The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 phones one of the biggest devices coming towards the end of 2020, and with the Galaxy S20 handsets out the way the Notes are the next big releases expected from Samsung.
Other phones we expect to see in 2020:
The Samsung Galaxy S20, as well as the S20 Plus and S20 Ultra, constitute Samsung’s first flagship phones of the year, and we’d expect a lot of the tech shown off in them to come in the Galaxy Note 20 phones. The DNA of the Notes might also be affected by the Galaxy Note 10 Lite launched in January 2020, which was the first ever chance to pick up an S Pen stylus phone for cheap, beckoning in a future of affordable stylus phones.
So the potential existence of a Galaxy Note 20 Lite means Samsung has the opportunity to create a truly top-end phone in its ‘Plus’ model, which could be as big or even bigger than the 6.9 inches of the Galaxy S20 Ultra.
Before the Samsung Galaxy S20 came out we were expecting it to be called the S11, and we were also expecting this phone to be the Note 11, although that seems unlikely now. Saying that, some of the early phone leaks refer to the Note 11, but that’s just referring to this handset.
So you can have an idea of what’s to come with the Samsung Galaxy Note 20, we’ve collected every leak we’ve heard so far. On top of that we’ve got a wishlist of what we want to see in the Samsung Galaxy Note 20. Since the stylus is so central to the phone’s identity, we want to see the S Pen become a true extension of the device: more physical controls, more reason to pull it out of the phone.
Latest story: The Samsung Galaxy Note 20’s in-screen fingerprint sensor might be much bigger than in previous models, meaning using it to unlock your phone isn’t as much of a hassle as you may be used to.
Cut to the chase
- What is the Samsung Galaxy Note 20? The next stylus-packing flagship phone from Samsung.
- When is the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 launch date? Probably August 2020.
- How much will the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 cost? The price may be around $949 / £869 / AU$1,499
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 release date and price
Given previous phones in the line came out in August or September of their year, we’re expecting the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 to be released in August 2020. We haven’t heard any leaks or rumors, though.
One thing we can be confident of is that it’s coming, and this year. Not only because Samsung always releases its Note handsets on a yearly cycle, but because the company has now specifically said that a new Note is on the way in 2020.
As for cost, the Note 10 was released at a starting price of $949 / £869 / AU$1,499, so we’d expect a starting pricetag around there or even higher. The larger Note 10 Plus cost $100 / £130 / AU$200 more, so we expect a similar price jump for the inevitable Note 20 Plus. This price scheme has become pretty standard for top-tier flagship phones.
It’s likely that Samsung’s flagship phones will come with 5G capability across the whole range – the Snapdragon 865 chipset is expected to be at the heart of the almost all 2020 flagship Android phones, and Qualcomm’s new chipset is coupled with a 5G modem.
That brings up an issue for all 5G phones in 2020. The Note 10 Plus 5G was sold by Verizon in the US for $1,299 (around £974 / AU$1,888), so we’d expect a higher-than-normal price tag for any 5G-capable version of the Note 20.
Should I wait for the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 or buy a discounted Samsung Galaxy Note 10 now?
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 release date is still months away, if the August 2020 launch window stays constant, so you should probably consider the discounted Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10 Plus if you need a new stylus phone in the next days, weeks or even months.
In an ordinary year, this is a long time to wait anyway – like, say, if you broke your phone and need a replacement ASAP – but it’s possible Samsung’s launch date might be pushed back due to the coronavirus. We don’t know if the phone is far enough along in production that it will avoid these delays, but we’ll report it first here if we find out.
In any case, if you need a new top-tier Samsung phone now (and have ruled out the Galaxy S20 range), you’re looking at the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 or the larger and higher-spec Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus. Here are the best prices in your region:
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 leaks and news
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 is still months away from being released, but there’s been a few potentially revealing leaks that give us a first look at the phone.
Let’s start with something disappointing – there might not be a Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, and it seems there will only be two phones in the range (the ‘base’ device and the Note 20 Plus). However the same source that provided that information suggested the Galaxy Fold 2 could functionally replace the Ultra, acting as the top-end device in the line.
Now, let’s get into some section-specific leaks, news and rumors on the phones:
Design and display
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 screen might curve at the top and bottom as well as the sides, according to one patent, which would make the phone look a lot more pebble-shaped than the Note 10.
A Samsung patent won just after the Samsung Galaxy 20 launch shows a phone with a display that curves all the way to the rear of the body, but with physical buttons that protrude from the curves of the screen. Could this be the Galaxy Note 20? We’re not sure, as it could be a 2021 phone (or never materialize in reality), but we’d hope so.
We’ve also heard that the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 could have a 120Hz refresh rate screen that’s ‘more fine-tuned‘ – they don’t say what it’s more fine-tuned than, but presumably they mean the Galaxy S20.
Either way, this could mean it’s less of a drain on battery, or has better automatic refresh rate detection. We’re not totally sure yet, and the tweeted message was rather cryptic.
Samsung will launch an under display camera phone next year！ not S11, not Fold 2October 17, 2019
The Note 20 could also pack an in-screen front-facing camera, which would sit under the full display instead of within a notch or pin-hole, industry sources told South Korean tech site The Elec – and backed up by a tweet from notable leaker @UniverseIce.
That might seem unlikely, but Samsung itself has released an advert which shows a Note-like phone with no visible camera. You can see it in the video below at the 55-second mark.
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And that’s not the only time it has shown this device. The company also posted an image on its site showing a mystery phone with the same design. You can see it below, it’s the center phone, and again, there’s no visible front-facing camera, which could mean this is built into the screen.
There are of course other options – it could use a pop-up camera, and in the case of the image below it could be in the obscured top left corner (though that’s not an option in the video above).
Or, perhaps most likely, this could just be a generic design, rather than one that shows a real phone. Indeed, reports elsewhere have suggested the in-screen camera tech isn’t ready, so we wouldn’t count on it.
If Samsung does stick with a punch-hole for the Galaxy Note 20 then the company might at least make the most of it though, as five Samsung patents have detailed a status indicator that would either encircle or sit beside a camera cut-out, and could display things like download progress without turning the screen on.
Finally, we’ve seen a Samsung foldable phone patent that seems like the Note 20 – except it’s a foldable phone. While this could suggest Samsung’s new stylus device folds, it seems more likely that the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2, which could come out alongside the Note 20s, will have a stylus too.
Camera
Patents meanwhile suggest the Note 20 might pack a spectrometer – a component that analyzes objects to discover its chemical composition. While it wouldn’t be the first phone to pack the device after the Changhong H2, as pointed out by LetsGoDigital, the Note 20 would be a phone with a much wider release.
Curiously, that’s the only camera or sensor leak we’ve heard so far, so we don’t really know what resolution or lenses the snappers on the phone could have, or if there are any post-processing tricks that will change the way you take photos. Expect more on this front soon, though.
Specs, features and battery
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 will allegedly come with the same Snapdragon 865 chipset that debuted in the Galaxy S20 line – which makes sense, as they’re packed with the Snapdragon X55 modem to enable 5G connectivity.
Saying that, one leaker thinks the phone will come with a Snapdragon 865 Plus processor instead, based on a leaked benchmark test for the device which puts its scores as lower than the iPhone 12’s. Having said that, we’ve elsewhere heard that there won’t be a Snapdragon 865 Plus this year.
Some regions though could get an upgraded chipset in the form of the Exynos 992. Samsung typically uses its own Exynos processors in most regions outside the US, and it’s rumored that an Exynos 992 could be used instead, offering a slight upgraded on both the Exynos 990, used in the Galaxy S20 outside the US, and on the Snapdragon 865.
There might only be 128GB storage in the Samsung Galaxy Note 20, at least in its smallest variant, and there wasn’t a device with this amount in the previous range. That suggests there could be a more budget-focused handset in the range, perhaps a phone that’s ‘Lite’ in all but name (or even ‘Lite’ in name too!).
One source claims that the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 could have a battery of around 4,000mAh – up from 3,500mAh in the Galaxy Note 10. That new size would put it in line with the Samsung Galaxy S20, and would likely mean that the Galaxy Note 20 Plus would also get a bigger battery.
Samsung Galaxy Note 20: what we want to see
Since we haven’t heard many rumors about the Note 20, we’ll speculate as to what we want to see – improvements on last year’s model and innovations we think would set the upcoming phone apart.
1. More capabilities in the S Pen
The S Pen has been the real selling point for the Note series – a stylus tucked neatly in the phone for those who hold a torch for Palm Pilot-style productivity. But aside from a couple of new capabilities introduced over the last couple years – a button that operates as a camera shutter, a few half-baked gestures – the S Pen remains primarily a writing implement.
Instead, we’d love to see the S Pen evolve into more of a proxy for the phone. If they can introduce one button, why not a couple more? It would be very handy to keep the phone in your pocket or perched for video and use the stylus to fiddle with volume and media navigation. Better yet, it would be great if the S Pen was used as a more universal remote across Samsung’s device family – maybe substituting a four-way joystick for the click-top so users can navigate. All we really know is the S Pen is not living up to its potential.
2. ‘Budget flagship’ version
We’re big fans of the Samsung Galaxy S10e and the standard iPhone 11 for their value as budget flagships of their respective lines, and we’d love to see a more affordable version of the Note family. This isn’t a crazy idea – there already seems to be a Note 10 Lite in production, if this leak to is to be believed.
But if a Lite version of the last Note isn’t in the cards, getting one in for the next version would be a great opportunity not just to get the S Pen in more hands, but to play around with the Note design in general. Previous phones in the line are sleek yet wide phablets, but why not take a page out of the Google Pixel 4’s book and give the Lite/budget flagship version a funky look?
3. Better cameras, specs, etc
Like every year, we’re hoping the Note 20 gets improvements on its predecessor – most importantly in the cameras. And since they usually get similar if not identical lens suites as in that year’s Samsung Galaxy S-series, we can hope that the developments coming in the Galaxy S11 get ported to the Note 20.
So the rumor of a 108MP camera headed to the S20 Plus would be great to look forward to in the Note 20 – and in the same report, a 5,000mAh battery. Both are good improvements, and we’d love to see battery life extend to breach two full days, especially with the screen-intensive S Pen functionality.
One thing we pretty much know for sure: the Note 20 will get the same Snapdragon 865 chipset headed to all top-tier Android phones in 2020, which we recently got our hands on – and found it outperformed Apple’s A13 chipset that’s in the iPhone 11 line.
4. Seamless display
While the punch-hole is certainly a less obstructive upgrade from the notch, there are still compromises: we’d love to see a screen without any break whatsoever. That probably means an under-display window for the front-facing lens, which is something a leak actually suggests might happen.
The Note 20 might not end up being the first phone with this development, but given its status as the sleeker design-oriented flagship in Samsung’s lineup, we would like to see that big phablet display go seamless.
5. Cheaper 5G
The Galaxy Note 10 5G cost far more than its 4G counterparts with only minor spec and camera upgrades, putting connectivity to the next-gen networks out of the hands of most folks. It would be great to see this cost shrink, full stop.
2020 probably won’t be the year that every flagship phone comes 5G-capable as a standard, but it’s going to be a lot harder to access if every 5G phone costs half again as much as its standard version. Given the Note line traditionally comes out toward the end of the year, though, Samsung could get ahead of the curve by trimming the price for a 5G Note 20 – and further differentiate it from the upcoming Galaxy S20.