Samsung Galaxy Note7 review
SAMSUNG’S STYLUS-DRIVEN GALAXY NOTE IS BACK, BUT IS THERE ENOUGH ROOM IN THE PHABLET MARKET FOR BOTH IT AND THE S7 EDGE?
FOR THE LAST couple of years, Samsung has had a bit of a problem on its hands: it’s got two very similar phones that are in danger of cannibalising each other. A er all, if the company already has a 5.7-inch agship device in the form of the Galaxy S7 Edge, is the Note family now basically redundant? With the Note7, Samsung’s answer is a resounding... “not quite”. e Korean company’s latest answer to this cannibalisation conundrum has been to separate the Note7 more clearly from its S 7 counterpart. Samsung is clearly pitching this new Note as more of a business/creative device; the colour tones in TouchWiz and the interface as a whole are a little more subdued, the phone body’s curves aren’t quite as pronounced and the higher price tag implies that this is a premium device with special capabilities. But this is also the rst Note that’s arguably kind of elegant. Samsung is only o ering one Note model this year, and whether you like the curved display design or not, it looks like it’s here to stay. However, those curved edges aren’t as rounded here as on the S 7 Edge, and with symmetrically-tapered edges( the front and back pieces of glass are identical and meet at a thin metal band that wraps all around the edge), it’s a device that’s actually much more comfortable in the hand than the S7 Edge. It’s also got a slightly bigger footprint than the latter and squarer corners, and there’s really no mistaking them — ultimately, it’s not just the S Pen that separates these two.
EVERYTHING YOU’D EXPECT
Locally, it’s got the same internals as the S7 and S7 Edge — a speedy Samsung-made octa-core Exynos CPU that’s not quite the fastest chip around (that’d be the Snapdragon 820), but not a huge deal behind either. ere’s 64GB of storage as standard (that’s actually the one and only option, too), plus 4GB of RAM and a fast-enough Mali T880 graphics chip.
As you’d expect from a Samsung agship, the Note7 includes a litany of top-shelf features elsewhere, too, including IP68 water and dust resistance, a fingerprint scanner on the home button, wireless and fast charging, Gorilla Glass 5 front and back panels and class-leading camera performance from its 12MP rear and 5MP front shooters — apart from a slightly wider-angle lense, shots taken with the Note7 were basically indistinguishable from our S7’s photos, so you get great performance in almost any lighting scenario. e 5.7-inch AMOLED display is a 1440p number, matching the S7 devices, and Samsung has nally adopted the Type-C USB port for charging, so it’s a little more future-proof.
SLICKER AND MORE FLEXIBLE SOFTWARE
What’s perhaps even more impressive than the Note7’s sleek design and specs is the fact that Samsung has actually made some good improvements on the so ware side of things.
As we mentioned above, the Note7 has the most mature and understated implementation of TouchWiz UI we’ve seen, but the extra good news is that
SAMSUNG FLAGSHIP, THE NOTE7 INCLUDES A LITANY OF TOP-SHELF FEATURES ELSEWHERE, TOO, INCLUDING IP68 WATER AND DUST RESISTANCE, A FINGERPRINT SCANNER ON THE HOME BUTTON, WIRELESS AND FAST CHARGING, GORILLA GLASS 5 FRONT AND BACK PANELS AND CLASS-LEADING CAMERA PERFORMANCE FROM ITS 12MP REAR AND 5MP FRONT SHOOTERS.
exclusive features like edge swiping (letting you bring up custom shortcuts to apps, contacts and other functions) and the S Pen widget now work ne with third-party launchers, so you can ditch TouchWiz completely if you want.
And the S Pen is also better than ever. e stylus itself isn’t drastically di erent from last year’s, but Samsung has amalgamated most of the associated apps into a single Notes app, meaning you’ve basically got the features of four separate programs bundled into one conveniently tabbed package. e stylus is more generally useful, too — ick it out while the phone screen is locked and you’re automatically given a simple chalkboard-style note-taking area. You can even pin these notes to your lockscreen, so they can be opened and viewed in the future without having to unlock the phone — it’s a great little feature for leaving yourself quick reminders, to-dos or shopping lists.
Also new is an encrypted and locked-o area called Secure Folder. is is basically a place that you can stash private apps, games and les, but its really neat trick is that it can actually run separate instances of applications. So, for example, you can create a second Gmail app inside that is just for your work email account. It’s a neat extra layer of security that also allows you to let others play with your phone without worrying that they’ll mess up anything important.
NEW CONVENIENCE FEATURES
Samsung has also been touting the ability to unlock the Note7 using a new iris-scanning technique thanks to a built-in infrared camera. For this to work properly, it does need to be facing your eyeballs, and although it registers both during setup, only one eye needs to be identi ed to unlock the device. And in practice, it largely works as advertised, barring a few occasions where we were wearing glasses and it needed a second longer to recognise our eyes. You do need to have the device facing your noggin at a speci c angle, but provided that’s the case, it’s near instantaneous to unlock. Samsung says that it won’t work if you’re sleeping (or, presumably, deceased) and somebody pries open your eyelids, but we didn’t have the opportunity to test this ourselves.
So is iris unlocking better or more convenient than using a ngerprint? In some ways, yes — you can simply tap the side power button to wake the phone, meaning you don’t have to place your nger or thumb on the Home button, but we wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a must-have feature.
SAME OLD SAMSUNG
Not all of Samsung’s idiosyncrasies have been ironed out yet, however. e company is still unnecessarily duplicating a lot of functionality by making its own apps when Google’s options work ne — there’s zero reason to use Samsung’s no-frills web browser when you can opt for Chrome, for example, and the the Korean company has even needlessly ventured into new Google areas with the Note7 — there’s now a Samsung Cloud app that o ers to back up your phone’s data and settings to Samsung’s servers instead of Google’s, for example.
A MIGHTY ALTERNATIVE
Samsung obviously needed to do something signi cant to help distinguish the Note7 from the S7 Edge and it’s largely succeeded. It’s made the S Pen’s functionality more seamless and straightforward, so that the stylus is actually more usable than it’s ever been before — if you’ve owned previous Notes but have largely ignored the S Pen, this might be the one that changes that. ere’s still a little bloat that Samsung could cut, to be sure, but the Note7 does manage to stand up as an agreeable device with its own identity. If you can actually make use of those unique features, it might even be worth that premium price.