Samsung's venerable Galaxy Note brand has quite a following thanks to the innovative blend of a massive crystal-clear display with an advanced stylus, top-tier performance, multitasking, and productivity features, and some of the best camera hardware in the business.
The Galaxy Note 8 is the latest Draft Horse from Samsung's extra-large stable, but does it keep momentum going for one of Samsung's best designs?
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Review: Design & Display
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8’s visual style and design makes for a slightly confusing package; on the one hand, it’s entirely predictable, as it sits right in there with the same styling cues and design ethos of the Galaxy S8 series...and the Galaxy S7 series...and the Galaxy Note 7...and the Galaxy S6 Edge.
Basically it’s the same as the last few generations of Samsung flagship we’ve seen since the big redesign following the disaster that was the Galaxy S5, and the introduction of curvy edge displays with the Galaxy S6 Edge (well, technically the Galaxy Note Edge, but let’s not split hairs eh?).
But why is that confusing? Well normally such predictable repetition might be boring or off-putting - afterall, it was at least in part such over-familiarity with the design of the Galaxy S5 that caused many to reject it outright - but here, for some reason, I personally don’t find it a turn-off (at least not yet). For whatever reason, I am still enjoying the ongoing Galaxy flagship design ethos; the curvy metal and glass sandwich.
My main disappointment is that my review unit is the black coloured edition, just as it was with the Galaxy S8+.
Nothing wrong with a black phone, in fact it’s essential that the hue be in any phone range in my view, just in case anyone needs to use their handset for business, but I do think a lot of the time it fails to truly bring out the positive elements of a phone’s design, with everything merging into one solid mass, and obscuring the details and elegance.
I’ve seen pictures of the other colour options and they look a lot more attractive to me - thus, so you can actually see the design better, for this review we've borrowed some pictures of a different colour version from our sister site; Expert Reviews. As you can see, even for the other colour variants, the front fascia is black across all of them.
But I digress. My initial reaction upon taking the Galaxy Note 8 out the box was the size of the thing - it is massive! I think it might be the tallest smartphone I’ve ever seen. That said, it never ceases to amaze me how a period of exposure can change your perspective on things.
Having used the phone for a few weeks I certainly don’t see it the same way; it has become normalised in my brain. That might partly be due to how it feels in the hand; it doesn’t seem hefty or chunky, or difficult to handle, for the most part (admittedly I have somewhat large hands); the weight and balance are nice and comfortable and width-wise there is nothing unusual here at all.
The height might be a bit of a problem though, if you’re holding the phone around the lower portion (so that you can thumb the interface keys at the bottom) it becomes quite a stretch to reach the top with the same hand, say if you want to drag down the notifications menu with your thumb.
The solution seems to be either using both hands, or I did find myself sort of shuffling my hand between the lower part of the phone for the lower controls, and about the mid point to tap the upper screen. I’m sure this is not going to suit everyone, as some might find it irritating, or worse get aches, pains, and cramps from working those extra muscles almost constantly.
This is going to be less of an issue if you’re primarily using the Galaxy Note 8 with its S-Pen stylus, as this is, by necessity, a two-handed operational style.
I’ll mainly go over the stylus features later on in the review, but it’s worth mentioning a few of the physical design features in this section. Having used most of the Galaxy Note handsets since the very first edition, I can say this is, in my view, definitely the best S-Pen to date.
The press-click-pop-out release mechanism is admittedly not new, but is wonderfully realised, plus to ensure there aren’t any of the old problems with jamming the pen back in its slot the wrong way, Samsung has made the S-Pen with a flat cross-section design which can basically only be inserted two ways - both of which are accepted by the phone, so basically it’s impossible to get it wrong (a bit like Type-C USB).
The flat-sided design of the S-Pen also means it is possibly the grippiest and most comfortable design so far, and lastly there’s the nib. I’m not sure what kind of magic material Samsung has made it from but making contact with the screen gives a far superior tactile sensation from earlier designs; it has a slightly rubbery, slightly grainy, slightly sticky resistance to it which I’m sure sounds weird putting it like that, but what this all means is it actually feels more like writing on paper than previous models, which were a bit like trying to write on glass with a pencil.
Which provides a convenient segway into discussing the display!
Regular readers will by now be fairly familiar with my gushing over Samsung Super AMOLED display technology, at least in its modern form (I do remember when it was still a bit naff in the early days), and again somewhat predictably the same applies here.
It’s a fantastic piece of 6.3in curved edge-to-edge glass over-top of that same expanse of curved Super AMOLED, with the 18.5:9 Infinity Display aspect ratio and a screen-to-body ratio of a little over 83%. In other words, the phone is mostly screen on the front. And what a screen it is; a 1440x2960 pixel QHD+ resolution provides an ultra-sharp 521ppi pixel density, and that’s just for starters.
All the positive qualities we’ve seen on the last few generations of Samsung Galaxy flagships, and which put it way out in front of pretty much all the competition (even putting it in a position to produce Apple’s displays on its behalf), are present and correct, including excellent brightness and white purity, wide viewing angles, good readability in bright sunlight, superb colour, black depth and contrast, and some of the best adaptive display and always-on features on the market.
I really cannot find anything to fault here, particularly as you can now tune the display hue in the settings menu if the default is not to your liking.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Review: Battery Life
Another area where things turned out pretty much as I expected.
Having tested the Galaxy S8+ and finding it to have astonishingly good battery performance, I was thinking the same would happen with the Galaxy Note 8, after all, they are largely using the same set of technology and hardware and they’re virtually the same size and specs in terms of the display panel too.
With the Galaxy S8+, our two-hour movie test left the handset with 86% charge remaining from a 100% fully charged starting point, and that remains some of the best battery consumption rate for video playback we’ve ever seen.
The Galaxy Note 8 doesn’t do quite so well under the same testing conditions. Again, we charge it to full 100% battery, put the screen brightness on full, and play a pre-downloaded (no streaming) two-hour film, in this case The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug.
At the end of the film the Galaxy Note 8 had 82% charge remaining, again, not quite as good as the Galaxy S8+, but really, it is still pretty mind-blowing, and we’re not going to quibble over a 4% difference.
The fact is there are very few other phones on the market that can deliver this kind of performance.
As with the Galaxy S8+, the Galaxy Note 8 does seem to quite consistently reflect the above test in general, day-to-day operation as well. This thing just keeps on going.
As the above testing shows, with the Galaxy Note 8 you can pretty much watch films for 8-10 hours straight on a single charge. On the other end of the spectrum, it’ll last days, or even a good chunk of a week if largely to its own devices, sipping around 7%-10% per day.
Neither use case is particularly normal, however. Of course use patterns vary from one person to another, so your mileage may inevitably vary. But on average we expect many users to engage in a spot of browsing periodically, quite a bit of messaging, quite a bit of Facebook, quite a bit of Instagram, the occasional Youtube video (or even Youtube binge), and perhaps the odd bit of music or gaming here and there (although some people go all out on these two!).
If you’re like most of us and are often giving the phone a nudge for some reason or another throughout your typical day, then a day and a half on this type of consumption from a single charge is entirely possible. That will start to come down to within a single day if you do a LOT of gaming, music, or video playback, however, but for a normal amount a couple of days per charge is not at all unrealistic in my experience.
The battery itself is non-removable and rated at 3,300mAh, and it also supports some very quick fast charging which will see you topped up pretty handsomely within 15-30 minutes if you’re somehow caught short.
So, in summary, the Galaxy Note 8 has a fantastic battery. It is not the best in Samsung’s current range, but it’s so close that it doesn’t really matter, and even so this puts it far ahead of the vast majority of the competition. If you’re looking for a phone with a reliable, long-lasting battery that won’t let you down when you need it most, this will surely fit the bill.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Review: Hardware, Specs & Connectivity
- Dimensions: 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm
- Weight: 195g
- Display: 6.3in Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 83.2% screen-to-body ratio, 1440 x 2960 pixels QHD+ resolution, 18.5:9 aspect ratio “Infinity Display, 521 ppi pixel density, HDR10, Always-On
- Software: Android 7.1.1 (Nougat), upgradable to 8.0 (Oreo)
- Processor: (International Model) Exynos 8895 octa-core, 2.3GHz
- GPU: Mali-G71 MP20
- RAM: 6GB
- Storage: 64GB/128GB
- microSD Card Slot: Up to 256GB
- Primary Camera: Dual-12MP, f/1.7 & f/2.4apertures,1/2.5" & 1/3.6" sensor sizes, 1.4 µm & 1 µm pixel sizes, dual-pixel phase-detection autofocus & autofocus, optical image stabilisation (OIS), 2x optical zoom, dual-LED flash, phase detection autofocus, 4K video, HDR, panoramic capture, face and smile detection, touch focus, geo-tagging
- Secondary Camera: 8MP, f/1.7 aperture, 1/3.6" sensor size, 1.22 µm pixel size, HDR, autofocus, 1440p video
- Connectivity: 3.5mm headphone jack, 4G LTE (Nano-SIM), Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Dual-Band, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, A-GPS, NFC, USB Type-C, iris scanner, fingerprint scanner,
- Other: IP68 certified - dust and water resistant, Samsung DeX support, S-Pen stylus
- Battery: Non-removable Li-Ion 3,300 mAh battery, Fast Charging
A pretty comprehensive suite of specs and hardware, as you can see above, is sealed within the Galaxy Note 8’s frame. It pretty much has everything you could possibly want from a modern high-end smartphone.
The storage offered is decent at 64GB and 128GB, covering the needs of all but the most hardcore users - a 256GB onboard storage model exists (on top of the 256GB card support!) but although you can get it in the UK and Europe, it will be an imported version as it isn’t readily available off-the-shelf here.
A healthy 6GB of RAM is also standard to help the processor in its tasks, and the phone supports Samsung’s DeX (Desktop Experience), meaning if you purchase one of Samsung’s docks (there’s one already available, but a new one is said to be launching with the Galaxy S9 series) you can use your phone as a computer by teaming it with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor setup.
Come back soon for part two, where I'll go over the camera, performance and software, and I'll go into more detail on the S-Pen stylus too!
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