Inthis video, we will do a full comparison between the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra vs the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. These are the latest flagship offerings from Sa
Home News Mobile Phones Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra left vs Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Image credit Samsung With the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, Samsung didnât just comprehensively replace the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra â it threatened to make the imperious Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra seem utterly fact, with the Galaxy S21 Ultra treading on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultraâs toes in a number of key ways, some have come to question the Note rangeâs entire is the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra really the one phone to rule them all? Or does the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra still have something to offer? Letâs find Galaxy S21 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra price and availabilityThe Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra arrived earlier than we expected on January 29, 2021. Prices start at $1,199 / ÂŁ1,149 / AU$1,849 for the 128GB model, while the 256GB model costs $200 / ÂŁ200 / AU$300 more, and the 512GB model ups the price by the same amount Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra rolled out just five months earlier, on August 21, 2020. Prices started at $1,299 for the baseline 128GB model in the US, while ÂŁ1,179 / AU$1,849 got you 256GB of storage in the UK and Australia. Bumping the storage capacity up to 512GB cost you $1,449 / ÂŁ1,279 / AU$2, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has the cheaper launch price, however, you can now get yourself a handy discount on the older Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. At the time of writing, Amazon US was offering the 256GB model for $1,045, while Amazon UK was offering the 512GB model for ÂŁ1, are two handsome smartphones, and itâs tough to pick an outright winner. Whatâs great is that they also look quite distinctive from one another, despite obviously being from shared Samsung Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is, to use a technical term, seriously gorgeous. In the matte Phantom Black finish in particular, itâs a chic monolith of glass and metal, with few visible seams. You can also get it in Phantom Silver, Phantom Titanium, Phantom Navy, and Phantom Brown. That last one makes us laugh out loud every time, for some actually took this matte finish approach from the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, dropping the shiny finish of the Galaxy S20 series into the bargain. It was a smart Galaxy S21 Ultra Image credit FutureThe Galaxy Note 20 Ultra was arguably the best-looking smartphone of 2020, particularly in its Mystic Bronze guise, which was arguably the most beautiful gold-ish tone weâd seen at the time. You could also get it in Mystic Black or Mystic White if you were Galaxy S21 Ultra is a rounder, smoother device than the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. The corners curve off, whereas they finish at a flat-topped point on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. We love unique and striking is the way the two phones address the problemâ of having a prominent camera module. As weâll discuss, both phones have seriously meaty camera systems, but both wear these proudly as the Galaxy S21 Ultra, that means a dramatic swoop that seems to flow out of the aluminum frame itself, before dropping off abruptly along its inner edges. On the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, it means an audaciously vertical camera mount, with no attempt to smooth or break up its thick metal might surprise you to learn that the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is the smaller phone of the two in most ways. There isnât an awful lot in it, but at x x and 208g itâs a smidgen shorter, a fair bit thinner, and quite a lot lighter than the Galaxy S21 x x and 228g, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra isnât what youâd call unwieldy, but ultimately, this gives the slightest of edges to the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra on the design Galaxy S21 Ultra Image credit FutureThese are two of the best smartphone displays you can find on any smartphone. The Note 20 Ultra screen is slightly bigger at inches, though the Galaxy S21 Ultra isnât far behind at inches. Both screens are huge, two-handed the Galaxy S21 Ultra has one distinct advantage over the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra itâs the first Samsung phone capable of running at a 120Hz refresh rate and at a Quad HD resolution at the same previous phones â including the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and even the rest of the Galaxy S21 family â forced you to choose one or the other. Weâre glad to have both available in the same package, and itâs really not before time. Phones like the OnePlus 8 Pro were doing this in early the difference between QHD and FHD in smartphone displays isnât as noticeable as you might think. Unless youâre pixel-peeping in Google Photos, watching a beautifully shot native 2K video stream, or using mobile VR remember that?, you might struggle to perceive a meaningful more consequential is the availability of 120Hz, which both phones have. With this active, the display refreshes twice as fast as on the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Both of these Samsung displays can smartly scale from 10Hz up to 120Hz depending on what youâre doing on your phone, thus saving battery life when fluid on-screen motion isnât key is the sheer quality of Samsungâs AMOLED display technology. Samsung is the undisputed champ at this stuff, with its screens able to output vibrant, natural colors and deep both displays can hit a peak brightness of 1,500 nits, however, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has been shown to go slightly brighter on average. It takes home the win in this category, but weâre talking varying degrees of fabulous Galaxy S21 Ultra Image credit FutureSamsung has upped its camera game significantly in recent years, and thatâs most apparent with these two phones. Theyâre multi-eyed monsters. Both are led by standardâ wide-angle cameras with 1/ 108MP wide sensors and fast f/ apertures. In both cases these use 9-in-1 pixel binning techniques to render sharp, well-lit shots in a range of lighting phones also have identically sized 12MP f/ ultrawide cameras for those 120-degree landscape shots. They also both benefit from laser-assisted phase-detection autofocus, which helps them lock onto their subjects way better than the problematic Galaxy S20 when we consider the telephoto offerings of these two phones that things start to differ. The Galaxy S21 Ultra has an extra camera, for one thing, in the shape of a dedicated 10MP f/ 70mm telephoto phones have periscope telephoto sensors for optically zoomed shots, but while the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra goes with a 12MP f/ 120mm unit for a 5x optical zoom and 50x hybrid zoom, the Galaxy S21 Ultra goes longer with a 10MP f/ 240mm for 10x zoomed shots and a 100x hybrid to say, the Galaxy S21 Ultra is the camera to turn to if you want relatively crisp zoomed-in shots. Neither phone is a slouch in this department, but the newer phone definitely picks out distant details better, and itâll also lock the viewfinder so that your preview doesnât lurch around on extreme in normal shooting with those similar 108MP sensors, however, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has an advantage, rendering generally brighter shots with superior dynamic range. Its night-time performance has also been improved, which is an area where Samsung has tended to lag behind its closest phones can shoot 8K video at 24fps, but youâre more likely to use their 4K 60fps modes. The Galaxy S21 Ultra can shoot this across all five of its cameras, including the selfie cam. The new Directorâs View mode helps facilitate this, and is a godsend for budding of selfie cameras, the Galaxy S21 Ultra outstrips its older brother with a whopping 40MP sensor, whereas the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra can only muster and performance Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Image credit Aakash JhaveriWhile just five months separate these two phones, they straddle a clear generational divide, and this is most obvious when you consider the processors that power the Galaxy S20 Note Ultra runs on either the Snapdragon 865 or the Exynos 990, the Galaxy S21 Ultra packs the new Snapdragon 888 or the Exynos 2100. In both cases, itâs a year-on-year tests will show a modest performance bump for the newer chips, and processor-intensive tasks like transcoding a 4K video clip will take a touch less time on the Galaxy S21 Ultra. But you wonât really notice the difference in day-to-day usage, or even when playing high-end 3D games. Both phones are very fast, and will remain so for years to and if youâre wondering whatâs with the multiple chips, thatâs just a unique read deeply annoying quirk of Samsungâs approach to hardware. It splits the processor provision for its flagship phones between itself and divide runs along regional lines, with US and China customers getting Qualcomm chips and the rest of the world getting Samsungâs. The trouble is, Qualcommâs Snapdragon chips are invariably a little faster and more efficient than Samsungâs Exynos of the Exynos-powered Galaxy S21 Ultra arenât losing out by much in this regard, because the difference between the two regional models is narrower than ever. And, as mentioned, in all cases the differences are Galaxy S21 Ultra and the Note 20 Ultra pack a capacious 12GB of RAM, too, which is more than enough for any tasks you can throw at them. The top 512GB model of the Galaxy S21 Ultra takes things even further with an indulgent 16GB, which is double what most rival Android flagships from there being a 4G Galaxy Note 20 Ultra available in Australia, these are two firmly 5G-ready phones, so theyâre both able to take advantage of cutting-edge mobile network speeds where from those internal specifications, the key spec that separates the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra from the Galaxy S21 Ultra is the S Pen. Samsungâs signature stylus is housed neatly within the body of the Note 20 Ultra, and it opens up a whole bunch of cool features via the companyâs comprehensive can whip out your phone and scrawl on the screen without waking it when you want to take a quick note. Or you can open Samsungâs powerful Notes app and have your handwritten musings transcribed into digital text. Budding artists, meanwhile, can compose surprisingly nuanced pictures thanks to the S Penâs refined handling and analogue pressure inclusion of the S Pen would typically help keep the Note relevant for a full year at least, even with the arrival of a new Galaxy S, but this year, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has gained S Pen compatibility â buy yourself an S Pen itâs not included with the S21 Ultra, and youâll be able to get a very similar Noteâ not an identical experience, though. In addition to the fact that you have to purchase the stylus separately, thereâs nowhere to house it, so youâll need to buy a bulky case to clip this larger and admittedly more comfortable variant to. Given that the Galaxy S21 Ultra is already a little tubby, adding weight is far from there isnât feature parity between these two S Pens, with the Galaxy S21 Ultra variant missing out on the Bluetooth shortcuts for triggering the camera and other lifeThe key reason why the Galaxy S21 Ultra is bigger and heavier than the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is because it has a much bigger the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has a 4500mAh power pack, the Galaxy S21 Ultra cranks things up to 5000mAh. It also has a more efficient processor, which bodes well for course, the newer phone needs this leg-up if itâs to run at QHD and 120Hz; thereâs a reason Samsung didnât feel confident about activating this dual mode described the Galaxy S21 Ultraâs battery life as âsolidâ in our review. On a typical day of moderate use, we were able to get through a full day without the phone giving out if we stuck to the default 1080p/120Hz settings. When we cranked it up to full QHD/120Hz, however, the battery dropped noticeably QHD/120Hz combo isnât an issue for the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, and we got similar all-day performance from its standard FHD/120Hz mode. We would tend to average 20% left in the tank at the end of the day, and those were days filled with taking photos and videos, and watching YouTube on the large users should be happy with either phone, but you might still want to carry a charger with you on extended days out. The addition of 120Hz and 5G has definitely come at a cost to phones support up to 25W wired charging, which is a little disappointing given that some of Samsungâs rivals have upped their charging tech to 65W. Both phones also support 15W wireless charging, as well as reverse wireless Galaxy S21 Ultra Image credit FutureGiven Samsungâs two-pronged approach to its premium smartphone offering, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra sit alongside one another as the brandâs current flagship to the Galaxy Note 20 Ultraâs impressive design, specs, and performance, it continues to feel fit for purpose as we write this comparison article, seven months after its launch. But the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is a real statement of newer phone seems to have been explicitly designed to overshadow its immediate predecessor, with superior performance, a heftier design, a display thatâs almost as big, and an improved camera â and it even steals the Galaxy Note 20 Ultraâs signature trick by supporting the S doesnât mean you should write off the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra though. Its design and S Pen integration are more elegant, and its all-round performance remains competitive. The Galaxy S21 Ultra is the better phone overall, but having seen a price drop since that phone launched, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra may just be the better buy.