Samsung Galaxy Note 20 review - Overpriced and underbaked - Android

Design: Pain in the glass

• Gorilla Glass 5 (front), plastic (rear)
• IP68 certified
• 161.6 x 75.2 x 8.3mm
• 192g

Face on, the Galaxy Note 20 looks unmistakably like a Galaxy Note phone. Instead of continuing the Note 10’s shrunken take on Samsung’s phablet formula, the Note 20 is a big boi. Not Note 20 Ultra-big, not even Galaxy S20 Plus-big, but still taller than, say, the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

See also: Samsung Galaxy Note series: A history of innovation

It also sports the Note series’ rectangular-style and, of course, a pop-out S Pen stylus. The front glass melds effortlessly into the metal frame, the hardware buttons — a standard power key and volume rocker — are firm yet tactile, and every time you remove or dock the S Pen there’s a subtle vibration which is a nice reminder of the phone’s perfectly measured haptics.

The Galaxy Note 20 oozes the kind of finesse and delicate attention to detail that you’d expect from the world’s most successful smartphone maker. And then you turn the phone around…

Rather than the ubiquitous glass sandwich build, the Note 20 opts for a rear casing with a brushed-like feel that Samsung calls “glasstic.” We’ve seen this material on a handful of mid-tier Galaxy A series phones. It looks like plastic and it feels like plastic. If you tap it, it sounds like plastic and if you press on it, it compresses like plastic. Why? Because it is plastic.

Samsung can dress it up through fancy marketing, but there’s no way to obfuscate the fact that this is a $1,000 phone that’s almost 50% plastic on the outside. That’s not to say there aren’t some advantages to plastic over glass. Plastic doesn’t attract a smorgasbord of smudges and fingerprint smears. Scratches are more common, but nowhere near as problematic as cracked glass. It also means the Note 20 is fairly light — just 192g compared to the Note 20 Ultra’s 208g.

Samsung's glasstic looks like plastic and feels like plastic... because it is plastic.

The front glass also gets a downgrade from the all-new Gorilla Glass Victus found on the Note 20 Ultra. Instead, the vanilla model uses Gorilla Glass 5 to cover the display. That’s the kind of trade-off some may be prepared to make for a $300 price reduction. But when every other part of the Note 20’s design screams premium and you’re trading blows with other immaculate $1,000 devices, the unsatisfying feeling of plastic on your palm — itself exacerbated by the faux-frosted texture — acts as a constant reminder that Samsung cut a huge corner that’s very hard to justify on a flagship phone.

Sadly, the head-scratching design decisions don’t stop there. Like the Galaxy Note 10 before it, the Galaxy Note 20 doesn’t offer expandable storage. However, what’s more puzzling is a seemingly innocuous change from the Note 10 series. The S Pen and bottom-firing speaker are now on the left side of the base of the phone.

The S Pen placement is fine, the speaker location is not. When playing a game or watching a movie my palm always covered the grille. You can still hear what’s going on because there’s a top speaker in the earpiece, but you can kiss stereo audio goodbye. The speakers themselves offer limited depth and bass, but are clear and can get quite loud without distorting.

Related: The best Samsung Galaxy Note 20 cases you can get

The Galaxy Note 20 is by no means a poorly designed phone. In fact, it’s arguably better than the Note 20 Ultra from a pure ergonomics standpoint, as that almighty camera bump isn’t anywhere near as chunky. Yet while the quality standards are broadly excellent, that plastic back represents a trend that defines the Note 20 — not quite premium for a premium price.