[Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Guides, News, & Discu] AndroidPurity:
Recently famous tech review channel "Unbox Therapy" posted a first impressions unboxing video of the Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra.

While comparing the 2 devices he happened to noticed when comparing the 2 models that the display of the ULTRA was way LESS vivid and LESS bright than the STANDARD Note 20.

He confirmed both were set to 100% brightness, both had adaptive brightness OFF, both were set to Vivid Screen Mode, and both had the white point in the center.

You can view the video and see the difference yourself in the video here....

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/5IPvqS0NTzU[/YOUTUBE]

Time stamp 8:50 if you just want to jump right when he realizes the display difference between them, and starts to troubleshoot this strange difference.

I was planning on potentially preordering the Note 20 Ultra so this really bothered me since I prefer a Vivid display. It shows on video he checked every setting except "Adaptive Color Filter" and "Enhanced Video."

My Testing and Results

So I knew I had to go to the store to see for myself and I went to Best Buy today and they had both the Note 20 & Note 20 Ultra on display.

Bad news... SAME exact results that Lew from Unbox Therapy had. See the pictures of all settings and testing I did below.

In all pictures the Note 20 Ultra is on the Left, the Standard Note 20 on the Right.

Brightness at Max for both displays, and Adaptive Brightness disabled for both devices, and Blue Light Filter disabled for both devices, and both devices set to Vivid mode.

Display Settings

Adaptive Color was also disabled on both devices.

Adaptive Color Filter

Notice the Standard Note 20 on the right has a brighter white point.

White Balance Comparison

This is a 4K UHD wallpaper I downloaded onto both devices. It's the exact same image from the same website. Notice that the Standard Note 20 on the right has more Vivid looking colors with better contrast.

Color Comparison

CONCLUSION:

After spending literally 30+ minutes standing there playing around with both phones, it seems the brightness is pretty close to the same on both. But the Standard Note 20 did seem to have a slight edge on 100% brightness. However the main big difference is the Standard Note 20 has more Vivid colors and Higher Contrast.

I do not think this is because the Note 20 Ultra display is not able to produce colors and contrast as Vivid as the Regular Note 20. I believe it just has to do with the display calibration in the hard coded software of the Ultra that is causing the colors to be more Natural than Vivid.

I came to the conclusion it was a software issue when I was watching the same YouTube video on both displays (Video Enhancer was disabled for both devices), and when playing the video the Ultra suddenly kicked into a more Vivid mode making it look nearly identical to the Regular Note.

Then when closing out of the video and to the YouTube home page it went back to a more Natural color and less contrast mode. Of course that was strange since video enhancer was disabled for both devices.

So this proves the display is capable of being Vivid with High Contrast, but just something in software that Samsung needs to calibrate in the Ultra model. Or maybe worse... potentially this was intentional by Samsung to help preserve battery since it is a 120hz display?

So Samsung needs to.... 1.) Crank up the Vividness of the Vivid mode to at least be Equal to the Standard Note and 2.) Fix video enhancement from turning on during YouTube videos when it's disabled in settings.

So I'm holding off to make a decision on whether to preorder or not since there is still about 12 days left. Meanwhile I hope that they push out a early release software update to fix the Vivid color profile on the Ultra. This is technically preproduction software so it COULD change with a software update, but there's of course no guarantee Samsung will fix this.

So if you prefer a Vivid display that Samsung is typically known for, then it is up to us as consumers to bring this to the attention of Samsung and popular Tech Reviewers, because Samsung doesn't know to fix this color calibration in software unless we make noise to let them know we want a Vivid display.

What is everyone's thoughts on this? Would this be a deal breaker for you on a $1,300 phone if the Vivid Colors and Contrast is noticeably less when compared to your Note 10+ or your S10/S10+ or S20/S20+? or do you prefer a more natural less vivid display?

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Sidenote.....

Hopefully also [MENTION=5910867]dylanraga[/MENTION] does a detailed display test on the Note 20 Ultra just like the awesome job he did with the OnePlus 8 Pro right here. That way we can see the actual technical results to further our evidence to bring to Samsung's attention.

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Further Confirmation of This Issue....

I asked Hayato Huseman (videographer/reviewer at Android Central) if he could check his Note 20 Ultra device. He did not have a regular Note 20 to compare, but confirmed the Note 20 Ultra is LESS Vivid than the S20 Ultra.

So that means people upgrading from a previous Galaxy will potentially be upgrading to a Less Vivid display in the Note 20 Ultra.

Very interesting and disappointing results for me personally. So now Unbox Therapy, and now Hayato from Android Central, and my personal testing have all confirmed the Note 20 Ultra isn't as Vivid as standard Note or Galaxys. I'm hoping a software update gets pushed out to resolve this.

Here is the Tweet where Hayato confirms this comparison if anyone wants to check it out.

https://twitter.com/hayatohuseman/status/1292588939195318273?s=19

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New Update!!! Some Note 20 Ultras might have dimmer and less vibrant display than other Note 20 Ultras.

This entire post was originally dedicated to the Note 20 Ultra having a less bright and less vivid display than the standard Note 20, and even the Note 10 Plus, Note 9, Note 8, S20/S20+/S20 Ultra, and OnePlus 8 Pro.

However this issue just took a more crazy turn for the worse. Now it has been discovered that some Note 20 Ultra phones have dimmer less vibrant displays than other Note 20 Ultra phones. Thats right... 2 of the same phones with [different looking displays. This was discovered thanks to Zack at JerryRigEverything YouTube channel when he was testing the 2 different processors.

Check out his video here [YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/XU52BmNR8q4[/YOUTUBE]

At time stamp 4:05 he says... "You might have also noticed the screen color is a bit different with both phones. I'm pretty sure I have the brightness turned up all the way on each. But it makes you wonder if there are other components that don't match up between the variants as well."

I have also attached a picture on page 6 of a post to show the difference. My Note 20 Ultra is a US Snapdragon variant and my display looks like the display on the left (Zach's exynos). I also noticed today that adaptive brightness is NOT fully turning off. I thought a few times over the past couple weeks I saw my display suddenly get brighter or dimmer. But I figured it was just my imagination because I always keep the adaptive brightness off.

However I am able to consistently reproduce it. If I put the brightness at 100% with adaptive brightness Off, then open chrome, the phone immediately dims 1 second after. Then brightens back at the home screen. Try it on your phone. Maybe the out of wack adaptive brightness is a separate issue, or maybe this could be the culprit to these dimmer less vivid displays. So I wanted to mention it too.

I also was able to reproduce it in a different scenario by putting my phone inches away from a bright light in my bathroom while on 100% manual brightness, notice it get brighter without me touching anything, then take it away from the light quickly, then see it dim right in front of my face. Looks like its dropping a solid 20% brightness but the slider doesn't change position. Still shows 100%!

Please test those 2 scenarios on your phone let everyone know if it happens to you too. Also if someone happens to have 2 Note 20 Ultras or know someone who does, then please compare the displays and post 2 pictures. One showing the 2 displays on the google.com homepage in chrome and 1 showing the display section in settings.

Anyone who had a noticeably dimmer display than 1 of your previous Samsung phones made in the past 2 years, then please contact Samsung support and report this. I will be contacting them for the first time about this issue and pushing them for a resolution. Even if that means exchanging for another Note 20 Ultra.