Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Review

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Most Expensive Galaxy Note to Date But Powerful and Does it All

The Galaxy Note 8 has its work cut out for it, righting the wrongs of the maligned Note 7 that came to a fiery end. But with a massive screen, tiny bezels, battery life to go the distance and an excellent stylus, is the Note 8 finally what phablet fans have been asking for? The Samsung Note series created the phablet category in 2011, defined as a smartphone with a 5in or larger screen. As smartphone screens grew in size to the monsters we have today, a big screen wasn’t enough to differentiate the Note against the competition.

But while large screens are now common, a stylus is certainly not. So it is the unique blend of large screen, a stylus, the as-small-as-possible form factor and large collection of productivity tools that have made the Note so popular. The Note 8 doesn’t break with that tradition.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Design

The Note 8’s screen is ginormous. At 6.3in on the diagonal, with a tall and thin design taken straight from the Infinity Display of Samsung’s Galaxy S8 devices, the Note 8 dwarfs almost every other device, including the previous Note 7, in sheer screen real estate. At the same time, that 6.3in screen is squeezed into a body that’s pretty much the same size as an iPhone 7 Plus and only a smidgen bigger than the Note 7 and then Galaxy S8+. The front is all screen with thin bezels top and bottom and curved edges that bend towards metal sides. The curvature of the screen on the Note 8 and its corners is much reduced compared to the Note 8. The result is harder corners and less screen on the rounded edges, which makes using the stylus easier. The 74.8mm width of Note 8 is also easier to keep a hold of with a metal ridge down the side aiding grip. The Note 8 is in no way an easy to handle smartphone with one hand, but it’s less slippery and is narrower than the majority of competition including the 77.9mm wide iPhone 7 Plus and the 75.7mm wide Google Pixel XL.

The screen is simply brilliant. Big, bright and bold, with rich colours, deep blacks and great viewing angles. It’s the best on the market, and has there’s plenty of customisation options from colour to screen resolution. The Note 8 has the same virtual home button and pressure-sensitive screen as the Galaxy S8, and you get a choice of orientation of the navigation buttons, which is welcome. The glass back of the device is monolithic, with a simple Samsung logo about two-thirds of the way up and the cluster of cameras, flash, heart rate sensor and fingerprint sensor near the top that all sit flush marked out by a small raised bezel. The Note 8 is water resistant to depths of 1.5 metres for 30 minutes with an IP68 rating, and Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5, which should hopefully make both front and back more scratch and shatter resistant than other glass-backed devices, although most will probably want a case to protect the large device.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Display

The 6.3-inch Super AMOLED screen here is the biggest Samsung has ever squeezed into a Note. That the phone isn't crazy uncomfortable to use is a testament to Samsung's fastidious tweaking. As with the S8 line, this display runs at 18.5:9, meaning the screen is a little over twice as long as it is wide. Combine that narrower screen with an almost complete lack of side bezels and voilà: We're left with a big phone that's smaller than you'd expect. In any case, the screen itself is just lovely -- colors are bright and punchy right out of the box, and if they're not exactly what you were looking for, fiddling with Samsung's various display modes will certainly help. Viewing angles are great, brightness is among the best I've seen and text and photos look crisp at the default resolution.

Unless you're paying very close attention, you probably won't even notice at first that the screen isn't running at its maximum resolution. By default, the Note 8's display runs at Full HD+ (2,220 x 1,080) rather than the maximum WQHD+ (2,960 x 1,440). Blurred edges really become noticeable only when you drop the screen's resolution down to the Infinity Display's version of 720p, but you'll probably never see that unless you drop the phone into its most stringent power-saving mode. These options are nice to have, though most people will probably never know that they're there.

Despite its height, the Note 8 doesn't feel any less manageable or harder to operate than any other big screen Android phone. The Note 8 builds on the impressive AMOLED screen of the S8, with even brighter pixels capable of reaching a staggering 1200 nits in daylight mode.

It's also worth noting that, like the S8s, the Note is one of a handful of Mobile HDR Premium–certified phones on the market. Thanks to services like Amazon and Netflix, it's surprisingly easy to get HDR content running on the Note 8, and it's absolutely worth it. I swear I'm trying not to gush, but screens are the one thing you could always count on Samsung to get right, and the tradition continues.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Camera

The Note8’s dual-lens camera marks a first for Samsung, but similar cameras have appeared before, including the iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 Plus, and a handful of high-end Android phones such as the LG G6 and V20.

There are really two cameras—one has a wide-angle lens, and the other has a 2x optical zoom lens. The cameras take wide-angle and close-up shots at the same time, then do some software magic to produce a bokeh effect, in which the subject is in sharp focus while the background is blurred. It’s a classic technique of portrait photography.

The camera also features optical image stabilization, an improvement over the digital image stabilization used in most phones, which compensates for camera shake.

To evaluate smartphone cameras, testers take pictures outside on a sunny day and in a lab with bright and low light. The resulting images are evaluated both on a high-quality, 24-inch display and on color laser printouts.

Overall, the Note8’s main and front-facing, or selfie, cameras rank among the best you can find in any smartphone.

While the ability to instantly zoom in by 2X is available on the viewfinder at all times, the caveat is it isn’t always optical. If the camera detects that the lighting situation isn’t optimal, the camera will not switch lenses. This behavior is intentional though, as the camera software decides that sometimes better results can be achieved through the main sensor. Other phones like the iPhone 7 Plus and OnePlus 5 react the same way.

General picture quality isn’t much different from what we’ve already seen on the Galaxy S8 but by no means is that a bad thing. It’s usually pretty safe to assume that you’re getting a great camera experience with a Samsung flagship and the Note 8 doesn’t fall short of that expectation. Photos from the Note 8 are packed with detail, vibrant colors, and some of the best dynamic range offered on a smartphone.

The optical image stabilization along with the fast dual pixel autofocus makes it easy to capture photos with tack sharp focus in a reliable fashion. This also allows for photos in low light to maintain plenty of detail and the camera’s good dynamic range prevents highlights in night time scenery from being overblown. It’s only in the worst of low light situations that noise starts to be noticeable, but for the most part Samsung’s image processing keeps the images quite clean.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Stylus/Pen

There are two types of people in the world – those who will use the Note 8’s S Pen, and those who think they’re going to use it, but will stop taking it out of its holster after about a week. It’s like everyone’s desire to own a Fitbit – you had good intentions when you set out to buy it. Anyone who sticks with the S Pen, however, will get their money’s worth from the Note 8. We signed a PDF contract last week without having to print or scan it – in fact, we didn’t even have to leave the email app. We also jotted down handwritten notes and took screenshots that we were instantly able to mark up. Plus the S Pen is also great for sketching with over 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. These features – usually reserved for pro-level tablets or 2-in-1 computers – are even handier on a phone. After all, the best note-taking device is the one you have with you all the time.

Frequent note-takers will love the off-screen memo feature, which lets you jot down white-ink notes on the turned-off black screen as soon as you eject the S Pen. Off-screen memos, introduced with the doomed Note 7, enable you to capture your thoughts without having to unlock the phone first. Here's something fun you can do: write a message with the S Pen in glowing or glittering text, turn it into an animated GIF in a few taps and share it with friends on any platform that accepts GIFs. I wrote my favorite Live Messages over photos for that personal touch. Tools let you preview your GIF and undo a stroke if you've made a mistake, and you can save your finished masterpiece to use again later. I just wish you could easily go back in again to edit when genius strikes.

If the S Pen lets you skip a few archaic steps – like printing, finding a working pen, and scanning a document – the Note 8 may be worth the extra $105 over the similarly sized S8 Plus if you can't find a good deal.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Pefomance

Internally, the Note 8 is very similar to the Galaxy S8. Inside, you’ll find a 10nm CPU, the second of Samsung’s flagships using such a processor. There’s also 6GB of RAM for heavyweight multitasking, and 64GB of onboard storage, expandable up to 256GB via microSD.

As with some previous Samsung handsets, the processor comes in two flavours depending on your region. US owners get the latest Qualcomm processor (in this case, a Snapdragon 835), while Europeans are treated to Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 chip. In the Galaxy S8, Samsung’s own chip proved to be a smidge quicker than Qualcomm’s, and I’d expect that to hold here too. Our own testing affirms my expectations - the Note 8 is one seriously speedy handset. Running the Geekbench 4 multi-core and single-core tests, the Galaxy Note 8 reached 6614 and 2008 respectively - the highest figure we've seen on an Android handset thus far. That's a good 10% increase in multi-core processing when put against the Exynos 8890-equipped Galaxy Note 7. Mind you, the Note 8 is in line with the similarly well-performing S8 Plus, which currently asks for well over £200 less. Graphics performance, as you can expect, is exemplary. The Note 8 breezed past the GFXBench Manhattan 3.0 test, scoring a 42fps average at native resolution, and 64fps offscreen at 1080p. This'll run any Android game you throw at it, no question.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 OS

The Galaxy Note 8 runs a highly tweaked version of Android 7.1.1, but that's no surprise. Aside from a handful of new add-ons, the software here is a dead ringer for what we got on the Galaxy S8 line. we'd argue that's a good thing: Samsung polished up its custom interface dramatically this year, and it finally feels mature and well thought out. It will still be way, way too much for Android purists, but we've surprised myself by sometimes missing Samsung's tweaks when we test other devices. we won't call out every feature carried over from the S8 family, but it's worth going over the highlights. Since there's just no room for it, Samsung ditched the physical home button for a virtual one that you press on the screen; you'll get a little jolt of haptic feedback to let you know you've done it right. Right of the box, the virtual home key takes just a little too much pressure to actuate, but it's easy to fix this in settings. The old-school launcher button is gone too, so you'll have to swipe up or down on a home screen to see all of your installed apps. More important, actually managing those apps is a lot easier. Long-pressing an app brings up a menu with options to quickly clear its notification badges, disable it or uninstall it entirely. It's a minor touch, sure, but it makes wrangling ornery apps radically simpler. The Note 8 also packs a few relatively new interface tricks that S8 owners got in a software update over the summer. See that little dot near the on-screen navigation keys? A quick double tap on that forces the navigation bar to hide off-screen; it takes a swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring it back. It's been handy for moments when I really wanted my apps to use every pixel of this enormous screen, but in general, we like my nav keys where we can see them. And since some apps don't natively play nice with this long screen, the Note 8 will sometimes display a button you can "tap to fill the entire screen" to force things to fit.

Samsung's Edge UX is back too, and as usual, it offers access to app shortcuts, favorite contacts, device maintenance tools and more. This is where you'll find one of the few new additions to the mix: App Pair. The concept is simple: You can create a shortcut to two apps, and with a tap they'll both launch in split-screen windows. There's a little fun to be had in finding neat combinations of apps that work well together -- we're a fan of Spotify and Genius for lyrics running side by side -- but it's a moot point for people who never do any multi-window multitasking. Nice try, though. Bixby isn't going anywhere either, and, for better or worse, it essentially works as well here as it does on the S8 and S8 Plus. The Bixby Home experience, which lives in a panel to the left of your main home screen, did a fine job highlighting how many steps we had taken and what was up next on my calendar. Bixby Vision, which attempts to interpret whatever the camera is pointed at, remains hit-or-miss: it'll identify bottles of wine and clearly marked products without trouble, but anything other than that feels like a crapshoot. In my experience, Bixby is also a reliable listener when you hold down its dedicated button to offer voice commands.

Here's the problem, though: You can also activate the assistant with a friendly "Hi, Bixby," but the Note 8 has been more prone to false positives than either of its predecessors was. In fact, as I write this sentence, Bixby came to life in a quiet office no less than four times, and I have no idea why. That was with the microphone sensitivity set to low, mind you; it's seriously obnoxious and it shouldn't be happening.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Biometrics

The Note 8 comes with a variety of options for unlocking the phone. On the front you have an IR-based iris scanner, which works well if the phone is in the right orientation. It has face recognition, which has been a mainstay of Android for years and isn’t fantastic, plus the usual pin, pattern and smart lock features for keeping it unlocked when at home, connected to a car or other device.

Then there’s the fingerprint scanner, which like the Galaxy S8 is positioned right up next to the camera on the back. It’s an awkward position that is less than ideal, and requires some stretching to reach. It’s clearly a stopgap for a fingerprint mounted under the screen, which Samsung and others haven’t gotten to work properly just yet. we got used to reaching it eventually, but it required quite a lot of hand movement, which for a device this size increases your chances of dropping it.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Speakers

We were impressed with not only how loud the Note 8's speaker could go, but also how little it was distorted at maximum volume. It handled lows, mids and highs admirably in our testing, with clear vocals and promising bass. The speaker pumps out audio from the bottom edge of the handset, but given the Note 8's height it's unlikely that this will be in any way obscured by the palm of your hand.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Battery

Battery life matters a lot in a device that helps you run your life. To test smartphone batteries, the lab uses a robotic arm that simulates what a person would do if he or she were using the phone throughout an average day. It surfs the internet, takes pictures, uses the GPS navigation and, of course, makes phone calls. The Note8’s battery is slightly smaller than the ill-fated Note7 battery, and it’s also slightly smaller than the one in the S8+. But what really matters isn’t a battery’s size, but how long it keeps a smartphone running. The Note8’s battery clocked in at 24.5 hours in CR testing. That’s just below the 26 hours that both Galaxy S8 phones lasted, but the Note8 still has one of the top battery-test results in our ratings.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Pricing

The official Note 8 price is $929 (£869, AU$1,499), and US carriers have it for as much as $40 a month for 24 months, though we’d suggest getting the unlocked, carrier-agnostic version. The best deal we can find is on Amazon US for $914.

Either way, it’s going to be the most expensive smartphone you’ve ever bought. The Galaxy S8 Plus, for comparison, cost $829 (£779, AU$1,349) at launch, but you can now get Plus for around $739 in the US, while Galaxy S8 deals make the smaller version almost half the price of the Note 8.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 feels like a greatest hits for the Note series. It has every feature that made previous Notes worth buying and slams them into the new Samsung smartphone design ushered in by the Galaxy S8, but as a consequence doesn’t feel particularly new or innovative compared to Samsung’s other smartphones. That doesn’t diminish the Note 8’s capabilities. It has a massive, beautiful screen with tiny bezels, an excellent stylus, it’s waterproof and lasts a good day and a half between charges. The dual camera system on the back is pretty good and the phone is powerful enough to do pretty much anything I can think of to do with a pocket computer.

It isn’t perfect though. The biggest irritations for the Note 8 is the placement of the fingerprint scanner, which is awkward at best, and that the phone is really big and really expensive. The Note 8’s biggest rival is the Galaxy S8+, which is 80% the same device with a very similar screen size. But if you’re after a master of productivity, with that excellent stylus, the Note 8 is the very best you’re going to get for this generation. Providing it doesn’t explode, of course, the Note 8 should confine the troubled Note 7 to the past. While the Note 8 might be Samsung's best big phone, it's not dramatically better than the S8 Plus and probably won't be worth the extra cash for most people.