Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review: For all the power users out there

It's no secret that the Milky way S9 hasn't been selling well. Samsung has admitted as much, and the smaller S9 was especially unattractive for many people, every bit information technology missed out on features similar a dual camera and 6GB of RAM. Smartphones much cheaper than the Milky way S9 accept had those features for some time, and Samsung probably realized it had to practise something special for its second 2018 flagship to get the brawl rolling again.

And the company has done just that with the Galaxy Annotation nine. The Galaxy Note 9 has everything the Milky way Note eight and Galaxy S9+ offering, and instead of features that may come off as gimmicks, Samsung has focused on the essentials. In that location'due south finally a big battery on a mainstream Galaxy flagship, the storage on the base model is a whopping 128GB (forth with official support for upward to 512GB microSD cards), and the S Pen has get smarter and more useful thanks to the add-on of Bluetooth connectivity.

Ideally, a big bombardment and plenty of onboard storage are features flagship phones should always have for the prices they usually control, merely information technology's only Samsung that has finally risen to the occasion. However, the Korean giant is also demanding quite the premium for it. The Galaxy Note nine starts at $1,000 in almost markets for the base model and $i,250 or thereabouts for the 512GB variant. Samsung's latest flagship has a spec sheet no other smartphone can friction match, but is all of information technology enough to justify that thousand dollar price tag?

Allow's find out in our Milky way Note nine review.

Editor's notation: The pictures of the phone in this review were taken at our Netherlands function and in India, which is why they are so contrasting in wait and experience. You do, however, go to take a look at both the Ocean Blue and Metallic Copper variants of the Annotation 9, which may help you decide which color you lot should go for.

Galaxy Note nine review: Design

The Galaxy Notation nine looks exactly similar the Galaxy Notation viii from the front at first glance. But Samsung has fabricated a few changes, some of which debuted on the Milky way S9 and some specifically to fit in the bigger battery and the ever-so-slightly bigger screen (6.iv inches). Like the Galaxy S9, the Galaxy Note 9'due south acme bezel is darker to improve hide the iris sensor and front-facing camera. The telephone is also slightly wider. That isn't noticeable, however, unless you compare information technology side-by-side with an S9+ or Note eight, as Samsung has used a process called dia-cutting for the telephone's edges to make it look slimmer than it is. Non that the Notation 9 isn't a big phone, just it'south not necessarily less convenient to utilise than a Galaxy Note 8 or even a Galaxy S9+.

The dorsum is where the most noticeable change has taken identify. The fingerprint sensor now resides below the dual photographic camera setup. Sadly, the camera sensors are placed horizontally as they were on the Note 8, so the fingerprint sensor isn't as piece of cake to access as the S9+. You don't exactly demand to modify your grip to admission the fingerprint sensor to unlock the phone and start using information technology, simply  a not-so-ideal stretch of the index finger is required. Folks with large hands will also find themselves smudging the camera lenses too often, merely that'south just an unavoidable downside of Samsung's fingerprint sensor placement on all of its modernistic plus-sized flagships. Those in-display fingerprint sensors tin can't get hither soon enough.

Overall, the Galaxy Note 9 feels equally premium and well fabricated as a $g smartphone should. I'm just not certain if that xanthous S Pen that Samsung is bundling with the Ocean Blueish variant of the phone looks classy plenty. You'd do best to cheque the blue version out in person before making a conclusion on which color to choose. The yellow S Pen doesn't look bad, far from it. But it just seems like an odd pick for Samsung to make for a Note smartphone, especially since all of the other color variants have the same color for the telephone and the stylus.

Display and sound

The 6.4-inch Super AMOLED Infinity brandish on the Milky way Note 9 is awesome. Do I really need to say more? Samsung's been at the meridian of the game when information technology comes to telephone displays, and the Note ix fifty-fifty gets improvements in areas where the consumer tin't really tell a departure. All you need to know is that it's vivid, extremely bright (and dim when you lot want it to be), and a joy to utilize. It's not the most accurate screen by default, merely you can switch to the bones display fashion in the phone's settings if you want it to be true-to-life.

Equally mentioned in the design department, the top bezel is darker this time around, then the screen flows into the all-black bezels more seamlessly. The bezels aren't totally dark and not too small, either, but Samsung's decision to stay away from notches makes the visitor's implementation of an all-screen display the most sensible. That's particularly true for the specs and hardware Samsung is offering on its flagships, which trumps anything else on the market whether you count the Galaxy Annotation 9 or non.

The Galaxy Annotation ix'south stunning display is accompanied past stereo speakers, a outset for the Note lineup post-obit the introduction of stereo speakers on the Galaxy S9 before this yr. And the audio quality remains as proficient as ever, despite ane of the speakers being embedded in the earpiece. There's enough of bass, Dolby Atmos support makes for a noticeable change in sound separation between the two speakers, and distortion at the highest volume isn't a trouble as long as the content beingness played has a high enough bitrate.

Last but not the least, at that place'south a pair of AKG-tuned earphones in the box, which are also unchanged from what we had on the Galaxy S9; they are among the all-time bundled earphones you go with a phone. Yeah, that also means at that place'south a headphone jack on the Note 9, which further makes it stand out from the mainstream competition.

Photographic camera

The Galaxy Note 9'south cameras are pretty much the same every bit the Galaxy S9+, both in specs and the prototype quality. Merely, for the rear camera, Samsung has congenital in what it is calling Scene Optimizer. Scene Optimizer studies the scene and subject, matches them with twenty presets such equally food, portraits, landscapes, and animals, then optimizes the shooting parameters to make the images await better than they normally would. Scene Optimizer doesn't really work in practice and is mostly a gimmick, though. Images don't seem to actually ameliorate, but even if they did, Scene Optimizer takes merely a second besides long to actually notice the scene, which can upshot in you missing the moment.

Thankfully, the other new feature Samsung has congenital in works better and is bachelor for both the front and rear cameras. Any fourth dimension you accept a blurry photograph, the Flaw Detection feature volition inform you with a popular-up notification. Nosotros all know how frustrating it can exist when we take a picture show and go to the gallery to check it out only to run across it came out blurred. But cheers to Flaw Detection, y'all can immediately take another flick of the aforementioned scene instead of going into the gallery to detect out, making it quite useful. Flaw Detection can also tell the user if someone in the photo blinked or the backlighting is poor, but this is something I was unable to reproduce.

Equally far as general performance of the rear camera is concerned, well, information technology's as excellent as it was on the Galaxy S9. The Dual Discontinuity lens (which switches betwixt apertures of F1.5 and F2.4) makes sure that photos come out with good exposure in both actress bright and extra dark conditions. Color reproduction is generally faithful to the existent thing, there's enough of item without the excessive oversharpening Samsung was once famous for, dissonance is well controlled, and the dynamic range is usually dandy.

Live Focus (which uses the second camera to take bokeh pictures) also works nicely. Detail in indoor shots can be lacking, but it does seem to work better in low light weather condition compared to the Note viii or S9+. The 2x zoom office remains limited in poor lighting, though, and the principal photographic camera lens is notwithstanding used for zoom shots in when information technology's too dark (as the telephoto lens has a fixed aperture of F2.4). Check out a couple of Live Focus samples beneath.

The Galaxy Annotation 9 too comes with Super Slow-mo recording and AR Emoji, and y'all can cheque out our Galaxy S9 review to see how these features work since the results aren't different between the 2 devices. The same goes for the selfie camera and video recording; the video samples can be seen below, while the selfies are in the gallery above alongside the rear camera pictures.

Note: All of the above camera samples tin can be seen in full quality and highest-resolution in this Google Photos anthology. The album likewise has a few extra photographic camera shots for your viewing pleasance.

Battery life

Alright, so let's talk about battery life. The Galaxy Note ix's 4,000 mAh battery is the biggest we accept seen on a Samsung flagship barring the Galaxy S Active smartphones, and it delivers in spades. In my testing period, getting to around 5 hours of screen time on a busy day was almost never a problem. The telephone can last a full solar day and then some with medium to heavy usage. It constantly had effectually 20 percent battery left at the terminate of a day, with usage involving everything from calls through browsing to checking WhatsApp and Slack letters.

Bombardment life with extended bouts of mobile data usage isn't as swell, but y'all tin still go past without the fear of the phone dying out at the incorrect moment. The battery also fast charges from 0 to 100 in just a piddling more than than the time the Galaxy S9+' three,500 mAh battery takes (90-100 minutes). Thanks to the battery's size, quick 10 or fifteen-minute top-ups aren't as useful as they are on phones with smaller batteries, merely that's non going to be an issue for most given the telephone'due south generally impressive endurance.

Samsung's usual power saving modes are bachelor on the Notation 9, simply I never felt the need to use them. The 4,000 mAh battery on the Milky way Annotation 9 is a gamechanger, both for the contest and for Samsung itself. The company has addressed i of the cardinal concerns power users accept had about contempo Note flagships, as well giving proponents of a removable battery less reason to complain. If bombardment life is important to you lot, the Galaxy Note nine has what it takes to go along up.

South Pen

The S Pen is the heart and soul of the Note lineup, every bit fans would agree, and Samsung has finally brought along a major upgrade. The stylus now has Bluetooth built in and tin can be used as a remote control for diverse features. It has a supercapacitor inside that is charged in just twoscore seconds when it's residing in the slot and is good for upwards to 200 clicks earlier needing a accuse once again. Now, first things kickoff: A long press of the South Pen button can exist assigned to launch any S Pen feature or installed app. Then, depending on the app, you can perform actions with a unmarried or double press of the push.

In the camera app, a brusk printing takes a picture and a double press changes between the front and rear photographic camera. In media apps such every bit YouTube or the music player, a unmarried press can pause or resume playback. In Chrome, y'all can press the button one time to become dorsum and double press it to become forward. And for all these apps, you can assign a number of dissimilar actions if needed. For instance, in Chrome, you can scroll upward or downwardly with a unmarried or double press. Samsung is also offering an SDK for developers and then tertiary-party apps could as well take advantage in the almost hereafter.

The power to take pictures with the stylus acting equally a remote is perhaps the most useful characteristic, though. No more than volition you demand to twist your fingers around uncomfortably to reach the shutter push button or the volume keys, which also means reduced chances of blurry photos. Equally someone who never used the S Pen before, I'chiliad doing so quite often thank you to the camera control on the Annotation 9, and many others who unremarkably ignore the stylus may showtime using information technology for the aforementioned reason.

There is ane caveat. I found the double press action of the S Pen to be rather wonky. The phone can't seem to properly differentiate between a single and a double click. A double click would often have the phone carrying out the single click part earlier realizing what I wanted to do and and then suddenly performing the right action. Hopefully, software updates volition improve things on this forepart.

Before you ask: The S Pen's Bluetooth capabilities can be ignored if you want to. The stylus continues to piece of work passively equally earlier South Pens, then y'all tin draw, take down notes, and scan around on the phone in general even when it isn't charged. The screen'south edges are yet a pitfall and can exist an obstruction to your drawing or writing efforts, but it doesn't look like Samsung is ever returning to flat displays, so it's a problem that will keep to exist.

Software

The Galaxy Note 9 runs Android eight.ane Oreo and version ix.5 of the Samsung Experience UX. It's generally the aforementioned as the Galaxy S9, merely the Note nine gets two important features that aren't currently nowadays on previous devices. The first is an upgraded version of Bixby, but in our testing period, all we saw was a new user interface for Bixby Voice. That new interface is awesome, to be honest, with a darker look that's sleek and modern. Bixby 2.0 is also supposed to be smarter and allow more natural conversations, but this functionality isn't available just nevertheless.

Bixby continues to be great when information technology comes to controlling various aspects and settings of the device, merely we will but exist able to give full judgement when we take tested information technology extensively. Every bit for the Bixby push, you lot can still printing information technology accidentally at times, especially when you access the volume down push for screenshots or for adjusting volume, only this should but exist a problem in the first few days. Oh, and the push button can't be remapped (not that we expect Samsung to ever allow that), and support for languages is still quite limited.

The second major feature is DeX Manner. The Galaxy Notation ix can turn into a desktop PC with but a USB Type-C to HDMI cable. Information technology even so works with the DeX Station or DeX Pad so you can take advantage of wired keyboards and mice, merely neither is a necessity anymore. Nosotros didn't get to attempt it with a Type-C to HDMI cable, but should you lot have one, you will be able to quickly become started on an external monitor, with the Note 9'southward brandish acting as a touchpad. DeX Way is incredibly useful and is another feature that puts the Annotation 9 in a different league as far as productivity is concerned. We just don't think it's coming to the Milky way S9 or other devices, as they don't take the aforementioned cooling capabilities equally the Note nine.

When it comes to S Pen features, there'south nothing new here other than the remote functionality discussed earlier. You can translate on-screen text past hovering over it with the stylus, create animated GIF messages through Live Message to transport to friends and family, snip any portion of the screen and save information technology every bit a screenshot, and write memos even when the phone'southward brandish is off. Other Samsung features such as theme support, Secure Folder, Edge screen, Always On Display, and Samsung Pay remain unchanged too.

Of course, the biggest question is when the Android nine.0 Pie update will arrive on the Galaxy Annotation 9. Samsung didn't mention annihilation at the launch event, which is normal, and we can expect to be waiting until early on next year for the update to beginning rolling out. And that'south for the Galaxy S9, which will go beginning preference, so the Note nine may have to wait until the stop of the first quarter of 2019. Well, unless Project Treble helps Samsung become it ready sooner, but it'southward best not to be too hopeful.

Performance

The Galaxy Annotation 9 comes with the Exynos 9810 SoC in near countries and the Snapdragon 845 in others, with 6GB of RAM on the base model. Performance on the telephone is great, and it's more consistent than the S9+ besides, thanks to Samsung's tendency to better optimize software on its Note devices. Gaming performance is first-class, besides, but I'yard not sure if there is a divergence in how warm the telephone can get despite the upgraded h2o cooling system within.

That shouldn't be surprising, though. With everything that's packed inside smartphones these days, some degree of ascent in temperature is to be expected when performing heavy tasks. But Samsung does seem to have a lot of trust in the cooling system, which might be the reason why the Annotation 9 can be used with a monitor for a desktop experience without the need for a DeX station.

When it comes to biometrics, the Galaxy Note 9 is similar in performance to the Galaxy S9+. Iris and facial recognition aren't the fastest way to unlock the phone, but the convenience they offering make up for the delay that can sometimes occur. The all-time part is that y'all tin now use Intelligent Browse, which combines both iris and facial scanning, without much of an effect on bombardment life. The fingerprint sensor is as well quick and lets you register your fingerprint with merely one to 3 swipes. Again, it could have been easier to reach and its surface expanse could be larger, but its accurateness and speed aren't something yous tin can mutter about.

Earlier I forget: The 128GB of internal storage is peachy to have. Around 109GB is available for use out of the box, and thank you to the microSD slot, about users will never detect themselves lacking for infinite to store their photos, videos, music, and other information. Nonetheless, it would have been dainty to have a 256GB model every bit an choice, especially for those who use 2 SIM cardsandaccept the need to shop more than a hundred gigs of data on their telephone. Such folks will probably be in the minority, but it'south nevertheless a trouble equally the 512GB model's premium over the base of operations model is just too high to be palatable.

Conclusion

Is the Galaxy Notation 9 worth the $1000 price tag? For Notation fans, it totally is if you lot can afford to spend that much or get it in some kind of trade-in or disbelieve. If you have a Annotation 8, certain, wait until the Note 10 or whatsoever Samsung brings adjacent year. If not, the Galaxy Note 9 istheNote flagship to get. The South Pen has received useful new functionality, the battery is finally capable of handling the corruption power users throw at their phones, and there'south plenty of onboard storage to go around. Other things, such every bit the display, audio, performance, and blueprint are all top-notch likewise.

Yet, if you're non ane to use a stylus, the Galaxy Note 9 may not modify that for you equally much as y'all would think. While the S Pen's remote control features are quite handy, you need to remove the stylus from its slot showtime. If y'all never found the reason to practice that before, it's possible y'all might not have a reason now. Indeed, while I was happy to use the S Pen for taking pictures during the review flow, I'm not certain if the same will be the case later on a couple of weeks or a calendar month or ii down the line.

So unless yous must buy a new phone now, it's best to wait for the Galaxy S10 if you aren't a regular Notation user. There volition always be something newer around the corner, but while that tin exist a good reason to expect for the next device, information technology's even more than so now considering the Milky way S10 might be quite special being the 10th-ceremony device in Samsung'southward mainstream flagship lineup. Again, that's if yous aren't generally a fan of the Annotation smartphones and would be happy with a Milky way Due south phone also, in which example you tin also save some coin and buy the Milky way S9+.

Just for power users and Note aficionados alike, the Milky way Note 9 is well worth that $1000 price tag. After the Galaxy Note 4, this is the first Galaxy Note flagship to pretty much have it all, and if you lot own any of the pre-Annotation viii devices, it'southward time to cavern in and make the upgrade.

Pros	Cons
Stunning design that feels slimmer than it is	Quite expensive
Awesome AMOLED display	Fingerprint sensor needs to exist positioned lower
Long bombardment life	Scene Optimizer camera feature is just a gimmick
Excellent cameras similar the Milky way S9+	256GB model would exist nice given 512GB model's crazy price
S Pen's remote features are quite useful	Yellowish S Pen on blue variant might not be appreciated past everyone
No need of DeX dock for desktop experience
Peak-notch operation
128GB of storage on base model, microSD back up up to 512GB
IP68 h2o resistance
Stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos

Source: https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/galaxy-note9/review/

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