Note 20 Ultra Less Vivid & Less Bright than Note 20
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....
https://youtu.be/5IPvqS0NTzU
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 Picture Click Here
Adaptive Color was also disabled on both devices.
Adaptive Color Filter Picture Click Here
Notice the Standard Note 20 on the right has a brighter white point.
White Balance Comparison Picture Click Here
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 Picture Click Here
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 current phone? or do you prefer a more natural less vivid display?