A Tale of Two Smartphones (Premium)

The Google Pixel 4a and the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra are both smartphones. And yet they couldn’t be more different. Why does my mind keep drifting back to the smaller, cheaper, and less powerful one?

As you may have seen, I recently published my Pixel 4a review. I did so after about 10 days of use, which is admittedly a bit shorter than I’d like, but with the Note 20 Ultra arriving and me hoping to complete a series of articles about the Microsoft integrations in that device, I felt it was safe to go forward with the obvious assessment: The Pixel 4a is a delightful smartphone that will meet the needs of most users for years to come and do so at an almost embarrassingly low price point. What’s not to love?

Well, that depends on your needs and wants, right? For me, the Pixel 4a falls short in two key areas: There’s no larger XL form factor and it only has a single camera lens; I would very much prefer two, with the second being an ultra-wide lens. If there was a Pixel 4a with those two features, I’d happily move forward with that mythical device as my daily driver.

Now, it’s possible that such a phone is coming: If the rumors are correct, Google is about to launch two more smartphones, the Pixel 5 and the Pixel 4a 5G, and that latter phone will add a second ultra-wide lens and be a bit bigger. Not “true” XL bigger as with previous Pixels. But maybe bigger … enough, if that’s reasonable English. It will start at $500, compared to $350 for the Pixel 4a, which is reasonable, though I doubt I’ll ever be able to take advantage of 5G during the device’s expected lifetime.

So that’s one possible future. But since I’m currently evaluating the much more remarkable Note 20 Ultra, it’s almost comical to compare it to the Pixel 4a I used previously. And I could see many being blown away by the laundry list of impressive features and capabilities that Samsung crams into this beast. I am as well. It’s a truly impressive handset.

And yet.

For all its brains and brawn, the Note 20 Ultra suffers from some aggravating issues that I’ll also highlight in my coming review. And those who have taken a curiously personal exception to my own preference for larger displays can take some dark satisfaction from the fact that my top issues are all related to the fact that this handset is, if anything, too damn big.

I’ve often referenced that I have large hands, but even my gorilla mitts are no match for the Note 20’s ginormous display. And it’s not the height, exactly---I expect to need two hands on any display this tall---but rather the width. One of the things that make handsets with larger displays usable is that they’re often skinny in addition to being tall: That makes them much easier to use with a single-hand.

But the Note 20 is wide enough---overall, big enough---that even I have trouble using it with one hand, even with regards to selecting items at the bottom of the display. Exacerbating mat...