of the sound quality improvement the back of the phone has way less vibrations when listening at full volume which was another S20 complaint.

Now the iPhone does have better bass but I would gladly trade that for the better mids and smoother and clever sounding highs in the Note 20. It's a big difference especially in loud rooms. Call volume is also better than the S20 because the earpiece speaker was made louder. With that comes the media experience, and its really good. Pairing those speakers to the gorgeous 6.9” widescreen oled makes for some great video watching and the square display edges and tiny cutout is soo much nicer than the iPhone since the notch is gone and the video fills almost the whole screen. I do have to point out 2 downsides, first, it really bugs me that if I’m watching a video with my phone on the desk, The note 20’s notch makes it lay crooked on my desk which is annoying.

Second, is with iOS 14 my iPhone’s HDR does pop a little bit more now and I can stream in 4K which finally makes the video look just as good as the notes detail wise, but this is where I have to get into a huge issue with my iPhone. When I’m on the go, I can’t ever use that 4K streaming option, or even 1440P. Heck most of the time I can’t even do 1080P even if I have good LTE service. Now I know that this depends on your city and how busy the networks are, but theres no doubt that the Note 20’s 5G is way faster and that's just using sub 6 not millimeter waves. Yesterday at full bars 1080P would just buffer on the iPhone, so I did a speedtest and it got 6.2Mb/s. I popped the sim into the Note 20 and streamed 1440P perfectly.

Earlier in the day testing at the office my iPhone got 13.7mb/s while the note 20 got 59. This data speed is noticeable and not something not many reviewers talk about. If you’re in a city with faster speeds the Note will still be about twice as fast as the iphone. Back to the screens I ended up going back to the higher quality 60fps mode after the first few days.120hz is really nice but having text be noticeably softer than the iphone bugged me. The note has very fast animations so even at 60hz it feels snappier than the iPhone.

The A13 bionic is faster but in Antutu the Note is actually better for graphics and memory speeds, and for gaming the Note 20 is really nice especially because of the larger, more full display. I noticed no dropped frame or stuttering, gaming was super smooth and enjoyable. One major difference that's really starting to literally make me mad about my iPhone is background apps. The Note 20’s 12GB of RAM keeps my apps open seemingly forever, where the iPhones 4GB is frustrating when I go to take a photo and an app I was just using closes. The batter did seem to drain faster than the iphone even though it's a bit bigger 4500MAH compared to just under 4000mah on the 11 Pro Max, I would say I got about an hour less screen on time and that's using the high rez mode and the always on display.

The S20 had a 5000 Mah battery but I’d gladly trade the extra 500 for the slimmer Note chassis especially because charging is so fast, about an hour from empty compared to 2 hour from empty on my iPhone with its 18 watt charger. It also tops off much faster because the iPhone takes 1.5 hours to get from 50% to 100 where the Note only takes 30min. And now lets talk about the cameras, and to be honest they are great. This is what Samsung wanted to achieve with the S20 ultra’s camera but failed to do. Part of it is software but the other part is the lazer autofocusing addition and because of it autofocusing was great with this phone.

I literally didn’t have a single focusing issue. Comparing photos to the iPhone they are at time neck in neck using the main sensors but when using the ultra wide or telephoto the Note 20 looks much more detailed. I Know Apple won’t put a super zoom in its next iPhone but I wish they would because you get so much more detail. The other massive difference is you can do night mode shots with the ultra wide and front facing cam which makes it look soo much better and actually usable instead of horrible on the iPhone. As far as video the iphone still looks better and can do 4K 60 in any of the cameras, the Note did improve over the S20 though and looks good, it also has 8K but its mostly unusable and barely looks better than 4K.

Now I’ve said a lot of positives for the Note 20, but there are some negatives. I think the biggest one is Samungs skin. Its not a dealbreaker but I much prefer the Pixel phones, Oneplus, and iOS as far as modern look and feel. Of course we have big difference with iOS and Android and both have their benefits. Right now I’m going to move back to the iPhone because of my Apple watch, Mac’s and icloud with imessage but I’m right there on the edge of switching.

The Note 20 is a much better phone overall than the iPhone, and its interesting that finally after so many years its Apple that is playing catch up every year instead of Samsung. If the iPhone 12 does not’ fix some of these big issues I’ll permanently become an android user. Let me know your thoughts down below and if you like our videos pick up a max tech shirt or face mask in our murch shelf or link down below, thanks for watching, this has been Max and I’ll see you in the next video.

Source : Max Tech