Richard Peterson / CNET
Samsung Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra are packed with great technology that puts these phones right in the elite category next to that Galaxy S20 Plus and iPhone 11 Pro. With 5G connectivity, big screens, and the S-Pen pen, both phones are well-equipped for office life. But how useful are they to photographers? Let's look at the camera functions Galaxy Note 20 and note 20 ultra.
Note the enormous resolution of 20 Ultra
While both phones have a triple camera on the back, the Note 20 Ultra has the superior specs. The biggest upgrade concerns the resolution of the main camera, which reaches 108 megapixels on the Ultra for an improved zoom, which I will discuss in a moment. The main camera of the normal Note has a resolution of 12 megapixels.
Both phones use optical image stabilization on their main camera lenses, which is supposed to help keep still images looking nice and sharp, and hopefully minimize camera shake when recording video.
Note 20 zoom lenses
The telephoto zoom lens of the Note 20 Ultra has a 12-megapixel optical zoom that offers a 5x zoom level. The Note 20's standard telephoto lens has a 64-megapixel zoom lens for 3x hybrid zoom (optical and digital cropping).
But that's not the end of the story, as the Ultra can leverage the enormous resolution of its main sensor to offer zoom levels up to 50x. It's not quite up to the level Samsung got with the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which used a 48-megapixel "folded" lens to get a whopping 100x zoom. That said, we weren't impressed with the quality of Pictures taken with the S20 Ultra at 100x zoomSo 50x on the Note 20 Ultra is probably more than enough.
Richard Peterson / CNET
Wide angle lenses
The Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra are on par with their super wide-angle lenses, with both sharing the same 12-megapixel lens. On paper, this is the same ultra-wide-angle lens as the S20 Ultra, so we would expect the performance to be similar here.
8K video
Both phones can record video in a full 8K resolution at 24 frames per second, surpassing the 4K resolution currently available on most other high-end phones. But it's not just about dissolution. Samsung has provided the Notes with Pro-Video options that allow you to manually control the settings. You can also shoot in an aspect ratio of 21: 9, which gives your footage a more cinematic, widescreen look.
The optical image stabilization on both phones' main cameras is designed to help keep your footage nice and fluid. It is not yet clear whether you can use stabilization when recording at full 8K resolution, but we will test this when we have the phones in our hands.
Note 20 selfie cameras
This is the same playing field as the 12-megapixel Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra front cameras. They are single lenses, similar to the single lens on the front of the S20 Ultra. It may have been nice to see a wide-angle camera that lets you get more friends into a group shot. Given that Note is the more business- and productivity-centric lineup in the Samsung lineup, it may come as no surprise that adding more selfie options isn't high on your priority list.