Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 is hot, but not much more than the S8+ Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 is everything you'd expect in a premium handset, but the stylus doesn't appear to add huge value. The Register was today offered the chance to get hands-on with the new phablet at its formal Australian launch. My immediate impression was that there's now very little distinction between a Phablet and a …
Sentence is missing the word battery and a punctuation mark afterwards.
I was able to make sense of it - and for free I won't complain. But rather than the grammar, surely the main problem is in the sentence you've highlighted, that this huge phone comes with a poxy little 3300 mAh battery? That's pathetic for a device costing £850. The S8+ is pretty unambitious (after the Note 7 we can guess why).
The best of both worlds. I only got into computers because my handwriting is terrible...
Same here, (left handed for a start) - although, a couple of years at college with ex-industry lecturers who could talk off the top of their heads for 3 straight hours means my handwriting at least has character even if it's still illegible rather than like a relative coming up a few years later (when photocopies were cheaper) whose handwriting looks like an eight year olds.
The iPhone X is a red herring. It can't sell in volume because Samsung can't make the screens quickly enough. It is something that generates discussion before those who want a new iPhones will buy an iPhone of another flavour. For that reason, there's little point in bringing up the iPhone X for comparison to Samsung's or LG's latest offerings. An iPhone 8 is a more suitable object of comparison, and specifically for a Note the 8+.
Because the iPhone X is going to be lower volume than the 8/8 plus you think it is "irrelevant"? Apple will sell far more iPhone Xs over the next year than Samsung will sell Note 8s (and the Note 8 is similarly outsold by its cheaper brother the S8/S8 plus) so I guess it is irrelevant too?
It is likely the iPhone X's display is not the only production limitation, the new front sensors for depth scanning may be even more limited since they've never been produced at anywhere near such a small size in volume before. Apple is solving the display issue by adding LG and potentially a third OLED supplier for next year, and presumably doing something about the sensors as well.
I think they figured that rather than wait until 2018 to have production up to snuff, they'd sell 2018's iPhone in 2017 - I doubt this was plan A.
there's no question which is better value...
Samsung - cheaper, but nothing works properly. Face scanner can be fooled by a child's drawing of Father Christmas, finger print scanner (if you can actually reach it) can be fooled by damp toilet paper, Android bloat and malware, no software updates, no security patching, odd intermittent failures, no support after Samsung release next iteration in 6 months time, stylus will get lost within 30 minutes, danger of body and face burns. Used by witless, entitled twenty-somethings. Screen always cracked.
Apple - more expensive. It worked well yesterday, it works well today, it'll work well tomorrow, it'll work well and be fully supported in 5 years time. Used by those who truly value quality.
I see what you mean.
Upvoted for the thing about Father Christmas and because Samsung software is atrocious. Their first fingerprint scanner software dumped the fingerprint as a BMP in a world readable file. No matter how shiny the hardware (if it doesn't have battery problems, and I'm not just talking about the Note 7), you wouldn't get me to buy anything Samsung.
Except the washing machine because that wasn't my decision, but it unsurprisingly gives cryptic error codes and sometimes forgets where it is in the program if you pause and restart.
My work phone is a Samsung, was given to me for free, and it's sat unused in my drawer because it's bollocks. Heavy, slippy glass back that's going to break if you look at it wrong, crappy software you can't uninstall.
> I must have missed the bit about the X having 6GB RAM
And that does what for you exactly? RAM is meaningless beyond what it does for the user experience - so if you want to compare handsets on a task-for-task basis then go for it. Remember that they have different OSs, and different speeds of NAND storage, and of course different SoCs. Anandtech can give you a range of benchmarks and analysis, if you fancy.
You merely waving numbers around like a teenage game of Top Trumps suggests you've learnt nothing from the last twenty years of computing. It's actually embarrassing that a supposedly technical website like the Reg has readers that up-voted that simplistic fuckwittery.
As someone who has moved from Apple to Samsung, you are talking bollocks. I've had multiple Apple products fail. iPhones and MacBook Pro's. I no longer buy Apple kit as it's too expensive for what it is and their support is awful.
From now on I will stick with Android phones because for ~£500 I can get something that is far more usable than an iPhone and I get a headphone jack.
You also missed the bit about iOS being literally 10-15 times more efficient at runtime than the Java-heavy Android. 6GB for Android is like 500MB for iOS. Android is like an breathless obese child squeezing into a Fiat 500. iOS is like a hunting lion. When you run something on an Android phone, 95% of all processing is offloaded to Google severs, else the phone would melt.
IP67 means 30 minutes under a half meter of water, and IP68 means 30 minutes under a meter of water. Does that extra half meter really matter? You're safe either way if you knock your phone in a full sink. Neither tests the effect of dropping your phone in a pool, or getting caught outside in a huge downpour with your phone in your pocket. Your phone is probably fine if either happens, but IP67 vs IP68 isn't going to make it more or less likely to survive either of those occurrences.
If someone came out with a phone rated waterproof down to a couple hundred meters like many watches, would that be better than IP67/IP68 in a way that would or should influence any purchase decisions, or would it just be another pointless spec to use in a dick measuring contest? Would anyone take their phone underwater in a chlorine filled pool or salt filled ocean if it was waterproof to 200 meters? I sure wouldn't - might not have desirable effects on the finish, or on the chemical coating used to keep the screen fingerprint resistant. Though more to the point, why would you? Taking pictures underwater doesn't work too well without the proper lens.
I've had three Notes, the 1, 3, and now the 4. I've only had one smartphone without a stylus since 2004, that was an HTC HD2, and while I liked the phone, I really missed the stylus.
I use my stylus daily, to take notes, and largely, for shopping lists. I write down things I need as I think of them, then cross them out as I shop. I have crap handwriting too, so I use the Italic pen, which gives my script some form, and stops it looking like a scratchy line.
@CrazyOldMan "I write down things I need as I think of them, then cross them out as I shop.
There's an app for that you know.."
Yeah, S-Note. Which uses the S-Pen. I can take a photo of my wife's shopping list (she has an S7 no S-Pen, so uses paper,.....) include it in my S-Note shopping list, and cross those items off too. I used to have an LCD Boogie Board attached to my fridge, so I'd write my shopping list on that, take a picture, then cross off the items on my phone (using the S-Pen). It's a simple, and elegant solution to an everyday activity. It actually adds a bit of value. Typing items in to a shopping list would be quite kludgy by comparison.
Typing items in to a shopping list would be quite kludgy by comparison.
I'm not endorsing the following app as the greatest thing since sliced bread, just pointing out that there are options between "putting lines through items on a photograph" and "typing items into a shopping list." If your brain favors old school hand-written lists or something else, then ignore this post.
"Note Everything" (I'm sure there are other check list apps) allows you to create check lists of many formats, and it retains them, even has a backup feature. You can mark items as "need" and "done" (i.e., "acquired," if it's a shopping list). You can prioritize and sort items, and it has a speech-to-text function for entry. You can have multiple lists - I keep a grocery list and a list of things to do when I go on travel. (Like never, ever forgetting to empty the garbage when you're leaving for a week and dropped a half-eaten garlic-and-herb crusted fish in the bin the night before departure. "Empty bins" is now on my travel check list.)
Yes, you have to manually type in items for your lists (or speak them into the list), but you only have to do that once and then the item is in your list permanently until you manually delete them. Then it's just a matter of checking and un-checking the items with a single finger (or stylus) tap through the week as you think of whether you need to buy something again.
I like a check list app because I was always forgetting the handwritten list by my refrigerator and almost never forget my phone. Obviously, it's not for everyone, but the option is out there.
Marginally.
this was supposed to be my next handset, primarily because I've always got along well with samsung phones, and especially the Note series.
In the past that has been because it's always had superior battery life to others in the range, well over 24 hours without charging under reasonable/heavy usage.
I can't see this one being the same as it has a smaller capacity than the S8+, presumably because they think we'd all have fits if it was a few mm thicker. I've had four of the various "note" phones and they've all been brilliant. shame if this one isn't. Will have to have a play with one.
@rmason: The Note8 by default uses a lower resolution than the S8/S8+. I guess this is the reason that it lasts more than a full day like the Notes before. It'll switch to higher resolution when necessary (video, etc.) or when you make it your preference to go to full resolution allways.
For regular use FullHD is enough for me, can't see the small pixels anyway...
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