My Review:
Date: 18 October 2018
PROS
- Brilliant Display
- Great Battery Life
- The S-Pen
- Its Got A Headphone Jack!
- Plenty Of Storage
- Big Device To Hold
- No Rear Microphone
- Expensive
The mighty Note is back and although it has some minor changes from its predecessor, it is still one of the best phones you can pick up to date. Samsung has not done much with this phone because of the tenth anniversary S10 and Note 10 coming out next year. Samsung wouldn’t want to give the Note 9 the latest tech and features and run out of ideas for the Note 10, would they? Even though this is not a big upgrade, the Note 9 still is a moral competitor for its rivals like the iPhone XS, Mate 20, OnePlus 6T and the Pixel 3. Samsung has done some clever marketing and partnerships like the “Ingenious Adverts”, the Epic Games Partnership for the first Android phone to run Fortnite and the partnership with Spotify to allow you to listen to your favourite tracks from Spotify straight from the Samsung Music App. Plus the new S-Pen is now a remote control for playing music and taking pictures, if you are not into the drawing kind of thing.
Design
Samsung has gone with their usual glass back curved edges and aluminium design. By no means is this a bad thing, the build quality and design has always been a speciality of Samsung. The Note 9 even had a last-minute design change two months before its launch; DJ Koh, the CEO of Samsung, was out researching in China and whilst in an electronic store had decided that the Note 9 needed to be thinner than intended because the Chinese competition had some great phones and Samsung did not want to take a chance.
As I said the phone is built from aluminium around the frames and has a Gorilla Glass 5 back and front. It would have been nice to see Gorilla Glass 6 but, I’m pretty sure Samsung is saving that for next year’s line-up. At the bottom of the phone you’ll find the USB-C charging port, the speaker that is tuned by AKG which now has a more of a grill look to it unlike the S9 which has a rounded rectangle and mesh as the speaker grill. Next to that you’ll find the S-Pen and its insert to charge in. Opposite the S-Pen you’ll find the headphone jack which in many occasions can become extremely useful. On the left side of the phone you’ll find the volume rocker and the Bixby button (and no, it’s not remappable). On the right side there is the power button and at the top you’ll find the MicroSD card slot that can expand to a Terabyte of storage and the Sim card slot.
The overall design of the Note 9 is pleasing other that the glass which does attract a lot of fingerprints (once again use a case or skin) and the camera which in many opinions looks a bit odd and a bit ugly if you ask me. There is still a bit of a chin on the display but at least you won’t get a notch.
As I said the phone is built from aluminium around the frames and has a Gorilla Glass 5 back and front. It would have been nice to see Gorilla Glass 6 but, I’m pretty sure Samsung is saving that for next year’s line-up. At the bottom of the phone you’ll find the USB-C charging port, the speaker that is tuned by AKG which now has a more of a grill look to it unlike the S9 which has a rounded rectangle and mesh as the speaker grill. Next to that you’ll find the S-Pen and its insert to charge in. Opposite the S-Pen you’ll find the headphone jack which in many occasions can become extremely useful. On the left side of the phone you’ll find the volume rocker and the Bixby button (and no, it’s not remappable). On the right side there is the power button and at the top you’ll find the MicroSD card slot that can expand to a Terabyte of storage and the Sim card slot.
The overall design of the Note 9 is pleasing other that the glass which does attract a lot of fingerprints (once again use a case or skin) and the camera which in many opinions looks a bit odd and a bit ugly if you ask me. There is still a bit of a chin on the display but at least you won’t get a notch.
Performance And Hardware
As every flagship android phone in 2018, the Samsung Note 9 has the Snapdragon 845 alongside with 6 GB of RAM on the base model in the US and China. In other countries you will get the Exynos 9810 with that same 6 GB of RAM which is much more powerful. You do have the option with to spec it up to 8 GB of RAM with the 512 GB version which will land you $1250. The base model with 6 GB of RAM and 128GB of storage will cost $1000. Here is the different Geekbench scores you will get with these two processors:
Snapdragon 845: Single-core = 2190; Multi-core = 8806
Samsung Exynos 9810: Single-core = 3716; Multi-core = 8984
So it’s clear that the Samsung Exynos processor is much faster than the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. By all means the Snapdragon not a good processor, you would not notice the difference in speed between the two processors unless you compare it side by side. The Samsung Note 9 either way absolutely rips through any task you throw at it. There is no lag when doing power intensive tasks and even when grinding those long gaming sessions. Samsung has taken a different approach to the way they mange their processors and there cooling systems. This time round Samsung has water-cooled system or as Samsung likes to call it their, carbon water-cooling system. This really does help and you will notice that the Note 9 will not heat up only after some long and extreme gaming sessions which if you are spending that amount of time playing games on a phone, then I’m pretty sure it is a good idea to pick up an XBOX or PS4. Otherwise the performance on the Note 9 is excellent and you will not have any performance issues with this guy.
You may have noticed that the price of the Note 9 is $1000, there is good reason for that number and the Note 9 definitely is worth the money. One of the reasons is that it starts with 128GB of storage alongside 6GB of RAM. This is pretty good value considering the iPhone X starts at $1000 with 64GB of storage. You can spec up the Note 9 with 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM which will land you a whopping $1250, this may seem to be a lot of money but its pretty reasonable because storage options for companies like Apple are much more expensive. If you think the 512GB is too much, well, all I can say is that Samsung thinks it’s too little! This is because they still offer expandable storage for up to 1TB using Samsung’s 512GB SD Card. This does become extremely useful as the Note 9 is targeted at power users who may use their phone and Samsung Dex as a computer and will store many items on their phone.
Snapdragon 845: Single-core = 2190; Multi-core = 8806
Samsung Exynos 9810: Single-core = 3716; Multi-core = 8984
So it’s clear that the Samsung Exynos processor is much faster than the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. By all means the Snapdragon not a good processor, you would not notice the difference in speed between the two processors unless you compare it side by side. The Samsung Note 9 either way absolutely rips through any task you throw at it. There is no lag when doing power intensive tasks and even when grinding those long gaming sessions. Samsung has taken a different approach to the way they mange their processors and there cooling systems. This time round Samsung has water-cooled system or as Samsung likes to call it their, carbon water-cooling system. This really does help and you will notice that the Note 9 will not heat up only after some long and extreme gaming sessions which if you are spending that amount of time playing games on a phone, then I’m pretty sure it is a good idea to pick up an XBOX or PS4. Otherwise the performance on the Note 9 is excellent and you will not have any performance issues with this guy.
You may have noticed that the price of the Note 9 is $1000, there is good reason for that number and the Note 9 definitely is worth the money. One of the reasons is that it starts with 128GB of storage alongside 6GB of RAM. This is pretty good value considering the iPhone X starts at $1000 with 64GB of storage. You can spec up the Note 9 with 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM which will land you a whopping $1250, this may seem to be a lot of money but its pretty reasonable because storage options for companies like Apple are much more expensive. If you think the 512GB is too much, well, all I can say is that Samsung thinks it’s too little! This is because they still offer expandable storage for up to 1TB using Samsung’s 512GB SD Card. This does become extremely useful as the Note 9 is targeted at power users who may use their phone and Samsung Dex as a computer and will store many items on their phone.
Battery
One of the main features of the Samsung Note 9 is its battery life with a whopping 4000mAh battery. Samsung finally stepped up their game on the Note series once again which now easily separates its from the S series of Samsung phones. The Note 9 battery will last you way more than a day if you are an average user, but if you game a lot then the Note 9 should still last you a day. With the included fast charger in the box which will charge your phone to 40% in half an hour. However I would like to see Samsung upgrading the charger from the 14W adapter to something at about 25W to allow for faster charging overall, not to say it was bad or anything considering the iPhone X still comes with a slow 5W charger that usually takes two hours to charge! The Note 9 also has wireless charging as usual, but is fast wireless charging which is just a little slower than the wired charging.
Camera
The camera on the Samsung Note 9 is pretty much the same as the Samsung S9. Either way you shouldn’t be complaining because the Note 9 has a brilliant camera. The rear camera is comprised of one telephoto lens which provides for optical zoom for up to two times, and the main wide angle lens at 13 Mega-pixels. The Note 9 has the same variable aperture from the S9 ad the super cool super slow motion video recording at 960fps at 720p (HD). The Note 9, bottom line will take great pictures with good colour and image processing alongside great High Dynamic Range. It’s a flagship phone with a flagship camera like all flagship phones.
It sounds like nothing to fascinating or differen coming from the Note 9. There is one feature that puts make the Note 9 pretty unique and very useful, well at least for me. This was the new AI features built into the Note 9. If you take a picture of a group of people and someone blinked when you snapped the picture, the phone will alert you to take another picture as someone had blinked. This also happens when you take a blurry picture, it’ll tell you that you took a blurry picture and to take another clearer one.
It terms of video quality, it’s once again like the S9. The only problem is that if you are in the US with the Snapdragon version of the phone. You can only record in 4K at 60fps for 5 minutes before the phone stops recording. If you have the Exynos version you do not have this constraint. I just feel that this should really be a problem for a $1000 phone. Another small thing is that if you vlog a lot using the phones rear camera there is no mic on the rear and your audio quality does seem to decline. I do hope Samsung adds one on the upcoming Samsung S10.
It sounds like nothing to fascinating or differen coming from the Note 9. There is one feature that puts make the Note 9 pretty unique and very useful, well at least for me. This was the new AI features built into the Note 9. If you take a picture of a group of people and someone blinked when you snapped the picture, the phone will alert you to take another picture as someone had blinked. This also happens when you take a blurry picture, it’ll tell you that you took a blurry picture and to take another clearer one.
It terms of video quality, it’s once again like the S9. The only problem is that if you are in the US with the Snapdragon version of the phone. You can only record in 4K at 60fps for 5 minutes before the phone stops recording. If you have the Exynos version you do not have this constraint. I just feel that this should really be a problem for a $1000 phone. Another small thing is that if you vlog a lot using the phones rear camera there is no mic on the rear and your audio quality does seem to decline. I do hope Samsung adds one on the upcoming Samsung S10.
Images
Specifications
GENERAL
Release dateAugust 2018
Form factorTouchscreen
Dimensions (mm)161.90 x 76.40 x 8.80
Weight (g)201.00
ColoursMidnight Black, Metallic Copper, Ocean Blue, Lavender Purple
DISPLAY
Screen size (inches)6.40
TouchscreenYes
Resolution1440x2960 pixels
HARDWARE
Processor1.7GHz octa-core
Processor makeSamsung Exynos 9810 or Snapdragon 845
Battery capacity (mAh)4000
RAM6GB
Internal storage128GB
Expandable storageYes
Expandable storage typemicroSD
Expandable storage up to (GB)1024
CAMERA
Rear camera12-megapixel
Front camera8-megapixel
SOFTWARE
Operating systemAndroid 8.1
SkinSamsung Experience UX
CONNECTIONS
Wi-FiYes
Wi-Fi standards supported802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
GPSYes
BluetoothYes, v 5.00
NFCYes
Number of SIMs2
SIM 1
SIM TypeNano-SIM GSM/CDMAGSM
3GYes
4G/ LTEYes
5GNo
SENSORS
Compass/ MagnetometerYes
Proximity sensorYes
AccelerometerYes
Ambient light sensorYes
GyroscopeYes
BarometerYes
Release dateAugust 2018
Form factorTouchscreen
Dimensions (mm)161.90 x 76.40 x 8.80
Weight (g)201.00
ColoursMidnight Black, Metallic Copper, Ocean Blue, Lavender Purple
DISPLAY
Screen size (inches)6.40
TouchscreenYes
Resolution1440x2960 pixels
HARDWARE
Processor1.7GHz octa-core
Processor makeSamsung Exynos 9810 or Snapdragon 845
Battery capacity (mAh)4000
RAM6GB
Internal storage128GB
Expandable storageYes
Expandable storage typemicroSD
Expandable storage up to (GB)1024
CAMERA
Rear camera12-megapixel
Front camera8-megapixel
SOFTWARE
Operating systemAndroid 8.1
SkinSamsung Experience UX
CONNECTIONS
Wi-FiYes
Wi-Fi standards supported802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
GPSYes
BluetoothYes, v 5.00
NFCYes
Number of SIMs2
SIM 1
SIM TypeNano-SIM GSM/CDMAGSM
3GYes
4G/ LTEYes
5GNo
SENSORS
Compass/ MagnetometerYes
Proximity sensorYes
AccelerometerYes
Ambient light sensorYes
GyroscopeYes
BarometerYes