If you're holding on to a Galaxy Note, Samsung has a message for you: It's time to upgrade to a new phone. And the phone maker just so happens to have a replacement device in mind in the form of the newly released Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Samsung definitely has a point about upgrading from the aging Note phablet. The very last Galaxy Note models released — the Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra — will be celebrating their fourth birthday later this year. That's a long time to hold on to one phone, even in an era where the length of time between upgrades has gotten extended.
There's no way of telling just how many Galaxy Note 20 models are still out in the wild being used by holdouts. But apparently there are enough that Samsung felt compelled to publish a five-point argument on why those people should cast aside their Notes in favor of the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Like I said, Samsung's right about upgrading sooner rather than later. Whether that upgrade needs to be a Galaxy S24 Ultra, however, is a more debatable point. So if you've got a Galaxy Note 20 and a burning desire to see how phones have improved this decade, which models should you be considering instead?
Samsung's case for the Galaxy S24 Ultra
A lot of the arguments Samsung puts forward on behalf of a Galaxy S24 Ultra make perfect sense since they can basically be boiled down to the assertion that chipsets and cameras have improved a lot since the summer of 2020. The Galaxy Note 20 delivered outstanding performance and superior photos for its time, the argument goes, and so does the Galaxy S24 Ultra these days.
That's especially the case when we're talking about the respective phones' chipsets. The Snapdragon 865 Plus powering the Note 20 Ultra certainly provided a lot of processing muscle, but it was no match for the A13 Bionic silicon powering the iPhone at the time. These days however, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that Samsung uses for the Galaxy S24 Ultra can hold its own against Apple's chipsets, even topping the A17 Pro found in the iPhone 15 Pro models in some of our Galaxy S24 Ultra benchmarks. The latest Snapdragon also helps the S24 Ultra post the best time ever for a Samsung flagship in our battery test.
Samsung's upgrade argument also hinges heavily on the Galaxy AI features introduced with the S24 lineup. In particular, Samsung wisely highlights the AI features in the S24's built-in Notes app that allow you to auto-format notes and get AI-powered summaries complete with bullet points about the note's contents. For productivity-minded Galaxy Note users, this surely is a tempting pitch. (It also helps that the notes features are among the most polished of the Galaxy AI capabilities.)
Samsung also points out how much better the S Pen is these days, touting a 68% reduction in latency compared to the Note 20's stylus. This is technically correct — the best kind of correct, Futurama assures us — but it papers over the fact that those improvements to responsiveness came with the Galaxy S22 Ultra two years ago. Since then, it's been all quiet on the S Pen front. Again, though, if you're upgrading from an older phone like the Galaxy Note 20, you really don't care when the improvements were introduced, just that they're present.
Is the Galaxy S24 Ultra the right upgrade option for Note users?
Samsung's argument for the Galaxy S24 Ultra assumes three things. First, you are ride or die with Samsung phones, even though other devices such as the OnePlus 12 may beat the S24 Ultra in some areas. Second, you want a phone with a big screen. Third, you can't live without that S Pen.
We'll concede the first point that Galaxy Note upgraders are inclined to consider Samsung devices first and foremost. As for the last point, yes — if no S Pen is a deal-breaker for you, then you're pretty much committed to the Ultra, since the only other stylus-supporting device in Samsung's lineup is the Galaxy Z Fold 5. It's a great foldable phone, but at $1,799, the Fold is even more expensive than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, even after Samsung raised the Ultra's price.
It's that price hike that I think might give some Galaxy Note owners pause about upgrading. If you're still using a phone you bought in 2020, one of the reasons may be that you're hesitant to drop big bucks on a new model. And as great as the Galaxy S24 Ultra is, $1,299 is a lot to spend on a new phone.
Maybe not for Galaxy Note 20 Ultra owners, who spent that very amount on their phablet in 2020. And maybe not for people who are able to reap big savings by taking advantage of the top Galaxy S24 Ultra deals. But I have a sinking suspicion that some owners of the standard Note 20 may not want to pay four figures for a new phone, even if it does include their beloved S Pen.
So what's a Galaxy Note owner to do if they think that $999 is more than enough to pay for a phone, thanks very much? Assuming that they're not wedded to the idea of the S Pen, I feel like the Galaxy S24 Plus is a perfectly fine big-screen alternative.
My colleague John Velasco makes a compelling argument that the S24 Plus is a much better value than the Ultra, so I'll just summarize that here. Though the Plus model costs $300 less than the Ultra, it shares many of the same features.
Both the S24 Plus and S24 Ultra base models come with 256GB of storage, and they're both powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. (That's provided you're buying your phone in North America; elsewhere, the Galaxy S24 Plus uses an Exynos 2400 chipset.) The Galaxy S24 Plus charges at the same 45W wired charging speeds as the Ultra, and its time on our battery test was only 13 minutes off the S24 Ultra's pace. These are two phones that both rank highly on our best phone battery life list.
The Galaxy S24 Plus also shares all those Galaxy AI features you'll find on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. (So does the regular Galaxy S24, as a matter of fact, but I'm going to guess that a phone with a 6.2-inch screen is a non-starter for Note fans.) The smaller bezels on the S24 series mean the Plus model now offers a 6.7-inch panel, the same as the Note 20, so there's no downgrade to screen size. Again, all you're really giving up is the S Pen compatibility and the longer telephoto lens that comes with the S24 Ultra — and frankly, the telephoto lens on this year's model feels like a step back.
Which Galaxy S24 model should Note users pick?
In essence, it all comes down to the S Pen and whether having one is worth an extra $300 to you. Otherwise, there's nothing significant separating the Galaxy S24 Plus and Ultra models.
So Samsung is right in one respect — it's definitely time for Note users to grab a new phone and reap the benefits of 3-plus years of mobile enhancements. But which phone you should get isn't as clear-cut as Samsung has made it seem.
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