Friends+Design
- Big, stylish, premium, high-end phablet, mostly continuing the design from the previous Note series - Samsung continues to do an impressive job cramming a lot of screen into a reasonably manageable footprint
- The new blue and purple paint jobs look excellent
- The fingerprint sensor has now (thankfully) migrated from the side of the camera to underneath it, making it more intuitive to use
- The new stylus (S-Pen) comes in vibrant color options, and now can be used as a (bluetooth) remote control for the phone - serving as a handy surrogate for those who don’t own a compatible smartwatch - for instance you could control your music player (single click plays/pauses a song, and a double-click extends the track), or you could use it as a shutter button in the camera app which could be a useful way to take a selfie without having to hold the phone at arms’ length
- Of course, as is usually the case with all Note series phones, a lot of people might still find the size a bit too large, and unwieldy, for their taste - it's also fairly heavy - beyond the 200g mark
Display
- Absolutely gorgeous, vibrant, bright, big display - one of the best displays in a smartphone, period
Software
- Samsung's Android UI is one of the more refined Android UIs, and includes the (somewhat useful, but not always useful) Bixby AI assistant
- The company’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to the Note line means there are plenty of features that will probably never really make their way into your daily routine - the Note continues to be a phone that's best suited for the most hardcore users
Performance
- Top-end, top-notch performance backed by flagship hardware - the Note 9 will steamroll through anything you throw at it
Camera
- Excellent set of dual rear cameras - up there with the best of the lot, the Pixel 2 and the Galaxy S9 Plus - this time out, most of the camera improvements are on the software side of things - as has been the case for a lot of flagships this year - two features in particular stand out: Scene Optimizer (AI engine to pick the scene you are shooting and tweak settings accordingly) and Flaw Detection (AI engine to pick out and warn about blurry shots, people blinking in the picture etc)
- Very good selfie camera too
Audio
- Surprisingly loud and powerful stereo speakers - there's one on the bottom, and the earpiece doubles up as the second - all your music, games and videos will sound rich, crisp and clear without any distortion
Battery
- Very good battery life - with a 4000mAh battery this time, you can now expect the phone to last a full day and night
- Fast charging, and wireless charging support
More
- On the whole, the Note continues to be Samsung's “innovation brand”, the uber-premium device that allows the company to push the limits of its mobile hardware, and at least for the time being, the Note remains one of the best methods for transporting a whole lot of screen around on your person - the big screen and stylus come together to walk the line between productivity and entertainment - it’s big, it’s bold, and it remains the phablet to beat
- Like always, one of the key things about whether you should buy the Note, should be if you see yourself using the stylus for handwritten notes, annotations, making drawings, and the likes - this is always a divided house - some people find it useful as a productivity device, and others not so much
- The 512GB storage option is arguably too extreme - with cloud syncing and the rest, it’s pretty hard to imagine many people would come close to those limits in the two or so years until they upgrade the handset
