It’s time to forget the Samsung Galaxy Note 7’s fiasco and accept the new Note from the biggest Korean smartphone market. As a matter of fact, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 packs everything that one can expect from a premium flagship smartphone.
Design: The design aspect is purely inspired from the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, with enough changes to make it stand-alone smartphones with its own uniqueness.Unlike the Galaxy S8, the Note 8 offers more square like design languages, making it appeal to the class audience. The All glass and aluminium is something to cherish until you break it. So, using a tempered glass and a re-enforced back case is always to a good idea to protect your INR 67,900 smartphone. The most talked irk about the Note 8 is the placement of the fingerprint sensor, which is located along with the dual camera setup make it difficult to reach every time even for those, who has huge hands. Don’t worry, as Samsung wanted to be unique (most of the smartphones features a fingerprint scanner in the centre) they do offer other security features like iris scanner and face recognition feature. Though these features can be easily faked using a photo, it’s still secure and takes a lot of guts to so.
Hardware: Every time Samsung launches their flagship smartphone, for a stranger reason they use Exynos processor instead of Qualcomm Snapdragon. Even this time the saga continues. It’s not that, their Exynos is not powerful, but, it’s not as powerful as the Qualcomm counterpart. The Exynos 8895 Octa-core SoC is built on a 10 nm architecture, making it one of the high-end flagship smartphone. The Exynos 8895 paired with 6 GB LPDDR4 RAM and 64 GB onboard storage can get as fast as any smartphone in the current market.
Display: Just for a fact, the iPhone X’s display is supplied by the Samsung, which truly indicates who is the smartphone display boss. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 offers a 6.3-inch QHD+ Super AMOLED display with a pixel density of 521 pixels per inch. In terms of brightness, the device goes up to a maximum of 1200 nits of brightness which is highest in any of the smartphones until this day. The story doesn’t end there, in fact, the device offers HDR with Dolby Vision support out of the box. Considering it’s 18:9 aspect ration and the HDR capability, this is one of the best device, that could provide cinematic movie experience. To protect the display, the company uses the best-tempered glass available in the market (Corning Gorilla Glass 5) both on the front as well as the back. Though the native resolution is QHD+, by default, the device renders the screen at 1080p. One can change the resolution to QHD, which might offer a decreased in battery life.
Camera: The Samsung Galaxy S8 offered the best camera experience. But, Samsung strives for more and comes with a next generation dual camera setup (12 MP + 12 MP) with optical image stabilisation. The device offers a live bokeh effect (depth of field can be changed before or after taking a photo), X2 optical zoom and 4K video recording capability up to 30 frames per second, making on par with the best of the best flagship smartphones. On the front, there is an 8 MP front-facing wide-angle camera with same F/1.7 aperture making it the best selfie camera in the market with 1080p video recording capability.
S-Pen: A Note is not a Note without S-Pen. The device offers an improved S-Pen helps you to take note, do sketches and write a message on the photo on the go. The pressure sensitivity is increased X2 compared to the last generation and this makes it one of the best features. Comparison with the Apple Pencil and S-Pen is, this one doesn’t require any battery or charging.
Connectivity: The Galaxy Note 8 offers a dual Hybrid SIM slot, (SIM +SIM) or (SIM + micro SD), so one can either use two SIM cards at a time or a SIM plus micro SD card. The device does offer faster LTE downloads up to 1000 Mbps download and 500 Mbps upload speeds. The device also offers support for dual-band WiFi (2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz) with latest Bluetooth 5.0 (can connect more than one Bluetooth accessories at a time.
Battery: The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 features a 3300 mAh battery (which is a lot smaller compared to the Note 7). The device offers fast charging via USB type C as well as the wireless Qi charging (early adopters will get a free wireless charger out of the box). The battery will offer a screen on time of 4 hours to 5 hours depending on the conditions. If you are a moderate user, then the battery will last for one complete day, otherwise, you have to refill it by the end of the day. So, if you play a lot of games and watch movies and videos through the day, then consider yourself carrying a power bank to keep it alive.
Software: The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 runs on Android Nougat 7.1.1 with custom Samsung UI on the top. The device offers plenty of features like always on display, S-Pen functionalities and other customisation, that offers. The Galaxy Note 8 will offer Android Oreo update in the near future with improved features compared to the stock Android user experience.
Pros: The Galaxy Note 8 has the best of the best features like QHD+ display, dual camera with OIS, wireless charging, Samsung Pay, glass design, and the S-Pen. The device is IP68 certified and does offer 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is something we won’t see on every flagship smartphone in the market.
Cons: The first thing that comes to this list is the placement of the fingerprint scanner, though it’s the best scanner with the very accurate reading capability, the placement of the scanner is not practical, which makes it very difficult to reach everytime you want to unlock the device. The device comes with a high-resolution cinematic grade screen with just a mono speaker located on the bottom right of the device, doesn’t cut the mark with the other flagship devices. Not to forget the battery, being a 6.3-inch QHD+ display, this doesn’t cut the corner every time.
Conclusion: The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is an perfect smartphone with ticking every checkpoint. Though it doesn’t miss on some, as there is nothing as a perfect smartphone till day. So, if you are looking for a high-end flagship smartphone, money being no problem then the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is a tailor made smartphone for you.