It’s a perfect year for Galaxy Note 20 Ultra users to consider upgrading to the new Z Fold 7. Samsung’s loyal Note fans are still rocking their Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra as the lineup has been abandoned to make foldables mainstream.

3 big reasons to move

Galaxy Z Fold 7 is a massive, massive upgrade over the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Samsung has made great progress in its smartphone segment. Here are the 3 big reasons to upgrade:

1. Innovative form factor

Galaxy Z Fold 7 introduces an innovative folding screen mechanism. It’s a book-style foldable phone, which has a cover screen and a main screen. The cover screen offers a regular bar-type experience, while the main screen is like a tablet.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is a phablet smartphone with a large screen and curved edges. It’s stunning for photography, entertainment, and gaming, but the Galaxy Z Fold 7 takes you to a whole new world of usability and multitasking.

Source – Samsung Mobile Press

2. Upgraded camera, performance, software and AI

With the Galaxy Z Fold 7, you get a 200-megapixel primary, a 12-megapixel ultrawide, and a 10-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical and up to 30x digital zoom.

The Note 20 Ultra’s camera setup includes a 108-megapixel main, a 12-megapixel 5x telephoto with 5x optical and 50x digital zoom, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide.

• The newer sensors in Fold 7, integrated with AI features and optimized software, deliver significantly better photos and videos.

Source – Samsung Mobile Press

Samsung equipped the Galaxy Z Fold 7 with Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. It’s made using TSMC’s 3nm process tech. On the flip side, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra features Snapdragon 865 5G+ (7 nm+) in the US.

• Geekbench CPU scores
  • Galaxy Note 20 Ultra – 1129 and 3234
  • Galaxy Z Fold 7 – 3051 and 9708

As you can see, Samsung’s Z Fold 7 has 3x better single-core and multi-core performance than the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

Snapdragon 8 Elite features (Credit – Qualcomm)

Galaxy Z Fold 7 also leads the way with Samsung’s most exclusive software and AI perks. This is the first device (in the world) to launch pre-installed with Android 16 and eligible through 2032 for Android and security updates.

You get literally 0 Galaxy AI features on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra as the support is capped till 2022 flagships. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is packed with all the bells and whistles Samsung has to offer with its Galaxy AI suite.

Source – Samsung Mobile

3. Hefty trade-in discounts

Following the Unpacked on July 9, Samsung is running Galaxy Z Fold 7 pre-orders. You can grab up to $1,100 discounts in the US. Interestingly, the company is offering unmissable trade-in benefits to the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra owners.

If you buy a Galaxy Z Fold 7 from Samsung.com in the US, you can save $600 with your Note 20 Ultra trade-in. What makes it interesting is that the trade-in value Samsung is offering to the Note 20 Ultra is the same as S23 Ultra and Z Flip 5.

Images from Samsung Mobile Press

1 reason to wait

While there’s no practical reason to avoid the Galaxy Z Fold 7 over the Note 20 Ultra, one big reason might upset you.

Lack of S Pen support

Samsung abandoned the S Pen support to make the Galaxy Z Fold 7 thinner. The smartphone doesn’t have a digitizer film that enables stylus input. Samsung might bring back S Pen to future Fold models, but it depends on consumer demand.

Galaxy Note 20 Ultra was the last Note flagship with S Pen feature. This stylus was the iconic identity of this segment, which stopped in 2020. If you prefer S Pen with an in-body slot, the Galaxy S25 Ultra can be considered.

Image: Samsung

One UI 8.0 has polished features that made a debut with the previous software version, and one of which is live notifications, which lacked a sticky behavior and let go of its grip easily in the notifications panel.

Live notifications allow users to see real-time information of some important apps, such as countdown, timer, recorder and more. This notification appears in the task bar and the notifications panel. You will also see them on the lock screen through now bar in the bottom between the shortcut buttons.

Its unique UI design enables users to expand the view and interact with the on-screen options, like closing the current timer or changing the playback.

The view improves with the separate notifications panel, where you will see them as a list. Everything works just fine until you hit the clear button. That’s where the live notifications go away, along with other notifications in the panel, except for one.

Once cleared, the related app remains active in the background just like usual, but the system will no longer show its live notification. Now, you have to open an active app, such as the timer, to restore its notification.

This phenomenon is spotted in One UI 7.0 devices, where only the music notification sticks to its place. This situation was identical even in the together notifications panel setting.

One UI 7 live notifications

New Version

This problem takes away main aim of keeping the user updated with the important task in the background. Taking a note from the current problem, One UI 8.0 has made live notifications sticky rather than slippery.

Now, when you clear the notifications panel, they hold on to their positions while others get carried away from the screen. This is a subtle improvement that developers have come up with in the latest One UI version.

Meanwhile, Samsung has ensured the user remains in control. Therefore, you can swipe out any of the live notifications except for music, which requires you to kill the app from the background process. You can restore the live notification by reopening those apps.

One UI 8 sticky live notifications

Samsung recently launched the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7, along with a new software update – One UI 8. This update brings a smarter, more helpful experience using AI to make everyday tasks easier and faster.

Hubert Lee and Huichul Yang, leaders in Samsung’s Design and UX teams, shared insights about the vision and dedication behind One UI 8 and the latest foldable devices. Below, you can check what top leaders said about the One UI 8.

One UI 8 for The Latest Galaxy Z Foldables

Based on Android 16, One UI 8 is designed to help users get more done. On the Galaxy Z Fold 7, the large screen allows you to compare original and AI-created content side by side. You can move content between apps smoothly, which is great for multitasking.

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 also brings new features. It now has a full front FlexWindow, which lets you use Google Gemini AI without even opening the phone. You can ask questions like “Is my outfit good for today’s weather?” or “What’s my schedule?” and get instant answers.

Since the main camera is on the same side as when you fold the phone, it’s easy to use Gemini Live while looking at yourself. One UI 8 on the Galaxy Z Flip 7 offers a future where AI is your handy, intelligent partner.

Samsung continues to pay attention to every detail of the design. The team made sure the wallpapers, icons, and interface all match the shape and feel of the phone. It’s all about giving users a more polished and enjoyable experience.

One UI 8 makes your Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Galaxy Z Fold 7 more powerful, more personal, and a lot more fun to use. Huichul Yang, VP of Samsung Electronics, said:

“We envisioned a new future with One UI 8 on the Galaxy Z Flip7 as an AI companion in your hand.”

Samsung is putting tremendous efforts into Galaxy AI for the AI Phone era. Meanwhile, Samsung isn’t stopping at Artificial Intelligence as its plans go even beyond, targeting Ambient Intelligence for the future Galaxy phones.

According to ETNews, Samsung is developing Ambient Intelligence by creating a personalized AI ecosystem leveraging multimodal AI. The company aims to use AI to recognize various inputs such as voice and vision across devices.

Recently, a top Samsung MX executive shed light on the future plans that include an AI ecosystem that understands multimodal and user intent for user experience. The aim also includes making an AI Phone like talking with a friend normally.

MX VP Park at a press conference stated that “users will be able to enjoy a completely personalized AI experience not only on Galaxy smartphones but also on watches, rings, XR, and furthermore, in various home appliances and TVs.”

Ambient Intelligence will ensure a seamless user experience in real time, and you won’t be required to type one by one. That said, the Galaxy AI will become advanced, leveraging inputs through voice and vision in a connected ecosystem.

Samsung’s connected ecosystem includes phones, smartwatches, rings, XR, TVs, and appliances. The company is sequentially equipping its products with Artificial Intelligence that will pave the way for a multimodal user experience.

Source – Samsung

Samsung’s AI experience is headed by harmonizing hardware and software integration. Multimodal AI has secured a level of accuracy and reliability, and it can be deployed on the apps and services with the user interacts directly.

Galaxy S25 series was Samsung’s first to include multimodal AI capabilities, which the Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 followed. Well, the Korean tech giant isn’t done yet, as the full potential is yet to be unlocked, and there are very big plans for the future.

Samsung has an upgrade for the Good Guardians, its dedicated utilities app for Galaxy smartphones, supporting One UI 8 (Android 16) with expanded stability. The latest app version 8.0.0.7 is now listed on the Galaxy Store, the 7.0.14 version was released in January for One UI 7 devices.

Samsung has recently released the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 devices with One UI 8 software. That said, the company wants to offera  stable user experience for new customers. On the other hand, it’s also working on stable software for previously released devices, including S24, S23, Fold 6/Flip 6 series.

Samsung Good Guardians One UI 8 support (Source – @mrsevensp/X)

Upgrading apps to the latest Android version is also a regular practice for app developers after each major upgrade. This move ensures a bug-free environment while adding new features. Samsung is also upgrading Good Lock modules, some of which have been deprecated after the One UI 8 beta debut in late May.

Good Guardias has a module system, which you may have seen in Good Lock, but it offers different features. The latter is a hub of smartphone personalization, while the former is known for providing important utilities. It offers six modules:

• Battery tracker – It shows your phone’s battery usage in a day or a week for the selected timeline.
• Battery Guardian – This module tracks bad app activity and prevents them from running to reduce battery consumption.
• Galaxy App Booster – It transfers executable files of apps to boost their performance.
• Thermal Guardian – This works as a solution to manage the Galaxy phone’s temperature and helps to detect the source of heating.
• Memory Guardian – This module lets you know the app and services’ memory consumption and option to clean up.
• Media File Guardian – It detects and allows you to delete hidden files for the edited version that are no longer usable.

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