The galaxy s22 ultra is now samsung's latest flagship smartphone but how does it stack up to the note 20 ultra now that it has that built-in s pen let's find out yes the note 20 ultra is from 2020 but it's still an absolute beast of a smartphone so whether you're deciding if the s22 ultra is worth the upgrade .
You're deciding between the two or just generally galaxy curious in this video i'm going to compare everything about these two phones from their overall performance design display s pen camera performance battery life and lots more you can jump straight ahead to specific sections with time codes in the description below of course your first .
Decision might come down to the price the note 20 ultra is of course an older device so it's generally going to be found for cheaper than the s22 ultra especially once you take into account things like discounts and trade-in value i have provided latest pricing and availability with links in the description below okay let's go .
Let's kick things off with the design and the display now i'm not going to beat around the bush here samsung has basically got the worst disguise ever with that s22 ultra name it's like it's walked into a party and be like hey everybody i'm the s22 ultra and the note series turns around and it's like no you're absolutely the note 22 ultra and .
You're not going to convince me otherwise really i can hardly tell the difference between these two especially now the s pen is integrated in the s22 ultra look at them from the front it's so hard to tell the difference really the key giveaway is that the note 20 ultra has that 6.9 inch display whereas the s22 ultra is slightly more squat .
With this 6.8 inch display but really they look the same at the front but flip things over and take a look at the back now the s22 ultra is one good looking phone and i honestly never thought i would say that about the s series i've always been a note gal i can totally admit that bias here but the note 20 ultra that camera domino effect .
Never really did it for me so i'm really pleased to see that the s22 ultra is more balanced in the hand and obviously when you're placing it on a table without a case and you're trying to write on the screen with the s pen it's a little less rocky on the s22 ultra than it is on the note that being said i am going to err on the side of caution .
And always be putting a case on these two babies just because hey they're expensive phones and b i'm clumsy and the newer generation of gorilla glass victus plus on the s22 ultra versus just the regular victor's version on the note 20 ultra well i still don't want to test that out for myself .
Now both of these screens look absolutely fantastic and despite differences in the refresh rates and resolutions and the overall brightness they're really very very similar in terms of that dynamic amoled display and overall performance the s22 ultra does get a little bit brighter at 1750 nits compared to 1500 on the note 20 ultra .
And also when you are using them in broad daylight i did notice it was a lot easier to see the s22 ultra at maximum brightness both the screen support and adaptive 120 hertz refresh rate however it's only available at the maximum wqhd plus resolution on the s22 ultra while this phone does have wqhd plus resolution you're not able to use 120hz .
With it however there is kind of a workaround that i've been enjoying since i've been using the note 20 ultra using bixby routines so every time i open the gallery app to look at photos videos or use youtube it will switch automatically to the wqhd plus resolution at 60 hertz and for all other apps i stick to 120 hertz at the lower res there is another .
Kind of adb workaround that is probably a little bit more effective to getting 120 hertz on this device at all times however it's probably beyond the scope of most users but it's on google if you're interested in trying it out so starting things off with overall performance now the note 20 ultra is one of those special phones for me and you .
Know why i'm going to go on my rant again here over everybody because it's the last samsung phone along with the s20 fe and the z fold 2 to support mst or magnetic secure transmission this is that magic samsung technology that they bought a couple years ago that allows you to use your phone at any terminal that does not accept nfc or contactless .
Payments most of the world is moving to nfc i know but i still love this phone because it's the last one that has it samsung pay on this phone does not support mst it just has regular nfc for contactless payments maybe you can maybe you don't but that's a big reason why i still love the note 20 ultra and another reason because it's also .
One of the last phones that has micro sd expandable storage maybe you're like lexi just get out of the past you're saying with your headphone jack you got over that maybe you'll get over there micro sd maybe i will but not today now samsung did try and soften the blow with the s22 ultra by offering some .
Discounts on this storage but that's not going to be necessarily the case going forward and considering that these phones shoot 8k video among all the other things they can do it just i'm just bummed out still that there's no expandable storage then there's the question of processor again depending on where you live in the .
World the s22 ultra uses the snapdragon 8 gen 1 or exynos 2200 whereas the note 20 ultra uses the snapdragon 865 plus or exynos 990. if you've watched any of my previous videos you'll know that i don't really like to talk about the benchmark numbers specifically as something on paper doesn't necessarily stack up to real-world performance instead i like to .
Do some side-by-side tests around some more resource intensive tasks say like cutting down an 8k video shot on both of these phones same video same length of time cutting it down using the internal gallery tool i could find that the 8k video was cut down slightly more quickly on the s22 ultra by a second or so using a third-party editing tool like splice .
The s22 ultra actually cut down a 4k video significantly faster with the same edits about 5 seconds faster than the note 20 ultra s pen time love that click as i said s22 ultra first s series with the s pen integrated into it samsung was getting us ready with the s21 ultra that i .
Didn't look anything like this phone it's still for all intents and purposes the note 22 ultra because the functionality between s pens on both of these devices is the same they also look the same in terms of the pen itself the position in the body what happens when you unclick the pen you get that s pen menu you can use the s pen as a remote .
Shadow release which is my personal favorite there's also air actions so you can use the s pen to say navigate web pages or interact with the phone without touching the screen it also has translate to text and ar doodle and being able to write on the screen when the phone is locked and anecdotally the s pen does feel a little bit more .
Responsive on the newer phone compared to the note 20 ultra but that being said i've been using the note for a lot longer and it's kind of like an old pair of slippers comfortable i don't know exactly what i'm getting maybe it's all in my head but the s22 ultra that latency yeah it's a little bit more like a fancy pair of heels louboutins .
Sleek faster sexier alright time to dive into camera performance let's take a look at some of the side by side images from both of the phones as you probably know both of these phones have a 108 megapixel main rear sensor using a technique called pixel .
Binning that helps to generate smaller 12 megapixel files if you choose now in good lighting conditions both of these are going to produce great results at 12 megapixels there's really no surprises there the s22 ultra picture defaults have been tweaked a little bit so with the jpegs it does look like they have a tiny bit more contrast and saturation .
Than those same shots from the note but at 108 megapixels you can definitely see the shot on the s22 ultra is sharper around edges of foreground objects with less fall off than the note 20 ultra like on the sign now the s22 ultra uses an ultra wide a main rear camera a three times and 10 times optical zoom camera going out to 100 times maximum the note .
20 ultra has an ultra wide a main rear camera a five times optical camera and then goes out to 50 times maximum look neither of these look great at their maximum space zoom but at least you can get a little closer on the s22 ultra i really do like having the flexibility of three and ten times optical zoom on .
The newer phone compared to just one optical zoom at five times on the note but that being said the digital zoom or hybrid zoom at 10 times on the note is pretty good and i wouldn't be that upset if that's as far as i wanted to go the biggest differences i noticed on the cameras of these two phones came down to actually portraits and selfies .
Surprisingly portrait mode is better on the s22 ultra there's more detail and the subject separation is a lot better now it also uses the three times camera compared to two times on the note and this actually helps produce i think a cleaner looking image as well for selfies the s22 ultra has a 40 megapixel front-facing camera the note .
Has a 10 megapixel camera but you know resolution aside it's really the photo processing that plays the most difference and the photo modes on both of these phones on the front-facing camera are slightly different i did try and keep them as consistent as possible by using either the standard or natural effect on both but i really do prefer .
The look of the s22 ultra selfies they do have a little bit better dynamic range and they also have a little bit better shadow detail as well especially on things like say the shadow from my hat for example and the note does tend to sort of over sharpen selfies a little bit i'd prefer the s22 ultra here night photos now this one was definitely not .
As dramatic as i was expecting or as dramatic as all of the marketing material would make you believe the s22 ultra note 20 ultra are very similar when it comes to low light that being said the s22 ultra i think does have a more natural night mode effect it doesn't brighten the scene as much or as uniformly as the note does you might .
Like the look of the note a little bit more it's more of a true i guess night mode feel but it does feel more natural on the newer phone it's also a little bit more sharp at a hundred percent magnification on the s22 ultra but then it kind of flips because when you're using the 108 megapixel sensor without night mode i actually prefer the note .
Shots like what's going on i don't understand how is the older phone producing a nicer looking 108 megapixel shot in low light beats me and finally video now yes both the phones shoot 8k 24 frames a second but most people are probably just sticking to shooting 4k 60 side by side the video .
Image looks fairly similar i would say the s22 ultra the image does look a little bit cleaner overall and it does look like stabilization is slightly better for say walking shots but don't forget if you want to use super steady stabilization that's only available at 1080p resolution on both of these phones i did try and stick to 4k just so we .
Could see it you know in all its glory here on the video so there you have it the differences were really not as significant as i was expecting between these two phones especially considering this is almost a year and a half newer than the note good job old note you did me proud .
time to dive into battery life charging and all the other bells and whistles that you get on these two phones okay let's throw ourselves a party because samsung has done some good stuff here because it's brought back 45 watt charging on the s22 ultra like thank you so much the last time we saw .
This you know i thought it would have gone the way of the dodo with the s20 ultra note 10 plus love those phones but it's back it's back baby because this phone has it 25 watts on the note 20 ultra look most people probably don't care and in reality it doesn't make that huge of a difference really but of course i had to do a side by side to .
Show you from flat to fully charged 45 watts 25 watts to see what the difference really was as you know battery life is affected by a number of variables like the processor in the phone as well as your usage patterns how bright the display is etcetera etcetera etcetera i don't want to bore you by talking about battery .
Life variables but under the same parameters the note 20 ultra and s22 ultra were not as dramatic of a difference in battery life as i was expecting even though this has a 5 000 milliampere hour battery and this has a 4500 in terms of my usage patterns and my battery testing i do have the always on display active when the phone is .
Locked i have it set generally to the highest resolution on both 120 hertz refresh on this and my fancy bixby routines trick on the note 20 ultra and about two to three hours of screen on time a day i find the s22 ultra leaves me with about 20 battery remaining at the end of the day whereas the note 20 ultra is more like 15 .
But if i do turn off the always on display on that lock screen i can push it a little bit further and sometimes i can get to overnight and then maybe an hour or two before i do need to charge both of these but overall not as dramatic again as i was expecting these phones also support samsung decks and the functionality is very much the .
Same on both of course being phones we do need to talk about call quality and speaker quality because some of you probably like to take calls on this i guess i mean i definitely do consistently the note series of phones because this one's actually a note i don't care what anyone says it's the note 22 ultra has been consistently one .
Of the best performing phones in terms of phone calls speaker and microphone quality that i've tested i find them very very similar colors always remark that my voice sounds clear and crisp i've also had zero issues with connectivity in san francisco on both of these phones of course that's going to vary depending on your carrier and so on .
But performance has been really really good when out and about the speaker quality itself yes most of you probably don't listen to music blasting loud from your phone but i do like to test it out to test if there is any significant difference s22 ultra maybe sounds a tiny bit clearer when playing a really high .
Fidelity song back from say title but again marginal marginal differences and of course let's talk android updates this one is where the biggest difference is probably going to be for a lot of you because the note 20 ultra being an older device is not going to get as many updates necessarily as this phone .
Because samsung has promised that this will get up to four generations of four years of android updates which is good news the note 20 ultra might as well but there's no guarantees and considering this is an older device i would assume that the support would drop off earlier than the s22 ultra .
Now it comes down to the time where i need to decide which one of these phones is the better buy for me and for you hopefully it will help you make your decision too this one is always a tough one but you know what i'm a note girl i can 100 admit that bias and the s22 ultra has completely won me .
Over because it's a note 22 ultra again i don't care what anyone says this phone is a beautiful device to use especially if you are looking for a more balanced feel in the hand the screen is fantastic i love being able to have 120 hertz refresh rate without any fancy bells and whistles and tricks behind the scenes the cameras are great even though as you .
Saw the note 20 ultra really kind of did hold its own except for when it comes to those zoom variants and overall the battery life and performance is excellent so i'm sorry note 20 ultra like we've had a good run but i've got an s22 ultra as always thank you so much for watching .
I hope i answered all your questions for you if not you can always leave me a comment down below find me on your favorite social media app and you can also check out the latest pricing and availability of these phones in the description below thanks for watching i'm gonna go and take my note 22 ultra for a spin .
See ya
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You can see the products featured in this video here 👇 Galaxy S22 Ultra: https://bit.ly/3tyXZPi Galaxy Note 20 Ultra: https://bit.ly/3KG67ED *CNET may get a commission from these offers. The Galaxy S22 Ultra is Samsung’s flagship phone, but how does it stack up to the Note 20 Ultra now that it’s got a built-in S Pen? Lexy compares these two Galaxy smartphones on performance, camera quality, battery life, screens and design to help you decide between the two. 00:00 – Galaxy S22 Ultra vs. Note 20 Ultra 01:04 – Design & Display 04:07 – Performance 06:30 – S Pen 07:50 – Camera Performance 12:06 – Battery Life 15:47 – Lexy’s Pick Follow Lexy: https://www.instagram.com/lexysavvides/ Subscribe to CNET: https://www.youtube.com/user/CNETTV Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cnet Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/cnet Follow us on Instagram: http://bit.ly/2icCYYm Follow us on TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMd2h6yac/