The Galaxy Note phones from Samsung have always been about more.
It has the largest screen, fastest processor, largest
battery, the most storage, and most features of any Note phone. And it also has the
biggest price. This thing costs $1,000 and up, and it is way more than any
prior mainstream Samsung phone.
So, is all this more stuff worth it? Well, if you are a
Note fan, or someone that is owned a prior model, yeah, totally. This is the
device you have been asking for and wanting. You do not even really need me to
tell you that.
You probably already know you want this thing. But for
the rest of us, it is a much tougher sell, especially since Samsung’s other big
phone this year, the Samsung Galaxy S9+, can be had for hundreds of dollars
less and offer many of the same features.
The Note 9 does not look much different from last year's
Note 8. It has the same basic design as previous Note models. There are lots of
screens, curved glass on the front and back, and a metal frame. This time there
is a 6.4-inch screen, which is just barely, basically indistinguishably bigger
than the screen on the Note 8. But in a cool twist, the Note 9 is not bigger than
a phone.
It is still the same size as the Note 8, though it is
still a massive phone. And then the other thing is, Samsung moved the fingerprint
scanner on the back to a much easier position to reach, so it is easier to hold.
Now I don't really have much to say about the Note 9's display. It is just like
the S9+. It is a big, bright, colorful LED screen that is about the best you
can get in the smartphone world right now.
And if you hate the trend of notches that cut into the
screen, the Note 9's 18x9 panel has no notch whatsoever. Now, in terms of
performance and specs, the Note 9 is basically the same as the S9+. It has the
same Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor that every other Android flagship phone
is using this year, and it is paired with six or eight gigabytes of RAM.
The performance of the Note 9 is now smooth and quick. I've
never had a problem with choppy performance, lag, or an app not being ready
when I expected it to be. More storage is one of the additional benefits of the
Note.
The base model has 128 gigabytes, but you can get one
with up to 512 gigabytes if you are okay with spending 1,250 bucks for it. Either
of those models has a Micro SD card slot, so you can load it up with up to a
terabyte of storage if you really want to.
The most you get with the Note 9 is more battery life. Samsung
put a 4,000-milliamp-hour battery in this phone. That is 500 milliamp hours more
than the S9+ and a full 700 more milliamp-hours more than the Note 8. That
really makes it an all-day device, even if you are a heavy user that is always
looking at your phone.
And if you are not as heavy as a user, you might even get
two or three days of use without much trouble. And of course, because this is a
Note phone, the other difference between it and every other Samsung phone is
its S Pen stylus.
Now the S Pen has been around for years, and it can be
used for all the same things that you did before. You can use it to scribble
notes, doodle, or simply navigate the interface. This year, however, it has a
couple of new tricks up its sleeve.
It has Bluetooth
added to it, so you can use it as a wireless remote to snap photos, pause music,
or page through a presentation. Now, personally, that really does not make the
S Pen all that much more usable to me, but for you, you probably already know
whether the S Pen is something you are interested in using at this point or
not. Note 9's camera is also the same as what we saw in theS9+ earlier this
year. The rear camera has a dual 12-megapixel system with a switching aperture, a wide-angle lens, plus a telephoto lens for portrait effects. And then the front camera has eight megapixels and auto-focus.
Now the pictures that the Note 9 produces are therefore very similar to what you get from the S9. They are sharp and colorful, and low-light performance is great. But they still look like Samsung photos, so they are going to be warmer and brighter than what you get from a Pixel or an iPhone.
So, if you did not like the way that Samsung photos looked
before, you probably won't like the Note 9's either. One thing that is new in
the camera app is it is a bit smarter. It has an automatic scene optimization
system that of course uses AI to determine what you are taking a picture of and
then change the camera settings for the best results.
There are like 20 different things it can recognize, and it
is neat to watch it do it. But if I am really being honest, I did not notice
much of a difference between the optimized ones and the non-optimized ones. The
one thing that is new and useful is it can tell if someone that you are taking
a photo of has blinked or moved and the image is kind of ruined, and it will
alert you to take that photo again.
That is something that is useful when it shows up. For
software, the Note 9 is running Android 8.1 Oreo, and it has got Samsung's user
interface on top of it. It is not really changed much from what we have seen
from the past few years from Samsung. It looks fine, but the biggest issue is
and always has been Samsung's insistence on duplicating a bunch of Google's
apps with its own.
There are two browsers, two email applications, two mobile payment applications, two gallery applications, two assistants, and so on. And of course, Samsung's bad with software updates.
I am not sure when this will get Android 9 Pie. And then
there's Bixby, Samsung's universally panned virtual assistant, which has been updated
with a new interface and some deeper integrations with third-party services.
But it is still Bixby, which means that it is slow and
more cumbersome to use than Google's assistant, and of course, there is a dedicated button on the side of the Note 9 that cannot be used for anything
else.
Now, the version of Bixby that is on my review unit is
said to be non-final, so it may be updated before it hits stores, but I honestly
do not think it is going to make much of a difference.
It is clear that Samsung’s invested some time into this,
though, and Bixby’s not going anywhere. And finally, we headed, Samsung's
attempt to make your phone work as a computer.
And it is easier to get DeX up and running with the Note
9. You basically just need USB-C to HDMI adapter. But it is still just as
clumsy to use as it was a year or so ago when DeX first came out.
It is slow, limited, and many apps are still incompatible
with it. And to really make this work, you need a keyboard, mouse, and display
to do it all, which at that point, you might as well just use a laptop. So
there's the Note 9.
It is the most advanced phone in the line, always giving
you more than others. And it is a fantastic phone. There is not much to
complain about here.
You cannot go
wrong if you need a larger screen, more storage, or longer battery life, as
long as you're willing to spend more money to get those things. However,
Samsung's own Galaxy S9+ offers many of the same features as the Note 9 for a
much lower price, so you really have to want the Note 9 the most.
That's 500 milliamp hours more than the S9+ battery, and
a full 700 milliamp hours more than the Note 8's.
That makes the Note 9 a true all-day device, even if
you're a heavy user who's spent the day listening to
crickets. - It got louder and louder.
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