Samsung Galaxy Note 9 was finally unveiled at the Galaxy Unpacked event held in the New York City. The Galaxy Note 9 comes as the successor to the Galaxy Note 8 that tried to redeem the company’s reputation after the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 began to subdue in the memories of the customers. The phablet’s 2018 edition comes with minor yet subtle bumps in the specifications, however, the Galaxy Note 9 packs a 4000mAh battery – the maximum in a Galaxy Note device yet. As expected, the Epic Games’ super-hit game Fortnite has finally made its debut on Android platform starting with a beta version on Galaxy Note 9 that’s available to download right away, but more on this later.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will be available starting $999 in the US starting August 24, however, the India pricing is yet to be announced. The phablet comes in Midnight Black, Metallic Copper, Ocean Blue, and Lavender Purple colour options. However, the company may choose to launch select colour variants in select markets. The Ocean Blue colour variant is the one that will ship with the Gold colour S Pen while the other colour variants will come with the regular S Pen model, matching the colour of the phone.
Samsung is placing high bets by luring the customers to get away from the phones that don’t have long-lasting batteries, which is why the smashing hit Fortnite debuting the Android world is touted as one of the exclusive offerings. The company has used the industry-grade water-carbon material along with a design that looks very similar to the predecessor Galaxy Note 8.
Inside the Galaxy Note 9 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor in the markets including the US, China while the rest of the markets will get the Exynos 9810 SoC under the hood. The smartphone packs up to 8GB of RAM and storage starting 128GB. There is a top-end model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB storage that will be more than enough for most customers with support for expandable storage up to 512GB microSD card. There is a 6.4-inch Quad-HD+ Super AMOLED display with an aspect ratio of 18:9. Samsung says it’s the largest ever display on a Samsung Galaxy Note device.
The cameras have improved significantly on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. The phablet has dual cameras on the rear side – a setup of two 12-megapixel Dual Pixel cameras with OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation). Samsung is offering up to 10x digital zoom on the cameras, which means that you can zoom up to 10 times in an image without actually having to see any significant loss in the detailing of the image. There is an 8-megapixel camera on the front, which will also double up as the facial scanner. This is in accordance with the iris scanner that is preloaded on the top panel of the display.
Coming to the S Pen, Samsung is touting a stylus it has never made so far. Embarking on the journey of S Pen so far, Samsung announced the 2018 edition of the S Pen will be a total remote control where it can even control the presentation on big screen tethered by the Galaxy Note 9. The company says that the S Pen now comes with Bluetooth Low Energy Mode that works all the time, consuming less power. You can control most things using the S Pen, however, the most practical use here is clicking pictures that won’t require you to hold your phone to click selfies. The Samsung S Pen will take less than a minute to completely charge and that would happen while the stylus is inside the Galaxy Note 9.
Samsung also announced the partnership with Spotify to integrate the latter’s services into the Samsung Music app. It will also power the newly launched Galaxy Home smart speakers. Samsung also announced the Galaxy Watch alongside the aforementioned products.
