After a series of many leaks and revelations, South Korean electronics giant Samsung on Wednesday announced the launch of its next flagship phablet and also the successor of the company’s previous “fire-prone” Galaxy Note 7, christened as the “Galaxy Note 8” at the company’s Galaxy Unpacked 2017 event in New York. The main highlights of the device are its gigantic 6.3-inch QHD+ Super AMOLED display, dual rear camera setup, an improved S Pen stylus and a secure battery. We all know that it was a disaster for Samsung when its new Galaxy Note 7 had been catching fire due to its battery design and manufacturing problems. But now the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will be a big challenge to the company, where Samsung has taken extra precautions to offer its next flagship device worry-free.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Price and Availability:
Carried a base price tag of US$930 (approximately Rs. 59,500), the new Galaxy Note 8 will be available in the US via several carriers including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Sprint, Straight Talk Wireless, C Spire, Cricket Wireless, U.S. Cellular and Xfinity Mobile without a contract. The phone will also be available from Samsung.com, Best Buy, Target and Walmart. The Galaxy Note 8 will be up for Pre-orders/ Registration starting August 24 (Thursday) through most mobile carriers and the same will be made available for purchase starting September 15 (Friday) in Midnight Black, Maple Gold, Orchid Grey and Deep Sea Blue colour options. Note that, Pricing will be varied depending on carrier, for example, AT&T will be selling the phone for US$930 (approximately Rs. 59,500), Sprint will be selling it for $960, while Verizon Wireless will be retailing the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 for US $960 (approximately Rs. 61,500). With a contract, it will cost $210 down and $30 per month on T-Mobile’s Equipment Installment Plan, it will cost $40 per month for 24 months on Verizon device payment, while the same device will cost $31.67 per month for 30 months on AT&T Next.
In the UK, the Galaxy Note 8 will be available for purchase starting September 15 (Friday) via several retailers and carriers such as Vodafone, Three UK, EE, Sky, Virgin and Carphone Warehouse in Midnight Black and Maple Gold colour options. In the UK, the smartphone will be carried a price tag of £869 (approximately Rs. 71,200) without a contract. With a contract, it will cost £32.58 per month for 24 months. In Europe, the phone will cost you EUR 999 (approximately Rs. 75,550) without a contract. With a contract, it will cost EUR 41.63 per month for 24 months.
According to the company, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will globally be available for buying starting mid-September. As of now, the company has made no official announcements about the India launch date, pricing and availability of the Galaxy Note 8, but it is expected to hit the Indian market around the said period, quite possibly in the second week of September. As part of an introductory offer, the company is giving a best buying offer for the Galaxy Note 8 buyers. Those customers who pre-book a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 between August 24 (2017) and September 24 (2017) will get a Gear 360 camera or a free Galaxy Foundation kit with Samsung 128GB EVO+ memory card and Fast wireless charging convertible.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Highlights:
Talking about its main highlights, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is an IP68 certified smartphone, so it is absolutely water and dust resistance. The device can survive in up to 5 feet of water for 30 minutes or less. The smartphone also supports an improved S Pen stylus like the Microsoft Surface Pen. The S Pen allows for a precise and natural handwriting or drawing experience. In terms of specifications, the pen has 0.7mm tip, that can detect more than 4,000 levels of pressure and the impressive tilt technology helps you smoothly draw in the most comfortable position. It has a finer tip, improved pressure sensitivity and new Live Messages feature support. With the S Pen, users will now be able to handwrite a message or picture, add special effects and send it to someone in a message as an animated GIF on several popular messaging and social platforms. Live Messages are saved as GIFs, so you can easily share your animated texts or drawings across different apps and social media platforms that support animated GIFs. The S Pen also supports Translate feature that was introduced on the Note 7, that lets you highlight over text to instantly translate entire sentences in up to 71 languages, and even quickly convert units and foreign currencies. Apart from these high-end specs, the device also features a dedicated button for the company’s Bixby personal AI assistant. Like the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, the Galaxy Note 8 also supports Samsung DeX technology that allows users to run supportive mobile apps on a full-scale monitor for enhanced productivity experience. For biometric security, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 comes with a rear-mounted fingerprint recognition button, an iris scanner and facial recognition feature.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Specifications and Features:
Technically speaking, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 comes equipped with a gigantic 6.3-inch QHD+ Super AMOLED display with a screen resolution of 1440 × 2960 pixels. Like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, the phablet also has the dual-edge curved Infinity display with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio and offers a pixel density of 522ppi. Further, the display is protected by a scratch resistance Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and certified by the UHD Alliance as Mobile HDR Premium. Under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 comes in two different variants based on its processing unit and GPU configuration: Galaxy Note 8 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 octa-core processor & Adreno 540 GPU, and Galaxy Note 8 with Samsung Exynos 9 Series 8895 octa-core processor & Mali-G71 MP20 GPU. The Snapdragon 835 SoC powered Galaxy Note 8 has been launched for the US market, while the Exynos 9 Series 8895 SoC powered Galaxy Note 8 has been launched for the International market. In terms of memory, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is backed up by a 6GB LPDDR4 RAM and 64GB of internal storage, which can be further expanded up to 256GB via a dedicated microSD card slot. Talking about its software fronts, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 runs Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz custom UI skin, based on Google’s Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system.
In terms of photography, the Galaxy Note 8 houses a horizontally arranged dual rear camera setup that comes combined with one 12-megapixel primary sensor with an f/1.7 aperture and wide-angle lens and one 12-megapixel secondary sensor with an f/2.4 aperture and telephoto lens. The main camera features also include Dual Pixel technology, autofocus, optical image stabilization (OIS), 1.4µm pixel size, 2X lossless zoom, 10x digital zoom, and an LED flash module. On the front, the device features an 8-megapixel front-facing camera with smart autofocus, 80-degree wide-angle lens and an f/1.7 aperture. The rear camera also is capable of recording 4K UHD videos at 30 fps, 1080p Full-HD videos at 30 fps or 60 fps. The camera features also include Pro Mode, Panorama, Selective Focus, Virtual shot, Wide selfie, Hyperlapse, Food and Slow motion.
On the connectivity front, the Galaxy Note 8 is a dual-SIM smartphone that accepts two Nano-SIM cards. Apart from this, the smartphone also offers various connectivity options including 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz, 5GHz), Bluetooth v5.0, GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS, NFC, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a USB 3.1 Type-C port for super-fast charging and other connectivity. Sensors on the phablet include an Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor, Heart rate sensor, Barometer, Geomagnetic sensor, Fingerprint (rear-mounted), Hall Sensor, Iris sensor and a Pressure sensor. The Galaxy Note 8 also supports Samsung Pay and MST connectivity and comes with a fingerprint scanner, iris scanner and facial recognition for high-grade biometric security. On the battery front, the Galaxy Note 8 comes packed with a high-density and “secure” 3,300mAh battery with fast charging support both on wired as well as wireless charging. Dimensionally, the Galaxy Note 8 measures 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm and weighs 195 grams.