Last year’s Note was a disaster... The Note 7 was a hell of great smartphone but it could be better without the “battery exploding” thingy catastrophee. It was quickly taken out of the market but the brand decided to release the Note FE (stands for Fan Edition) with the same specs and no problems this time. It was released July 2017 and one month later Samsung presented their beast flagship: The Galaxy Note 8.

DESIGN

I’ve always been a big fan of the design of the Note line. It’s a gorgeous slab of glass coming in at 195grams and 8.6mm of thickness. It´s a big smartphone with Samsung’s Infinity display, the dedicated Bixby button (the brand’s version of Apple´s Siri or Google’s Assistant).  It’s the brand’s first device with a dual camera system, right beside the fingerprint reader and it still brings the S-Pen. The phone brings the fingerprint reader in the back, poorly placed near the cameras. The device also has an Iris Scanner and a Face ID feature.

 
DISPLAY

The Note 8 has a QuadHD+ Super AMOLED 6.3 inches Infinity display with an amazing PPI of 521. It has a 2% lower screen-to-body ratio coming in at 82% and is supposed to be a productivity device. The S-Pen interacts with the smartphone’s screen: you can quickly write down a note even when the screen is off (thanks to Samsung's Always-On Display), take screenshots of selected parts of the display or even translate words just by clicking on them.

PERFORMANCE

When it comes to performance the flagships as the usual spec sheet of a 2017 top-of-the-line smartphone. It has Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835, 6Gb of RAM, Adreno 540 GPU, 8 cores (four with a clock speed of 2.45GHz and the others 2.15GHz) and an ANTUTU score of 173000 points. It’s a beast when it comes to performance and the multitasking experience is just as good as expected. When it comes to storage, the device’s ROM is expandeable via SD Card.

CAMERA

The smartphone has a dual camera system on the back with a f/2.4 aperture telephoto lens and a f/1.7 “wide” lens that is only wide when compared to the other. Both have a 12MP resolution and OIS that improves stabilization and low-light performance. The device creates excellent media at night and during the day. It’s one of the highest rated smartphone cameras, with a DxOMark of 94 (coming toe-to-toe with Apple’s iPhone 8 Plus’ camera).

The front-facing camera is also really good with a lower resolution of 8MP. The live focus feature allows for a professional background blur effect that can be changed after taking the shot.

BATTERY

                The 3300mAh cell is disappointing: the 6.2inches Galaxy S8+ has a 3500mAh battery being less expensive. To compensate for this minor spec, the box brings the fast-charge adaptor and the wireless charging pad can be bought separately.

FINAL VERDICT

                The price changes but it’s around 900€, and it’s a “well given” price when compared to flagships like Apple’s iPhones. But as we know Apple is well known for their over-expensive devices. Should you buy it? If you have the money and don’t know which phone to choose at this price point, then look no further; if you are low on money, there are plenty of other great smartphones that are cheaper like the G6 that I reviewed last week... check it out!!
Otherwise, this is the latest and greatest Note in the Galaxy.