Samsung Galaxy Note8 review: So good you'll forget the Note7 ever existed

Note: The Samsung Galaxy Note8 is now widely available in retail stores, hence we've republished the review.

Overview

A year on from the disastrous Note7 launch, Samsung is back with a new Note. The Note8 boasts all of the features that made the Note7 so good, and also includes the new, taller bezel-less Infinity Display design from the S8 and S8+. It also sports Samsung's first ever dual rear camera setup, which includes OIS on both lenses - currently the only phone on the market to do so.

But is the Note8 good enough to make consumers forget about the Note7? Let's find out.

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Design

The Note8 uses basically the same Infinity Display design as the S series, with the display curving at both edges and cascading over the sides like an infinity pool. There are no physical buttons on the front and only tiny bezels at the top and bottom. I absolutely loved this design when I reviewed the S8, saying that "it really feels like you're holding just a display in your hand" and that's just as true with the Note8.

There are some subtle differences between the Note8 and the S8 but they're hard to spot. First of all, the corners of the display aren't as rounded as they are on the S8. According to Samsung, the more squarish corners are designed to give the Note8 a more professional look. Secondly, the curved edges on the side of the display are steeper than they are on the S8; this change is to give you a larger surface area to use the S Pen.

The Note8 has a 6.3-inch display, making it just 0.1-inches bigger than the S8+. In hand it feels almost identical to the S8+. The phone measures 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6mm making it a tiny bit longer and wider, and 0.5mm thicker than the S8+. At 195g, it's also 22g heavier than the S8+. Compared to last year's Note7, the Note8 is also slightly longer and wider, but also quite a bit thicker and heavier. Of course, like the S8 it's IP68 dust and water resistant, which means it can withstand up to 1.5 meters of water submersion for up to 30 minutes at a time. 

Like the S8 and S8+, there's a dedicated Bixby button on the left-side of the phone, just below the volume rocker. Unfortunately, it seems like there's still no option to remap this button.

The power button is once again on the right side, while the 3.5mm headphone jack and USB Type-C port and single speaker remain on the bottom. As usual, the S Pen port is also tucked away here.

On the rear of the phone, there's a glass panel that also curves at both sides, mirroring the design of the front display. Back here, you'll also find the Note8's standout new feature: a dual rear camera setup that pairs a 12-megapixel telephoto f/2.4 lens with a 12-megapixel wide-angle f/1.7 lens.

Unlike the S8, which had each of the rear camera's individual elements embedded separately into the rear of the phone, all of the Note8's camera elements, as well as the fingerprint scanner (yes, unfortunately, it's still awkwardly positioned back here), sit inside a black rectangular module. This arrangement looks fine on the Midnight Black color but the big black box is a bit of an eyesore on the rest of the colors, especially with the box inside a box design to include the fingerprint scanner.

Speaking of colors, the Note8 is available locally in three colors: Midnight Black, Orchid Grey, and Maple Gold. A fourth color, Deepsea Blue, which is a darker version of the S8's Coral Blue, and probably my favorite color - if not for the unsightly black camera box - is not currently available in Singapore, but we expect it to be launched at a later date. Personally I'd probably buy the Midnight Black color just because the camera box blends in so much better.

Display

Like the S8 and S8+, the Note8 has an always-on QHD Super AMOLED panel, with a 18.5:9 aspect ratio and a 2,960 x 1,440 pixels resolution (~522ppi). Like the S8 and S8+ the unusual ultra wide screen ratio means that the total screen size isn't actually as large as a traditional 16:9 screen. When viewing regular 16:9 content on the Note8, it looks about the same size as a 5.7-inch screen.

The unusual screen ratio also means that many apps will display with black bars at the edges, as they're made with a 16:9 ratio in mind. Having said that, since the S8's launch, quite a few apps have been updated to support 18.5:9 ratio so the problem isn't quite as bad as it was before.

As for the screen itself, Samsung's Super AMOLED panels are among the best in the business, and the Note8 is no exception. The display is sharp, vibrant and bright, and easy to see even under direct sunlight. As usual, contrast is also fantastic with ultra deep blacks. Like the S8, the display is also ‘Mobile HDR Premium’ certified.

The display is an always-on panel, so you'll see the time, date, battery life and any notifications when you're not using the phone. Edge panels are also back; if you swipe in from the curved right side of the phone (if you're a lefty you can change it to the left side) you'll get access to more app shortcuts, contact shortcuts and other tools including news feeds, Quick Tools (which includes a compass and ruler), Reminders and Smart Select, which lets you easily capture part of the screenshot as a screenshot or animated GIF.

Like the S8, the Note8's display also has the same spot of pressure sensitivity right over the virtual home button. This spot lets you push harder on this part of the screen to wake the display or return to the home screen at any point, even when you're using a full screen app that doesn't have a home button displayed.

One of the best uses of the S8's ultra wide screen display is using Multi-Window to show two apps side-by-side. For added convenience, the Note8 now includes a new feature called App Pair that lets you pair two apps together and launch them simultaneous in Multi-Window mode from the Apps Edge screen. For example, if you always have Google Maps and Google Play Music open together while driving, you can use App Pair to automatically launch them both at the same time.

Audio

Like the S8, audio on the Note8 comes from a single downward-firing speaker found on the bottom of the phone. It's the one area where Samsung hasn't really kept up with the competition, many of which boast stereo speakers. I actually would have preferred if Samsung had used the same speaker placement it experimented with on the mid-range Galaxy A7 (2017), which had the speaker on the right-side, next to the power button. At least this way your hand doesn't cover the speaker when you're holding the phone in landscape orientation. The speaker itself is fairly good, but could definitely be louder.

You also get the same pair of AKG-branded earphones in the box that come with the S8. The earphones are pretty decent, and better than most stock earphones, but they're probably not worth the S$140 Samsung claims they are.

S Pen

As always, the integrated S Pen stylus is the main feature that separates the Note series from Samsung's S series. The S Pen stylus fits snugly into the bottom of the phone when not in use, popping out when you want to use it.

Samsung completely overhauled the S Pen for last year's Note7, redesigning it to be more responsive and easier to use and they've now brought those improvements forward for the Note8. The tip of the Note8's S Pen has a radius of only 0.7mm (down from 1.6m on the Note 5's S Pen), and the thinner tip makes the S Pen feel more like a ballpoint pen. The redesigned S Pen is more accurate too, and can now recognize 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity, twice that of the Note 5. These two improvements result in a more fluid writing experience, which makes the S Pen feel more like you're writing with a pen on paper.

Like the Note8, the S Pen itself is IP68 dust and water resistant. This is more useful than you might think, because unlike most water-resistant smartphones, where the screen isn't actually responsive underwater, you can still use the S Pen on the display even when both your phone and the S pen are fully submerged in water.

A new feature for the S Pen this year is Live Message, which lets you create an animated gif of your handwriting with animated effects around the words to send to your friends. You can use a blank background or you can choose a photo from your gallery to write on. Once you've made a Live Message, you can save it as a custom emoji to send again. You can also export it as a GIF you can use anywhere:

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Other than Live Message, you'll mostly find improvements on the S Pen features introduced in the Note7, rather than brand new features. Translate will now translate entire sentences at once, instead of just individual words, and there's even a built in currency and unit converter whenever you translate something. You can switch between single word and whole sentence translation by tapping a little icon at the top of the screen.

Screen off memo has also been improved, and you can now write up to a 100 pages of notes in Screen off memo mode. You can also save any screen off memos and come back to them later to edit them.

Bixby

Samsung's virtual assistant Bixby makes a return on the Note8. Bixby is made up of three features: Bixby Voice, Bixby Home, and Bixby Vision.

• Bixby Voice lets you talk to Bixby and issue it commands, similar to other assistants like Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant. You can activate Voice by saying Hey Bixby (it's always listening), or by pressing and holding the Bixby Button. You can ask it to search the internet, play a song, dim the screen, and turn on Wi-Fi, all with your voice. This feature only became available on the S8 in August, but it will be available on the Note8 from launch.
  
   
• Bixby Home is basically Samsung's version of Google Now. It's automatically launched when you press the Bixby Button or by swiping in from the left side of the screen and displays various cards and information based on your routine and interests. It will display the weather, any upcoming calendar appointments or reminders you've set and any news updates you've subscribed to. It can also sync with third-party services like Twitter and Facebook. Samsung says that Bixby also has machine learning that will learn your habits and adapt over time, offering suggestions based on your routine but I haven't noticed anything like this popping up yet during my usage period.

• Bixby Vision resides in the camera and gallery app. This is basically Samsung's version of the Google Goggles app. Point the camera at something, hit the Bixby button (it looks like a stylized eye) and it will identify the object, place or text you're looking at. It can translate the text you're looking at, or show you similar images on Pinterest, or if you're looking at a landmark, it can use Foursquare to show you more information about that landmark, as well as any nearby points of interest.

One thing worth mentioning that I pointed out in my S8 review is that Bixby kind of cheats with local areas of interest. It doesn't actually show you areas near to the landmark you've taken a picture of, instead it just uses GPS to locate you and show you nearby things, so when I loaded up a picture of Marina Bay Sands on my computer at work and then took a picture of that, it tried to suggest me restaurants near my office.

Eventually, you'll also be able to use Bixby Vision for shopping. In the US this is already available as Samsung has partnered with Amazon so, for example, if you take a picture of a pair of shoes, it will send you to Amazon with an option to buy that exact same pair of shoes. Unfortunately, despite Amazon Prime now being available in Singapore, Samsung is still in negotiations with various vendors, so this isn't available yet.

Dex Support

Like the S8, the Note8 is compatible with Samsung's Dex dock, which lets you turn your phone into a chromebook-like desktop PC by connecting it to a monitor and a wireless keyboard and mouse. There are also some nice new features on Dex that are currently unique to the Note8, but will likely be added to the S8 and S8+ in a later software update.

The first is Game Launcher, which lets you play compatible Android games in a full screen mode with your keyboard and mouse.

There's also a new music creation app called Soundcamp that lets you plug a USB instrument like a mini-keyboard into the Dex dock and record your own music. You can also edit music in the app.

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Biometric Security

The Note8 has three forms of biometric security: fingerprint, iris scanning and facial recognition.

The fingerprint scanner is fast and responsive, but once again, awkwardly positioned on the rear of the phone next to the camera module. It's actually further to the right than the S8's sensor, and more importantly, the flash module now sits in between it and the camera lens so it's less likely you'll smudge the lens with fingerprints, but it's still not ideal. I would like to see Samsung either move the fingerprint scanner to a spot below and away from the camera module (which would also make it easier to reach), or even better, integrate it into the power button on the side like Sony does.

Iris scanning first debuted on the Note7 and uses a dedicated iris sensor on the front of the phone with an infrared LED that works in conjunction with the front camera. The LED directs a beam of near-infrared light at your eyes and scans the pattern of your irises. Infrared light is used because it exposes the pattern of the iris much more clearly, making it easier for the sensor to capture it and, as an added bonus, means the iris scanner can work in the dark. It also means that glasses and contact lenses won't affect the beam. Once the image has been recorded, software translates the iris' pattern into code. This code is then compared against a record in search of a match.

Setting up the iris scanner is incredibly easy and is actually faster than setting up your fingerprints, but you'll have to remove your glasses to do so. Once everything is setup however, you can unlock your phone without taking your glasses off. When you unlock your phone, two circles will show up on screen. You're supposed to line up your eyes with these circles but I've found that just vaguely looking in the general direction of your phone will do the trick, and all it needs to do is catch one eye to unlock. The iris scanner is lightning fast, and is just as secure as the fingerprint scanner - you won't be able to fool it with a picture of your eyes.

A less secure, but even more convenient way of unlocking your phone is face recognition. It's a lot more low-tech, and simply compares the image from the front-facing camera with the one it has on file from when you setup facial recognition. Face recognition and Iris scanning can't be used at the same time and, unsurprisingly, face recognition can be fooled fairly easily with a picture placed at the right angle in front of the phone and, as such, Samsung won't let you use it for Samsung Pay or even your password-protected Secure Folder.

UI

The Note8 runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat with Samsung's Dream UX on top of it. Dream is a progression from Grace UX, which we saw on the Note7 and A7 (2017). If you haven't seen a Samsung phone in a while, you'll be in for a pleasant surprise as the software is both restrained and tasteful, with a simple home screen, and a small tray of app shortcuts. There's no icon for the app drawer by default (although you can add it back in the Settings menu) but if you swipe on the screen, it will load the app drawer. Swipe up again and you're back to the home screen.  

Like Grace UX, there's a search bar in the app drawer and settings menu, so it's easy to find anything you need. Dig deeper into the settings and there are customization options for nearly everything, from the order and functionality of the on-screen buttons to themes, and settings for the always-on display.

Performance Benchmarks

Like the S8, the Note8 uses Samsung's own Exynos 8895 SoC (except for the US model, which uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor). The 8895 is built around a cutting-edge 10nm process and features four of Samsung's Mongoose M2 cores running at 2.3GHz and four ARM Cortex A53 cores running at 1.7GHz. It also sports ARM's new Mali G71 GPU clocked at 550MHz. Compared to the S8 and S8+, the Note8 also has 6GB RAM compared to the S8 and S8+'s 4GB.

Sunspider Javascript

SunSpider JavaScript measures the browsing performance of a device when processing JavaScript. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience. 

The Note8 performed well and was roughly on par with the S8+ and was certainly much better than the defunct Note7. Having said that, Apple is still unbeaten in this benchmark.

Quadrant

Quadrant is an Android benchmark that evaluates a device's CPU, memory, I/O and 3D graphics performances. The Note8 is officially the first device to break the 60K mark on Quadrant, with the extra 2GB RAM giving it a slightly higher score than both the S8 and S8+.

3DMark Sling Shot

3DMark Sling Shot is an advanced 3D graphics benchmark that tests the full range of OpenGL ES 3.1 and ES 3.0 API features including multiple render targets, instanced rendering, uniform buffers and transform feedback. The test also includes impressive volumetric lighting and post-processing effects. We're running this benchmark in Unlimited mode, which ignores screen resolutions.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor continues to rule this benchmark, although the Note8 did perform better than both the S8 and S8+, once again thanks to an extra 2GB RAM.

Imaging

The Note8 sports Samsung's first ever dual camera setup.  You get a 12-megapixel telephoto f/2.4 lens paired with a 12-megapixel wide-angle f/1.7 lens giving you 2x optical zoom, as well as 10x digital zoom. One minor point of annoyance is that, unlike the iPhone 7 Plus, there's no slider that lets you adjust the amount of optical zoom. Instead you have to pinch to zoom in, which is far less precise. I have no idea why Samsung didn't just use the same slider design that pops up for adjusting the amount of bokeh in Live Focus - hopefully this is something that will be added in a future software update.

The biggest difference between Samsung's dual-camera setup and every other dual-camera phone on the market, is that both lenses boast OIS (optical image stabilization). Almost every other dual camera phone out there (including the iPhone 7 Plus) has OIS on only the wide-angle lens, so using 2x zoom sometimes results in blurry images.

Image quality from both of the Note8's cameras is consistently good, with crisp details across the entire picture, accurate colors, good contrast and low noise. Low-light performance is also excellent, with relatively bright photos, reasonably fast auto-focus and an acceptable amount of noise.

One of the big features of dual-camera phones is a background blurring bokeh mode. Apple calls it Portrait mode, while Samsung's version is called Live Focus. Samsung's version is one of the better implementations out there, dealing with tricky edges well and producing fairly convincing and creamy bokeh.

What makes Live Focus unique is that it lets you adjust the amount of background blur through a slider that pops up just above the on-screen shutter button, with real time adjustments showing any changes. You can even make adjustments to the bokeh after the shot has already been taken by going into the Gallery. Click on the image and the same slider will pop up. On iOS 11 you can only disable or enable the depth effect of a photo taken in Portrait mode - there's no in between option.

Live Focus also has a useful Dual Capture setting that uses both rear cameras to take two pictures simultaneously - one close-up shot from the telephoto lens and one wide-angle shot that shows the entire background. This lets you see both the zoomed in portrait, and a wide-angle shot with a view of the surroundings. You can toggle dual camera mode on and off by pressing the double square icon in the top row of the camera app.

On the front of the Note8 is the same 8-megapixel, f/1.7 selfie camera as the S8. This selfie camera includes autofocus, which is apparently something that front-facing cameras have never had before. The autofocus works pretty well, and means you don't have to tap the screen to focus on your face.

Battery Life

Our standard battery test for mobile phones has the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

After what happened last year, Samsung has understandably been a little conservative with the battery inside the Note8. It uses a 3,300mAh battery, which makes it slightly smaller than the 3,500mAh battery inside the S8+. The dual camera setup and S Pen likely also take up quite a bit of space inside the phone, which would explain the smaller battery. If you're still worried about the Note8 suffering the same fate as the Note7, rest assured that it has undergone Samsung's new 8-Point Battery Safety Check, which is apparently the most rigorous in the industry.

In our video looping battery benchmark, the Note8 lasted just over twelve and a half hours. While this was better than the S8 and above average compared to our other smartphones, it was nearly an hour shorter than the S8+. We can attribute this to the Note8's slightly larger display and smaller battery. Having said that, in day-to-day usage, I had more than enough battery life remaining at the end of the day.

The faster wireless charging we saw on the S8 also makes a return on the Note8, and now makes wireless charging almost as fast as Samsung's Adaptive Fast Charging through the USB port. The much longer charging time was the one drawback to wireless charging in the past, so this is a very welcome upgrade.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a smartphone that has almost everything, look no further, the Samsung Galaxy Note8 is without a doubt the most feature packed smartphone available right now. From its IP68 build, to its always on, bezel-less Super AMOLED display, dual rear camera, stylus support and wireless fast charging, the Note8 has nearly every single feature you could possibly cram into a smartphone. In fact, the only thing it's missing is stereo speakers, and unless I'm trying to show a friend a video, I always have earphones plugged in if I need to listen to audio anyway.

All those features come at a hefty price though, and at S$1,398 the Note8 is the most expensive phone Samsung has put out so far, and also the most expensive Android phone on the market right now. Having said that, it's worth noting that that price is only S$100 more than the S8+. Granted, the S8+ is expensive itself, but its a premium many people are clearly willing to pay, and an extra S$100 for S Pen functionality and the best dual camera setup out there is definitely worth it in my opinion.

Like the S8 and S8+, the Note8 enjoys full integration with Samsung's Galaxy ecosystem of supporting products, which gives it many additional features you won't find on other phones, such as Samsung's Dex station, which turns it into a pseudo-desktop PC, and Samsung's Gear VR, which is one of the best implementations of Oculus-based VR gaming we've seen so far. Let's not forget about Samsung Conceirge and Samsung Pay too.

All things considered the Note8 is a phone Samsung needed to make. Samsung didn't take any risks this year, focusing instead on making the best product possible and making sure everything works the way it's supposed to. While it doesn't introduce any amazing new technology like we saw with the Infinity Display on the S8, it restores confidence in the Note series and returns it to its rightful position as both Samsung's best device and the best Android smartphone on the market.

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