Unfortunately, activation is not as reliable as many other top-tier devices, however, and our testers observed failures in a range of lighting conditions when shooting consecutive images using portrait mode. The copper-toned Mystic Bronze color stands out most of all with this frost-coated glass back, while the less stylish Mystic Black and Mystic White options for those who don’t share our impeccable taste. Specs-wise, we have the Snapdragon 865 chipset and an Exynos one to match in all non-US regions accompanied by 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB storage. You can see the focus breathing at the start of this video and that the Samsung’s autofocus remains locked on the background when a person comes into view, whereas the iPhone quickly changes focus to the subject’s face.

Depth estimation isn’t perfect, with more obvious edge artifacts compared to the best bokeh devices, but the most problematic issue we observed were occasional focus failures and low detail on faces. Outdoor images on the the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G display good exposure with fairly wide dynamic range and excellent color rendering. Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra review: What we like, what we don't : Read moreI purchased the Note 20 Ultra, and it is without a doubt the best phone I have ever owned. The triple camera setup provides lots of shooting options for smartphone photographers, but the implementation of a 120 mm-equivalent tele-lens has some implications for the quality of its zoom shots. The Note 20's telephoto sensor and the Note 20 Ultra's wide sensor use pixel binning to output higher quality images at a standard resolution, with the wide-angle sensor using Nonacell technology which groups 3x3 pixels to capture more light.The settings have two options, 60 Hz and Adaptive, the latter of which uses a variable refresh rate that can adjust based on the content being displayed, [19] enabled by a more energy efficient LTPO backplane. In outdoor sunny conditions, color on the Note20 Ultra 5G is more vibrant compared to the iPhone 11 Pro Max, and although similar to the Mi 10 Ultra, greens and blues are slightly richer on the Samsung device.

Handheld, however, it was noticeably slow to find focus in simulated high-contrast and low-light setups. Noise is slightly more prevalent at long range compared to the best devices, but it’s not a major issue; and exposure, color, as well as artifacts, are well controlled. Those issues aside, the overall effect is often pleasant, and continued excellent color and exposure ensures that portrait mode often yields nice results.

Scribbling notes on this panel feels completely natural to the point I forget I'm writing on a screen. The Note 20 has a fixed 60 Hz refresh rate, however, the Note 20 Ultra offers a variable 120 Hz refresh rate.

Performance is good for exposure, color, texture/noise, and stabilization, with good results handholding the camera while stationary or when walking. Autofocus performance is acceptable on the Note20 Ultra 5G, although it doesn’t quite achieve a perfect score and struggled slightly in some of our new and more challenging tests. Although dynamic range isn’t quite as extended as we’ve seen with some devices, and low-light images can be slightly underexposed, it does a good job overall. It has a polished look with a less reflective glass back that also happens to reduce unsightly smudges. This isn’t the crisp 8K you’ll get from something like the Canon EOS R5, and the storage-hungry resolution, along with 4K, lacks Samsung’s Super Steady stabilization, which is still limited to 1080p.

I handed the Note 20 Ultra to our resident Fortnite expert, my 12-year-old son, and he found the gameplay to be so smooth that I had to lobby hard to get the phone back. in this selfie, the Note 20 Ultra did a great job capturing the lush green background at a nearby park, and the blue in my shirt really pops. The Note 20 Ultra has a more advanced camera setup than its counterpart, including a 108 MP wide sensor, a 12 MP "periscope" telephoto sensor, and a 12 MP ultrawide sensor.

Minor white balance casts can be seen in most conditions, including a slight pink cast in shadow areas in outdoor shots.It was a neat party trick, but anything beyond a 50x zoom was often unusable depending on the lighting conditions. Equipped with both an ultra-wide and tele-lens, the Samsung Galaxy Note20 5G has the hardware to achieve a good score in our new sub-score. In some cases my screen taps did not register, as I didn't realize my other hand holding the phablet was interfering. Advanced spatial awareness technology delivers higher accuracy and better security, making it simpler and faster to share photos and videos with your friends or find your devices. In our benchmark lab analysis, we found autofocus to be fast and accurate in all lighting conditions with the device mounted on a tripod.