As a follower of Samsung’s Note series from the very beginning, I am always curious to see a new generation of the super-smartphone. Usually more flagship than the flagship, a new Note adds innovative features to its slightly plainer cousins — in this case the S8 and S8+ phones.
Having reluctantly let go of the troubled Note 7, which I was able to play with briefly last year, the Note 8 felt like much more than a remake of its predecessor. The first thing to stand out, before it’s even switched on, is its very slim and tall profile, light and easy to hold despite its 6.3-inch display. The back is smooth and glassy and particularly beautiful when in one of the ‘other’ colours, specifically deep sea blue and orchid grey and maple gold. The Note 8 is stunning to look at, but quite vulnerable thanks to all the glass. There’s Gorilla Glass 5 for protection but a case is called for at all costs. Damage to these expensive screens is costly to repair and often spirals into other problems besides with the display. On the back is the large camera assembly and fingerprint sensor, still placed in a location that’s a little awkward. The phone’s ergonomics are amazing but care should be taken when slipping it into a pocket and so on.
Seamless Infinity Display
The real beauty of the Note 8 becomes evident when it is switched on and the display can be seen in relation to the phone’s whole body. The edges on the top and bottom are almost non-existent and the display seems expansive and seamless, unsurprisingly tagged Infinity Display by Samsung. The 1440x2960 brilliant OLED screen is the best in the business and supports HDR content. Videos and images on this phone look spectacular and immersive and if there’s something that’s been shot well, you can’t resist watching. It draws your eye to it and holds your attention.
Signature S Pen
By now, other phone makers are coming out with pretty glass designs and bezel-less displays, but no other device has the Note’s digital pen, the S Pen. For something so small and light (and waterproof like the rest of the phone), it has a surprising number of functions and capabilities. Like so many others in this day and age, I have reduced the amount I write by hand and sometimes have to write a bit just to check that I still can. Typing on full keyboards is so much faster that one loses the habit of writing. But using the Note early on actually rekindled the fun of writing by hand because it’s so natural and precise. Particularly enjoyable is clicking the Pen’s button to slip it out of its slot in the phone and writing or drawing on the dark screen. One can carry on doing that for a good 100 pages worth of material. But the S Pen has other functions besides writing and drawing. It can be used, for instance, to select and translate text in several languages. It can also be used to create funky live messages or gifs, to extract video snippets and write on them to share on social networks, and it can be used as one would a mouse or pointer to navigate and select items on the phone. These functions are entirely unique to the Note and not available on any other device, including ones that use a stylus — and there aren’t too many. If one is determined not to use the S Pen, the S8 or S8+ would make better choices.
Dual cameras, dual capture
The Note 8 has two 12 MP rear cameras, both with optical image stabilisation, but I need to spend some time with the device before I can tell whether this is managing to counter my extra-shaky grip. Using it for a short while, I explored the cameras’ depth effect, blurring the background when focusing on a subject. You can adjust the extent of blur you want. A ‘Live Focus’ mode lets you get two shots: A wide angle and a regular and both are available after the shot is taken. I liked using the S Pen to touch the camera shutter button rather than jab with a finger. But how fantastic would it have been to be able to use the Pen to trigger a shot. Photographs came out clear, detailed and vivid, on first impressions, but let’s wait for a review device to play with.
The Note 8 also has other features such as Samsung’s Bixby virtual assistant and DEX, the dock that lets you interface with your PC for work, features also present on the S8 phones. The phone has 6 GB of RAM with 64 GB of internal storage and an expandable option.
At ₹67,900, the Note 8 is not cheap by any means, but when you consider devices like the new iPhones just launched and the fact that the Note 8 already has some of the features now coming to those phones, it’s unlikely the price could have been any lower.