Samsung Galaxy Note8: Online Home Business 24 Review 2018

Samsung Galaxy Note8: Online Home Business 24 Review 2018

Forgive me for passing up the chance to beat the exploding battery joke into the ground. Let's get straight to the point: Samsung's once dominant flagship phablet is back after a two year hiatus. Sporting a stunning extra-widescreen 18.5:9 display, the new Galaxy Note8 is bigger and more engaging than ever before, and it packs a larger power pack than any Note besides the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 too. But a lot has changed since 2015 — especially when you consider that starting at $1499, the new Note8 is now more expensive than ever.

That means there are two questions it needs to answer: Does the Galaxy Note8 still make sense in 2017, and can it possibly be worth $1499?

At first glance, the answer might be no. The Note8's 15cm 2960 x 1440 super AMOLED display is insignificantly larger than the 15cm screen on the S8 Plus (though that bezel-less design remains strikingly pretty), and its Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 64GB of storage and built-in microSD card reader aren't any different either. Aside from slightly boxier corners, the Note8's luscious glass and aluminium body is pretty much the same too. You even get the same annoying Bixby Button below the volume rocker, which still can't be remapped to something useful.

The one small improvement is that Samsung has upped the Note8's RAM from 4GB to 6GB, which is nice nod to the Galaxy Note's traditional fan base of power users. However, on a day-to-day basis,  it's an improvement that isn't always that noticeable (despite benchmarks that put the Note8 a tiny bit ahead of its smaller siblings). That means the decision really hedges on Samsung's signature S Pen stylus and the company's first-ever dual camera module.

Now I'll be the first person to say that after years of improvements to mobile operating systems, we've gotten to a point where UIs are properly designed for touch-based navigation. Across both iOS and Android, there's never a time when you're screaming out for a mouse or something more precise. Which, for me, softens the allure of a stylus. But after over a week using the Note8, the S Pen is starting to win me over. There's just so much you can do, whether it's jotting down notes without even unlocking the phone, or using the new full sentence translation feature to make up for my shoddy Mandarin reading comprehension. But strangely, the best part about the S Pen is the multiple methods it has for goofing off by making your own homegrown gifs.

Option one is to whip out the S Pen, hit Smart Select and put a rectangle over any video you can see on the screen. Boom. gif made. Option two, the Live Messages feature, is new for 2017. Live Messages lets you make animated drawings on a background colour of your choosing or even on top of pictures you've taken. It's a virtual meme-making machine, and a joyful addition to a phone that's so often seen in the hands of no-fun allowed corporate execs. But that's still only answering half the question of why you should get a Note8 over the cheaper S8.

The other part of the equation are Samsung's new dual rear cams, which pairs the S8 and S8 Plus' camera with a second 12-megapixel sensor with doubles the focal length. It's a camera set up we've already seen in last year's iPhone 7 Plus. The little special sauce Samsung adds to the mix is the presence of optical image stabilisation on both cameras. This is a welcome improvement, because as things get farther away, camera shake tends to becomes a much bigger nuisance. Unfortunately, even with this new addition, the Note8's camera performance isn't flawless.

The first issue is that like on the iPhone 7 Plus, you don't actually have full control over which lens you're using. Sometimes in low-light environments, hitting the 2x button to zoom results in digital enhancement instead of optical. That means you are just cropping in and getting a lower resolution final image, instead of using the lens with double the focal length.

At least it's not a problem unique to the Note8. Sometimes when the Note8 opted for digital zoom instead of optical, the iPhone didn't. While other times, the situation was reversed. And the really frustrating part is that neither phone offers an override for when you might know better than the silicon nanny holding your hand.

Camera and stylus aside, there are a few other little Samsung surprises like the new app pair feature, which lets you create combos that launch two apps in multi-window mode with a single touch — perfect for anyone who's ever wanted to find an address from an email or text while keeping an eye on the map. And despite a battery that's actually smaller in capacity than the one in the S8 Plus (3,300 mAh versus 3,500 mAh), the Note8's time of 10 hours and 21 minutes on our rundown test was only 20 minutes shorter than the S8 Plus's 10:44. With stuff like this, the Galaxy Note8 is starting to make a pretty good case, but I'm still not sure.

Samsung's new dual camera module isn't even a clear-cut winner against last year's iPhone 7 Plus, not to mention whatever new handsets Apple is planning on announcing next week. So despite sporting best-in-class components from its screen to its stylus, Samsung's phablet still seems a bit tame. The only thing about the Note8 that's really excessive these days is its price.

Now, I'm not saying people shouldn't get one, that would be ridiculous! I just mean that you really need to find a deal if you want to feel like you're getting your money's worth. Carriers are already hocking buy one get one promos that would make getting two Note8's feel like stealing. Samsung is even offering its own pre-order bonuses. But shelling out a full $1499 is foolish. The Note8 is a great device (especially that screen) and I think Samsung has rightfully regained its spot back on top of the Android dogpile. But for a phone that this expensive, I still want more.