Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 128GB Unlocked Android Smartphone – Mystic Black (Renewed)

The last Note with an SD card slot…
I don’t use face recognition so I can’t say how well it works, but for the first week at any rate, the on-screen fingerprint reader has been amazingly easy to use. I don’t use my phone super heavy and it’s not uncommon to have 70% or more battery when I put it on the wireless charger at night, and it’s *significantly* less picky about placement on the wireless charger than the old phone (note 8). The car has wireless charging and it’s also much better charging there; the old one would often not be in the right place and not get any electrons, where this never fails to juice up.I got the Note 20 because it’s the last Note (currently) that has an SD card slot; I’m absolutely against some company gouging me hundreds of dollars extra for a 256GB phone when a 512GB SD card is under 50 bucks. The drawback to that is this phone came with pretty much nothing at all but a charging cable, which isn’t really adding any value. It took me some time to find a way to get the SD card slot open, without their custom tool, because on this phone at least the hole is waaayyyy too small for a paper clip. I finally unwound the spring from an ink pen, which was small enough and stiff enough to release it. Seriously leave out the cable that probably everyone in the world has by now and put that tool in! It’s needed for the SIM even without an SD card.Speaking of SIM, moving my line to this phone was trivially simple. The phone was apparently on T-Mobile previouisly and I’m on Verizon, and everything worked flawlessly right from the phone. Put the SIM in, turned it on, and followed the instructions. Done.I got a Note because, well, I’ve been a Note fanboy since the 4, when my old Droid with the hardware keyboard gave up the ghost, because of the S-Pen. It’s not something I use every day, but when I do use it, there is literally no alternative that works like the S-Pen. If Samsung ever stops putting that on their phone I’ll probably move on to something more affordable.This is my first ever refurb, and this one at least is exactly what one would hope; it physically indistinguishable from a brand new phone. Even close observation in the light reveals no scratches or blemishes, it hasn’t crashed or exhibited any wonky behaviour (knocks on head), and it’s significantly snappier than the old one. That’s not just because it has more resources, I think it’s because the UI has been tweaked. For example when scrolling a long list this phone’s “inertia”, how long it scrolls untouched after a flick up or down, is much higher than the old phone, so it’s considerably faster to browse by scrolling. I’m sure other improvements have been made as well, and together they translate into a much more responsive feel.The OS itself is similar to the Note 8, really, but it has even more bloat and unremovable cruft in it. For exampe there’s “AR” functionality now, but even though I have nothing AR, and if I do it’s highly unlikely I’ll use this phone in conjunction with it. There’s an “AR Zone” that can’t be disabled, can’t be removed, can’t be told not to nag me with notifications, can’t be managed in the slightest. Seriously Samsung, get off your high horse. You don’t know what I want my phone to do; fine if you want to have that enabled by default, why do I care? But can’t disable it or remove all the massively huge list of permissions? Want to rub some salt in there for me? It’s also considerably more in-your-face nagging about things; like I haven’t figured out how to get it to stop nagging me to save passwords for web sites, as if the last fifteen times I’d change my mind. Stuff like that isn’t helpful, it’s obtuse and rude.Migration was a PitA, but that’s normal, so I mention it anecdotally. Samsung’s “Smart Switch” does make it less than heinously atrocious, but “Everything” isn’t (everything), and it still took me days to get all my appointments and other things loaded in. Once I find my browser bookmarks and get them in I’ll finally be done. Least favorite part of getting a new phone is setting the @*&#% up. I can back up and restore a computer with trivial ease but no phone maker yet is smart enough to do that with a phone. Pathetic.I considered only four stars because of the missing SD card tool. Not sure how many folks would be able to figure out how to open it with the hole being about 2/3 the diameter of a paper clip, which is by the way what Verizon recommends using if one can’t find the tool. I have no straight pins so I don’t know if they work, but if I did I’d still want to file the point off to be sure I didn’t damage anything.But overall a VERY happy camper. If you like Android it’s likely you’ll be satisfied with this phone, and if you’ve never had an S-pen you’ll probably be hooked. lol

Terrible refurbishment quality, Terrible refund policy
I rarely write bad reviews but this deserves the hoslnest review im writing here. I bought this phone as excellent quality refurbished and holy moly this phone was far from that. When i opened the box it had all it accessories but this thin slightly greasy film on the front and back of the phone, it was all over it and then the plastic film on the front glass of the phone had a bunch of lint and dust on it. I peeled it of and coukd see all the lint and dirt was on the sticky side that adheres to the phone screen. The screen was scratch free and crack free and so was the rest of the phone. But i noticed the color was off and not as vibrant as my s20 fe phone. The galaxy Note 20 Ultra is a top end high quality phone with high quality display. So to see it noticeabley faded and dull looking compared to my S20 it seemed liked something was wrong. Then i tried taking pictures with it and it did not focous well at all. I took it to a cell phone store and compared it to another used Note 20 ultra and they did not have one but the person at the front visually inspected the camera and took pictures with it and he said the camera needed to be replaced. So i just decided to return this phone and get a refund. The return mailing tracking number verified they have had the phone for over a week and still have not refunded me.. I called and was told anything over 100$ it takes about 3 weeks to a month for a refund. So just a heads up if you are interested in this phone and end up returning it. I was not impressed at all with theyre refurbishment quality. This is the second phone ive bought from amazon and have had the same type of experience. I dont think they know how to refurbish cell phones very well and certaintly not to an excellent or even good quality.

Un celular bastante premium, el que sea reacondicionado no le quita nada a uno nuevo. Estética al 10 y batería y software al 100. Increíble dispositivo.

Tengo exactamente un año de uno del equipo y ninguna falla, la batería dura todo el.dia, la calidad de la cámara es muy buena y lo recibí sin ningún rayón ni defecto lo recomiendo

Como pueden ver en la fotos a pesar que dice que son inspeccionados y que la estetica deberia ser buena el dia de hoy que me llego se encuentra roto presentando separacion de la cubierta trasera lo cual me preocupa en su uso y preferi realizar em tramite de la devolución inmediatamente ya que no es un producto con lo minimo para poder usarse