IS IT WORTH GETTING THE NOTE 9?
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 flagship ticks all the boxes, for a price
Are you the kind of person who wants everything on your phone? This Samsung Galaxy Note 9’s got everything — you name it: great screen, stereo speakers, water resistance, stylus, NFC, mobile pay and top-notch camera, but at a pretty high price tag.
If you’ve been following the phone scene for a while, you’ll know that the Note series is the line to which Samsung gives its all, packing their very best components with all the features they have.
A Note can’t be a Note without its pen. Apart from making precise selections, quick grocery-list notes or drawings with pressure- sensitive brush strokes, the Note 9 has tweaked its S Pen into a Bluetooth device that can also be used as a remote camera and for presentation control. The only downside is that you’ll have to quickly charge the S Pen after using it for more than 20 minutes, which wasn’t necessary with the old version.
Samsung has added many features and functions to assist digital-art lovers, such as setting photos as background and having you draw over them to create tracing pictures, or interactive classes with which you can up your digital-drawing game.
The flagship phone from Samsung is suitable for those with little knowledge of photography, since it has automatic AI for adjusting lenses and colour presets to make pictures look good without the average Joe, like me, making manual camera adjustments before taking photos. The Note 9’s AI will also suggest you take another photo when it sees that the main object in the photo is blurry or the person in it is blinking.
Also, this Note 9 can take pictures in very dim situations — though not as well as Huawei’s P20 Pro, which can take photos in a near-pitch-black room, but close. This is also the only camera on phones that has dual-aperture capability and will adjust the width of its aperture — the hole between the shutter — according to surrounding lighting conditions. Also, the bokeh effect is easy to achieve with the phone’s dual camera.
The phone has an IP68 water-resistant capability which will ensure that this phone will not die when it’s dropped in a sink, washed, used in the rain or even sunk in a shallow pool.
The Note 9’s 6.4-inch screen, with an insane resolution of 2960x1440 pixels (which can be toned down to save battery if preferred), coupled with an integrated water-carbon cooling system, gives a no-lag experience when playing the crazily popular ROV game on the highest settings. This, with a loud stereo speaker, is also a boon for long YouTube and gaming sessions.
With a huge battery capacity of 4,000mAh, it will easily get you through a day (and a half ), if gaming is not your thing (intense gaming will net you around 3-4 hours).
This phone can be connected to a TV or computer monitor via an HDMI adaptor for a near-Windows experience and functionality. This can be very handy for a quick PowerPoint presentation or to use as a substitute when your main PC is dead or in similar situations.
Samsung has included a pair of AKG earphones that produce very clear sound but are not very bassy, which is very good for calls but may not please heavy-metal lovers. It’s not common that good earphones are bundled with phones; only these and those of HTC come to my mind.
Photo maniacs, rejoice! This phone has ample storage of 128-512GB to keep your thousands of photos and 4K videos.
This phone is significantly heavier than most, and a fingerprint-magnet glass back will put some off. But, hey, most luxury high-end phones fall into this same category.
If you’ve already got a Note 8, you’ll find that the outside of this phone is aesthetically identical, except for the rear fingerprint scanner that has been moved a bit lower down, making it a bit easier to reach.
Samsung’s charging is faster than Apple’s in general but slower than Oppo’s VOOC. Wireless charging is also available.
Personally, if you’re not an iOS devotee and if you can find a good deal, you should get it. It has everything, and you won’t be missing anything.