The Galaxy Note20 series has been announced for a few months at this point, and we’re revisiting it again – particularly the Note20. This is a rather “controversial” phone by Samsung, and let’s just talk about it since all the hype has lowered down now.
Firstly, this isn’t particularly a “review” like what we always do. I mean, I’m sure that you already know what’s the Note20 is all about. Instead, we’re going to talk about what makes this phone “controversial” and if you should actually buy this phone or not.
Controversy #1
The plastic back. I honestly don’t care about it being a plastic back or not. It’s actually more functional because it is just more flexible – which means it’s more resistant to drops. One way to gauge this is through Young’s Modulus – a measure of stress/strain to measure a material’s flexibility. Thinking about this objectively and with facts and not with feelings – polycarbonate is more flexible than glass.
But then again, Samsung – you’re charging this much for a phone, people do expect a glass back instead of a plastic one.
Controversy #2
The chipset. Yes, the general consensus now is that the Exynos 990 chipset is not as good as Snapdragon 865 – and objectively I agree yet it’s also over-exaggerated. I use the S20+ with the Exynos 990 chipset as my daily driver, set to 120Hz. I charge it every night, like how I always do. And every night, I still have about 40% battery left.
I personally don’t play games on my phone and that’s okay. This is how I use my phone.
Controversy #3
The lack of high refresh rate support. I personally don’t care. I don’t need to scroll Facebook at 90Hz or 120Hz. There is another argument here is that the S Pen on the Note20 can’t reach the 9ms response time as claimed on the Note20 Ultra. To which I say – dude, you’re not living in slow motion. I doubt anyone can feel the difference.
But it’s better in other aspects
What’s better is that the Note20 is using a flat-screen instead of curved edges – which means finding a tempered glass screen protector for this phone will be much easier!
But the punch hole for the selfie camera is also glaringly big – not an issue since I ignore that cutout real fast. It just looks odd that the cutout is so big.
What’s not big here is the camera bump – and the phone can still take some beautiful shots like any other Samsung phone.
Should you but the Note20 then?
And that’s the big question of the day. Well… let’s take a look at the launch prices. To reiterate it again – launch prices. The Note20 comes in two variants – 4G and 5G. The 4G variant starts at RM3,899 whereby the 5G variant starts at RM4,299.
I personally don’t recommend the 5G variant because we Malaysians aren’t getting 5G any time soon, and the pandemic isn’t helping at all in terms of deployment time.
But then Samsung announced the S20 FE. Within the announcement of the S20 FE, Samsung also mentioned that there will be more “FE” versions of their flagship phones.
I absolutely love the S20 FE and you can check out our review of that phone, its gaming potential, and also how it helped me to get by around the office every day – and it’s priced at only RM3,399 (launch price).
Comparing the launch prices, this makes the Note20 priced at a weirdly expensive position. It’s RM500 more expensive than the S20 FE but with lesser hardware but comes with the S Pen.
But in our Note20 Ultra’s review, we said to wait a few months for the price to simmer and lower down. Today is already that “few months” and you can get the Note20 4G as low as RM2,969! Yet I still recommend you to hold on to your wallets first – if you can.
My reason here is because of the alleged existence of the Galaxy Note20 FE. We think there’s a high chance it’s coming, but when? Samsung did make a statement saying there are more “FE” versions of their flagship phones in the future but when?
Until then, the Note20 is still a perfectly good phone on its own.
Where to buy?
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