The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 offers all the utility of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra without some bells and whistles to come in at a more acceptable price, making it a more practical choice for buyers primarily concerned with productivity.
 
The Galaxy Note 20 is infused with just enough Samsung pedigree to be worth consideration but was initially dragged down by a laundry list of compromises and an indefensibly high price tag. Now regularly found for less than $700, it's a far more palatable offering for those that want a stylus-toting flagship on a budget, though it's a far cry from Samsung's best.
 
Samsung’s premium smartphone strategy is in flux. Between its ever-expanding foldable phone portfolio and obscenely spec’d devices under the “Ultra” branding, it’s easy to forget about the Galaxy Note family and in particular 2020’s standard Note model — the Galaxy Note 20.
2019 marked the first year where Samsung offered two Note series phones at the same time. Rather than settle into a pattern, the South Korean giant switched things up again in 2020. The Note 20 Ultra — a monstrous phone with a monstrous price tag — usurped the short-lived Note “Plus” line. But where does that leave the non-Ultra model, the Galaxy Note 20, especially after Samsung skipped the Note line entirely in 2021?
The Galaxy Note 10 changed the identity of the vanilla Note lineage, offering what some considered to be a watered-down take on the Note formula. However, if the Note 10 was a confusing smartphone, the Galaxy Note 20 remains an outright confounding one.
 
Face on, the Galaxy Note 20 looks unmistakably like a Galaxy Note phone. Instead of continuing the Note 10’s shrunken take on Samsung’s phablet formula, the Note 20 is a big boi.
 
It also sports the Note series’ rectangular-style and, of course, a pop-out S Pen stylus. The front glass melds effortlessly into the metal frame, the hardware buttons — a standard power key and volume rocker — are firm yet tactile, and every time you remove or dock the S Pen there’s a subtle vibration which is a nice reminder of the phone’s perfectly measured haptics.
 
The Galaxy Note 20 oozes the kind of finesse and delicate attention to detail that you’d expect from the world’s most successful smartphone maker. And then you turn the phone around.
 
Rather than the ubiquitous glass sandwich build, the Note 20 opts for a rear casing with a brushed-like feel that Samsung calls “glasstic.” We’ve seen this material on a handful of mid-tier Galaxy A series phones. It looks like plastic and it feels like plastic. If you tap it, it sounds like plastic and if you press on it, it compresses like plastic. Why? Because it is plastic.
 
The overall caliber is impeccable then, but sadly there are compromises here too. The least impactful concession is the 1080p maximum resolution. It’d be fair to expect Quad HD in this price bracket, but even on a display this size it’s hard to tell the difference unless you actively look for one.
In fact, if you’re really into tech and you’re using a modern Samsung flagship you’ve probably set your phone to 1080p to take advantage of the higher refresh rate — and there’s the rub. The Galaxy Note 20 is a 60Hz panel. For a phone ostensibly designed for power users, this is a shocking omission that makes navigation on the Note 20 feel sluggish. Other Samsung phones ask for a trade-off: lower resolution for a faster refresh rate, up to as much as 120Hz. The Note 20 is the worst of both worlds.