**The Samsung Note 20 Ultra vs The Regular Note 20: What's Different and What's the Same?**

One of the most interesting things about both the Samsung Note 20 Ultra and the regular Note 20 is that there are quite a lot they have in common. For example, both phones have a stylus in the bottom, which is known as the S Pen, and this allows users to write, navigate, and do all sorts of fun things on their phone. Both phones also operate Android 10 straight out of the box and will probably get the Android 11 update at the exact same time too.

Another thing they have in common is that both phones use Qualcomm's very speedy Snapdragon 865 Plus processor, although in some regions, Samsung may use its Exynos chipset instead. There are also a number of extras that both phones share, such as wireless charging, 8K video recording, and wireless power share, to name just a few.

So, what sets these two phones apart from each other? Apart from everything I've already mentioned about the screen and cameras, one of the main differences is battery size. The regular Note 20 is a little bit smaller than the Note 20 Ultra, which means it has a slightly smaller battery - at 4300 milliamp hours compared to the Note 20 Ultra's 4500 milliamp hour. However, this difference doesn't necessarily translate to better or worse battery life, as both phones are designed to last all day on a single charge.

There is also one key difference in terms of storage: the regular Note 20 does not have a microSD card slot, while the Note 20 Ultra does. This means that users of the Note 20 will be limited to the internal storage that comes with the phone, which is 128 gigabytes. In contrast, the Note 20 Ultra also has an option to expand its storage via a microSD card slot.

Another key difference in terms of performance is RAM - the regular Note 20 has 8 gigabytes of RAM, while the Note 20 Ultra has 12 gigabytes. However, this difference isn't necessarily significant enough to make one phone noticeably better or worse than the other.

**The Verdict: Is The Regular Note 20 Worth $100 Less Than The Note 20 Ultra?**

So, if you're considering buying either of these phones, what's the deciding factor? The answer is simple: which one has the best price. If you can find a deal for the regular Note 20 where it costs $900 - $1000, then I would recommend buying that phone over the Note 20 Ultra.

However, if the prices are higher and the difference in features between the two phones becomes more pronounced, then the decision becomes harder to make. For example, do you really need a glass backing on your phone? Do you want the extra speed of a 120Hz refresh rate? And what about that 5x optical zoom camera?

For me, personally, I think the Samsung Note 20 Ultra is a slightly better phone if you're going to buy one. But at $1300, it's a big price to pay for a phone with plastic backing and features that may or may not be worth the extra cost.

One option is to wait and see what deals come available in the future - trade-ins, buy-one-get-ones, and other promotions can often bring prices down to more manageable levels. For example, if you find a deal where you can get the Note 20 Ultra for $900 or less, then that's definitely worth considering.

But if you're looking at the regular Note 20, I would say it's a good solid phone with all of the core specs that really matter - a big screen, excellent cameras, and long-lasting battery life. It may not have some of the extra bells and whistles that come with the Note 20 Ultra, but it's still a great option if you're looking for a high-quality Android phone without breaking the bank.

**An Alternative Option: The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE**

Finally, if neither of these options is right for you - if you don't think you'll be using the stylus much and all you care about is having a phone with good cameras, performance, and battery life - then I would recommend looking at the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE. This phone has a 6.5-inch screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, just like the Note 20 Ultra, as well as a camera with 3x optical zoom.

It also has a big, long-lasting battery, and it retails for $700 - which is significantly cheaper than either of the two Samsung phones mentioned above. Of course, this phone may not have all of the same features or premium design elements that come with the Note 20 Ultra or regular Note 20, but if you're looking for a great value for your money, then the S20 FE is definitely worth considering.

So there you have it - three different options to consider when buying a new Samsung phone. I hope this helps!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe galaxy note 20 is arguably samsung's most powerful phone but there are two different models which can make it hard to decide between them if you are trying to decide which one you want to buy or you just want to know the differences i'm gonna break it down for you one piece at a time just one note before we begin i've got the galaxy note 20 here the regular standard one that costs a thousand dollars and you can tell because of this mystic green color the note 20 ultra is what i'm actually using to shoot this video now apart from the color you may think that size is going to be the first difference you notice at first glance that isn't really true because we've got a 6.7 inch screen on the standard galaxy note 20 and a 6.9 inch screen on the ultra so side by side they don't look that different but what is extremely noticeable is the back and again not just the color it's the camera bump the camera module on here sticks out a little bit but it is much more noticeable on the ultra it protrudes from the sides and you just have larger sensor openings you also have gorilla glass victus on the back of the note 20 ultra which is strengthened glass on the note 20 you have plastic samsung calls it polycarbonate but it's really the same thing if you put a case on your phone you probably won't really notice anyway but i do think it is a little bit cheeky for samsung to charge you one thousand dollars for a phone that basically has a plastic backing especially when the company spent all of this time conditioning us to believe that glass is more elegant and just a higher quality product overall however one benefit is if you drop the note 20 the back of it probably won't shatter another difference you might notice is the flat screen on the note 20 versus the curved sides of the note 20 ultra i'm a little bit mixed about this because i do love the immersive feel of the ultra with its curved screen however because the screen truly is edge to edge on a curved screen i always have the problem that i call the finger going over the edge of the waterfall if i'm trying to place my cursor at the beginning of an email for example the bezels here are still very narrow so i still did experience the accidental process that i didn't like on the note 20 ultra you're not going to escape this with the flat phone so it really is just a matter of taste but i don't think you're going to really lose much of the experience with this flat screen speaking of the screen the regular note 20 doesn't have a 120 hertz screen refresh rate it has the default 60 hertz that everybody had before we had fast refresh rates what does that mean nothing if you've never used a phone with a fast screen but if you did use it then you might notice that this one feels slow however if you don't have the two phones side by side you're probably not going to notice anyway cameras this is where the note 20 ultra truly stands out it's not just because the camera mount on the back is physically larger it is because there are one or two tricks that the ultra has that the note 20 doesn't the most important one to me i think in my everyday photography is 5x optical zoom now the note 20 is no slouch there's 3x optical zoom but when i took both phones out on a photo shoot i noticed that i did use the note 20 ultra's 5x zoom all the way up to 50x zoom a lot more than i used the regular note 20 and i thought that the photo quality was much much better on that phone as well for those telephoto shots so that was really important when i was trying to take hawks flying by or the seals out on the rocks that were just really too far to get close to for that kind of nature photography the ultra really does have the upper hand when you're taking a photo of a flower or a portrait of your roommate then i don't think it really matters as much the ultra also has a 108 megapixel camera you're not going to use that every time but it does mean that if you take a photo with lots of detail or a picture that is far away and you crop in you'll retain more of those details than you would on a phone like this i think those are really marginal use cases there are extras that are nice to have but they don't really impact most of the shots that you're going to take on the phone the camera sensors are different and i do think that photo quality is better on the ultra your selfie camera is going to be exactly the same for even more detail you can check out this handy chart for camera specs let's talk about everything that the note 20 and the note 20 ultra have in common because there's quite a lot they are for example both note phones that means that they have a stylus in the bottom this is the s pen that also means that you can use it to write navigate and do all sorts of fun things both phones also operate android 10 straight out of the box and they will probably get the android 11 update at the exact same time too they both use qualcomm's very speedy snapdragon 865 plus processor though in some regions you might have samsung's exynos chipset instead and then there are all those extras that the two phones have in common like wireless charging 8k video recording wireless power share waterproofing and all that jazz so here's what's different between the two phones apart from everything that i've already said about the screen and the cameras one of them is battery the regular note 20 is a little bit smaller so is the battery 4 300 milliamp hours rather than the 4500 on the note 20 ultra but guess what it doesn't have that 120 hertz refresh rate sucking down more battery so you might actually find that battery life is slightly better on this phone but really they're both going to last you all day on a single charge and you'll want to charge it once a day there is no micro sd card on the regular note 20 but there is one on the ultra however you do have 128 gigabytes of onboard storage but you don't have the option to go up to 512 gigabytes as you do on the ultra there's also a little bit less ram here 8 gigabytes instead of 12 but that's still pretty good so now you know the basic specs what's different what's the same and we come down to the question which one do you buy regular note 20 or the note 20 ultra and this is my dilemma because i actually prefer the note 20 ultra i think that it is a slightly better phone if you're gonna buy a phone why not buy the most expensive phone that you can afford however i think that it's too expensive at thirteen hundred dollars and then you've got the regular note 20 here and it has all of the core specs that really matter it is a good solid phone and i do recommend it however i still don't really think it's worth paying a thousand dollars for that's a sticking point for me i have a hard time recommending that you pay a thousand dollars for a phone with a plastic backing i think that is a premium price and you should have a top quality product not that the quality isn't there but design wise this is definitely the lesser phone but at the same time i don't think it's necessarily worth 300 extra dollars to buy the note 20 ultra just for the glass backing the micro sd card slot that you may or may not use the faster screen refresh rate that you may or may not notice and even 5x optical zoom although i absolutely prefer the photos that come out of the note 20 ultra again it is hard to swallow thirteen hundred dollars for the note 20 ultra and did i also mention it is a big heavy pocket buster so you really have to love a big phone to want it that said if you find a deal for the note 20 ultra where you're actually paying the price of the regular note 20 i would take it and consequently if you can find a really good deal on the regular note 20 that maybe brings it down say closer to 700 800 and a lot of those deals are going to be constantly around the corner trade-ins buy one get ones all sorts of offers then i would consider that but i would not pay full retail for either of these here is another wrench that i am going to throw in your phone buying plans if you don't think that you're going to use the stylus much anyway and if all you're interested in is those core features on a phone with a nice design that has good solid cameras excellent performance long battery life big screen then i'm gonna actually recommend the samsung galaxy s20 fe or fan edition that phone has a 6.5 inch screen with 120 hertz refresh rate if that's something that you're interested in the camera has 3x optical zoom just like the regular note 20 here it also has a 4500 milliamp hour battery so you're gonna get long lasting all-day battery life and it retails for 700. the s20 fe is the smartest buy if not the flashiest phone but if you truly have your heart set on one of the note phones either the ultra or the regular my advice to you is pretty simple buy the one that has the best price the day that you're ready to purchase it if you need more help deciding between all of these phones go to cnet and read our fully rated reviewsthe galaxy note 20 is arguably samsung's most powerful phone but there are two different models which can make it hard to decide between them if you are trying to decide which one you want to buy or you just want to know the differences i'm gonna break it down for you one piece at a time just one note before we begin i've got the galaxy note 20 here the regular standard one that costs a thousand dollars and you can tell because of this mystic green color the note 20 ultra is what i'm actually using to shoot this video now apart from the color you may think that size is going to be the first difference you notice at first glance that isn't really true because we've got a 6.7 inch screen on the standard galaxy note 20 and a 6.9 inch screen on the ultra so side by side they don't look that different but what is extremely noticeable is the back and again not just the color it's the camera bump the camera module on here sticks out a little bit but it is much more noticeable on the ultra it protrudes from the sides and you just have larger sensor openings you also have gorilla glass victus on the back of the note 20 ultra which is strengthened glass on the note 20 you have plastic samsung calls it polycarbonate but it's really the same thing if you put a case on your phone you probably won't really notice anyway but i do think it is a little bit cheeky for samsung to charge you one thousand dollars for a phone that basically has a plastic backing especially when the company spent all of this time conditioning us to believe that glass is more elegant and just a higher quality product overall however one benefit is if you drop the note 20 the back of it probably won't shatter another difference you might notice is the flat screen on the note 20 versus the curved sides of the note 20 ultra i'm a little bit mixed about this because i do love the immersive feel of the ultra with its curved screen however because the screen truly is edge to edge on a curved screen i always have the problem that i call the finger going over the edge of the waterfall if i'm trying to place my cursor at the beginning of an email for example the bezels here are still very narrow so i still did experience the accidental process that i didn't like on the note 20 ultra you're not going to escape this with the flat phone so it really is just a matter of taste but i don't think you're going to really lose much of the experience with this flat screen speaking of the screen the regular note 20 doesn't have a 120 hertz screen refresh rate it has the default 60 hertz that everybody had before we had fast refresh rates what does that mean nothing if you've never used a phone with a fast screen but if you did use it then you might notice that this one feels slow however if you don't have the two phones side by side you're probably not going to notice anyway cameras this is where the note 20 ultra truly stands out it's not just because the camera mount on the back is physically larger it is because there are one or two tricks that the ultra has that the note 20 doesn't the most important one to me i think in my everyday photography is 5x optical zoom now the note 20 is no slouch there's 3x optical zoom but when i took both phones out on a photo shoot i noticed that i did use the note 20 ultra's 5x zoom all the way up to 50x zoom a lot more than i used the regular note 20 and i thought that the photo quality was much much better on that phone as well for those telephoto shots so that was really important when i was trying to take hawks flying by or the seals out on the rocks that were just really too far to get close to for that kind of nature photography the ultra really does have the upper hand when you're taking a photo of a flower or a portrait of your roommate then i don't think it really matters as much the ultra also has a 108 megapixel camera you're not going to use that every time but it does mean that if you take a photo with lots of detail or a picture that is far away and you crop in you'll retain more of those details than you would on a phone like this i think those are really marginal use cases there are extras that are nice to have but they don't really impact most of the shots that you're going to take on the phone the camera sensors are different and i do think that photo quality is better on the ultra your selfie camera is going to be exactly the same for even more detail you can check out this handy chart for camera specs let's talk about everything that the note 20 and the note 20 ultra have in common because there's quite a lot they are for example both note phones that means that they have a stylus in the bottom this is the s pen that also means that you can use it to write navigate and do all sorts of fun things both phones also operate android 10 straight out of the box and they will probably get the android 11 update at the exact same time too they both use qualcomm's very speedy snapdragon 865 plus processor though in some regions you might have samsung's exynos chipset instead and then there are all those extras that the two phones have in common like wireless charging 8k video recording wireless power share waterproofing and all that jazz so here's what's different between the two phones apart from everything that i've already said about the screen and the cameras one of them is battery the regular note 20 is a little bit smaller so is the battery 4 300 milliamp hours rather than the 4500 on the note 20 ultra but guess what it doesn't have that 120 hertz refresh rate sucking down more battery so you might actually find that battery life is slightly better on this phone but really they're both going to last you all day on a single charge and you'll want to charge it once a day there is no micro sd card on the regular note 20 but there is one on the ultra however you do have 128 gigabytes of onboard storage but you don't have the option to go up to 512 gigabytes as you do on the ultra there's also a little bit less ram here 8 gigabytes instead of 12 but that's still pretty good so now you know the basic specs what's different what's the same and we come down to the question which one do you buy regular note 20 or the note 20 ultra and this is my dilemma because i actually prefer the note 20 ultra i think that it is a slightly better phone if you're gonna buy a phone why not buy the most expensive phone that you can afford however i think that it's too expensive at thirteen hundred dollars and then you've got the regular note 20 here and it has all of the core specs that really matter it is a good solid phone and i do recommend it however i still don't really think it's worth paying a thousand dollars for that's a sticking point for me i have a hard time recommending that you pay a thousand dollars for a phone with a plastic backing i think that is a premium price and you should have a top quality product not that the quality isn't there but design wise this is definitely the lesser phone but at the same time i don't think it's necessarily worth 300 extra dollars to buy the note 20 ultra just for the glass backing the micro sd card slot that you may or may not use the faster screen refresh rate that you may or may not notice and even 5x optical zoom although i absolutely prefer the photos that come out of the note 20 ultra again it is hard to swallow thirteen hundred dollars for the note 20 ultra and did i also mention it is a big heavy pocket buster so you really have to love a big phone to want it that said if you find a deal for the note 20 ultra where you're actually paying the price of the regular note 20 i would take it and consequently if you can find a really good deal on the regular note 20 that maybe brings it down say closer to 700 800 and a lot of those deals are going to be constantly around the corner trade-ins buy one get ones all sorts of offers then i would consider that but i would not pay full retail for either of these here is another wrench that i am going to throw in your phone buying plans if you don't think that you're going to use the stylus much anyway and if all you're interested in is those core features on a phone with a nice design that has good solid cameras excellent performance long battery life big screen then i'm gonna actually recommend the samsung galaxy s20 fe or fan edition that phone has a 6.5 inch screen with 120 hertz refresh rate if that's something that you're interested in the camera has 3x optical zoom just like the regular note 20 here it also has a 4500 milliamp hour battery so you're gonna get long lasting all-day battery life and it retails for 700. the s20 fe is the smartest buy if not the flashiest phone but if you truly have your heart set on one of the note phones either the ultra or the regular my advice to you is pretty simple buy the one that has the best price the day that you're ready to purchase it if you need more help deciding between all of these phones go to cnet and read our fully rated reviews\n"