back to article Samsung Galaxy Note 9: A steep price to pay

The new Samsung Galaxy Note still has a lot to prove after the last-but-one Note - 2016's Note 7 - kept bursting into flames. Samsung PR right now pic.twitter.com/siIlUOkKXM — The Register (@TheRegister) 5 October 2016 Understandably cautious after a recall-and-reissue that didn’t solve the problem, last year Samsung made a …

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  1. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Stop

    The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

    is stylii. If you need them, you've failed.

    1. SkippyBing

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      Depends what you're doing, my drawings with a stylus are much better than with my fingers. It's basically drawing vs finger painting.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        A lot of couriers don't have a stylus when they want you to sign their machine. Maybe they lost them or they were never issued. However, it's made me realise that my signature must be rather easy to forge as it comes out looking very much like the real thing.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

          A lot of couriers don't have a stylus when they want you to sign their machine.... it's made me realise that my signature must be rather easy to forge as it comes out looking very much like the real thing.

          In my case, my touchpad scrawl (with stylus or finger) looks nothing like my pen signature, and more like a seismograph recorded in a building that a truck has just driven into.

          1. Alistair
            Windows

            Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

            Without a stylus my touch pad signature rather looks like it was written on board an outhouse atop a Falcon 9 as it passes through maxQ.

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

            "In my case, my touchpad scrawl (with stylus or finger) looks nothing like my pen signature, and more like a seismograph recorded in a building that a truck has just driven into."

            Same here, and I visit the courier depot most days. There's never a stylus and finger-writing for a signature is shit.

        2. JohnFen

          Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

          I always sign those things (and other electronic stuff with a signature, like paying at a retail location that uses Square), just by writing a single horizontal line. There's no need to actually sign those things. Nobody looks at the signatures anyway.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

          "A lot of couriers don't have a stylus when they want you to sign their machine. " You do realise that any squiggle will do.

    2. defiler

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      If you need them

      And that's the thing. I used to have a Note 3, and the stylus was great. You never really needed it, but it was handy for doing crazy things like running a Citrix session on your mobile...

      1. TonyJ

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        Also handy for signing docs.

        One company I was in used an online document vault and you could sign right in a browser. The stylus made doing it on your phone so much easier.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

          I tried a Note in a shop once, and was impressed by the way that it could transcribe stylus I out into properly formatted notation. I'm sure there is a way of inputting "the square root of 2n + 1" or somesuch with a keyboard, but I've never learnt it.

          It's too big for me though. My S8 in a tough case is at the upper limit of what I'll carry around.

          1. Aladdin Sane

            Re: the square root of 2n + 1

            (2n + 1)^0.5 or (2n)^0.5 + 1, depending on exactly what you were after.

            1. stephanh

              Re: the square root of 2n + 1

              √(2n+1)

              √ is on the Android Gboard keyboard.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: the square root of 2n + 1

              (2n+1)/2

              If you want an incorrect non-approximation. A bit like Samsung is to Apple.

    3. Avatar of They
      Thumb Up

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      For minuting a meeting outside of work, where I didn't have a laptop. the kind of club meetings in someone elses house or a rented room in a town hall or pub etc. Didn't need paper, and it was quick, much quicker than finger typing. Then I could just send them via email to a proper PC for writing up.

      And as for Jobs, didn't he say you didn't need two mouse buttons amongst his other stuff you don't need?

      1. Aladdin Sane

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        I believe the listed included conventional cancer treatments.

        1. Bibbit

          Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

          Why suffer the indignities of side-effects from well-researched and science-tested medicines when you can beat the system with caffiene enemas, magic crystals or putting a frog on your head?

          1. The Nazz

            Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

            Maybe i shouldn't share this with you all, but i once put a frog on my head and she was delighted. Delightful too.

        2. 's water music
          Trollface

          Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

          ...

          I believe the listed included conventional cancer treatments.

          Fair play to the man, he would admit it when he was wrong

      2. Wensleydale Cheese

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        "And as for Jobs, didn't he say you didn't need two mouse buttons amongst his other stuff you don't need?"

        I tried Apple's single button mouse and you needed two hands to summon up contextual menus (using control-click).

        Having used 3 button mice for over a decade at that point, I wasn't particularly impressed.

        1. AMBxx Silver badge

          >>>A lot of couriers don't have a stylus when they want you to sign their machine

          That's because they've lost it. Same thing will happen to the stylus that comes with the Note.

          1. Rob

            Re: >>>A lot of couriers don't have a stylus when they want you to sign their machine

            The Note will notify you if the stylus is too far away from it. Of all the NOtes I have had over the years I have never lost the stylus (I've lost a few replacement nibs though, as they are impossibly small to find in a carpet).

        2. Martin an gof Silver badge
          Angel

          Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

          I tried Apple's single button mouse and you needed two hands to summon up contextual menus (using control-click).

          I think the idea was a carry-over from the early Mac OS days when there were no contextual menus to speak of. Everything you needed to do was presented on what I still consider to be one of the daftest design decisions ever - the context-sensitive menu stuck to the top of the screen. Well, apart from the one stuck to the top of the application window which is harder to aim at.

          Having used 3 button mice for over a decade at that point, I wasn't particularly impressed.

          The one thing that I still can't understand is how Acorn got the UI design so right and no-one has copied them. I'm thinking particularly of the use of the right-button for "select-like" actions such as making scroll bar bump arrows work in reverse (handy if you have just overshot as you can Adjust without moving the mouse), the way the pointer "sticks" to the scroll bar when you are dragging it, making it impossible to drop off and have the window spring back to where it was, the use of the third button to scroll in both directions at once and the large resize targets, making it much easier to adjust the size of a window.

          And, of course, the middle-button-context-menu, designed in such a way that screen-top or window-top menus were unnecessary clutter.

          Some of these things have been emulated, for example middle-clicking is often used for 2D dragging, but others I really miss...

          ...except when I'm actually using my Acorn, of course. twenty four years old this year (if I've counted correctly) and still the machine I use most often for basic email.

          Icon, for Roger/Sophie Wilson, Steve Furber and the team, and whoever else designed the Acorn UI.

          M.

          1. shade82000

            Re: Acorn UI

            I agree with you, a few little thoughts made the RISC OS UI very pleasant.

            The other feature I remember was that menus don't completely close when you click on an item. E.g. if you click Edit > Zoom > Zoom In. With Windows you would have to reopen the Edit menu to zoom again but in RISC OS you could stay in the menu and keep clicking Zoom In multiple times. Or was it that left clicking an item behaves like Windows but right clicking keeps the menu open? I can't remember.

            Although I've tried a few emulators over the years, it's been a good 18 years since I last used my A5000. Wonder if it still works, must get it out of the loft and have a play.

            1. jasha

              Re: Acorn UI

              If you left the battery in it, then it may need some rescuing first!

    4. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      > stylii. If you need them, you've failed.

      It doesn't *need* a stylus, any more than the first iPhone or any phone today does, any more than a PC *needs* a joystick or graphics tablet. It's just a useful addition for people who like to sketch, need to annotate diagrams, use some written languages or need to write mathematical formulae.

    5. Mark 85

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      If you need them, you've failed.

      Actually, no! My wife bought this model because of the stylus. She has several physical issues that the stylus and the screen size solved. Other than every thing seeming to "update" (looking at your apps Google), she's pretty happy with it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        Stylus -> great for scratching inside your ear.

    6. JohnFen

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      That depends on what you want to do. In meetings, I take notes on my smartphone. It doesn't need a stylus for normal operation, but it would be horrible to use it (or any device) for note-taking without a stylus.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      Wonder what he'd think of the apple pencil then?

      Btw. I'm a designer and I love the stylus on the note phones. It's genuinely useful, works as well as a wacom, and it's really convenient for sketching ideas out anywhere you are and painting them up a bit.

      Just because YOU don't need it doesn't mean it's useless.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        "I'm a designer" - come back and comment here when you've got a real job then. Oh, and I'll have a Double Espresso.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

          > "I'm a designer" - come back and comment here when you've got a real job then. Oh, and I'll have a Double Espresso.

          I said I'm a *product* designer - it's the Mac-using *graphic* designers who look like baristas. So go make your own cup of Nescafé and scald yourself on your poorly designed kettle whilst you're at it. If your kettle does happen to be safe and comfortable to use then why, you have a product designer to thank for it. And if you've ever found an IBM ThinkPad a good bit of kit, thank the product designer Richard Sapper, his team and colleagues - you see, it's a collaborative discipline.

          Since your wits have led you to dismiss the importance of hardware design - on a thread about a piece of hardware design! - we shouldn't keep you from your 'real' job of filling in a B&Q application form, or whatever it is a man of your learning and manners is capable of. Chief procurement officer for UK government IT systems, possibly.

    8. Paul

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      You know that other people aren't clones of you and have different lives and different needs? Some people want what a stylus can provide. Some people don't. Some people want big screens, some don't.

      Let's be happy there's a choice.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        Love it!

        Solipsism getting called out today on El Reg!

        More please!

    9. Tim Seventh

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      is stylii. If you need them, you've failed.

      And then Apple Introduces the Apple Pencil...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        Again, iPad Pro doesn't *need* the Pencil - indeed, it's sold as an optional extra. Contrast this to a Palm Pilot or a WinCE device - the latter, with a resistive touchscreen and tiny icons derived from its desktop forebear, was hard to use without a stylus.

        When an iPad is being used with a Pencil, it's functioning as a sketchbook or canvas, not as a telephone or internet browser as an iPhone might. Heck, there's musicians who use iPads to display sheet music using a foot pedal to change pages, so let's make this clear: the iPad doesn't *need* a foot pedal; some people find it useful.

        Macs were always used by graphic artists and designers, and of those a niche have long used Wacom stylus tablets. Some were so enamoured of this way of working they'd pay a company called Modbook to create an OSX tablet from a MacBook. A feature-complete version of Photoshop is coming to iOS next year.

        (For the record, I'm a Windows-using product designer. Good 3D parametric CAD wasn't on pre-Intel Macs when I started out (just the arty modelling stuff like Form Z) and in any case it was still an era where no desktop ever seemed powerful enough. I don't use a graphics tablet, but I know people who do - even in applications that are designed around a mouse - to save on RSI. )

    10. GruntyMcPugh Silver badge

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      I use the stylus on my Note 4 regularly, for creating shopping lists, and crossing off items as they go in my trolley.

      I also have an app that allows me to 'sign' documents, I've had some paperwork that needed a signature, and the sender asked I printed it, signed it, scanned it, and sent it back. But I work in IT so of course found a far more elegant solution, and found an app I could edit the .pdf on, that supported pen input, so the signature looks like it was signed with an ink pen.

      The stylus also comes in handy navigating crappy web sites, when I need the desktop version and the links are crowded.

      The thing about the stylus, is it's better to have one and not need it, that need it and not have it.

    11. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      Which is why the ipad pro is getting one

    12. jgarbo

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      The reason I bought my Note 4 was only for the stylus. No silly thumbing emails, just scribble it out, auto OCR & send. For drawing with auto correction, note taking that can be turned to usable text, pasted into emails or stories (journo here) it's super. Wife uses hers conferencing on the go, presentations, leaves the Thinkpad at home. Oh it also takes pix and makes phone calls. After a Note you giggle at the iPhone.

    13. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      What, that JimmyPage, no not that one, unlike Steve Jobs, has no imagination?

      1. Kubla Cant
        Headmaster

        Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

        The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on is stylii

        Well you and Jobs both have it wrong. The plural of 2nd Declension Latin nouns such as "stylus" is formed by replacing "us" with "i", not by adding as many "i"s as you think looks cool. You're probably confused by the fact that "radii" has two "i"s. The first of those is part of the root, and appears in the singular, too.

        Pedantic? Yes, but if you don't know how Latin works, you'd do better to stick to your native tongue, in which "styluses" is a perfectly acceptable plural.

    14. Glenturret Single Malt

      Re: The one thing I wholeheartedly agree with Jobs on ...

      Stylii, the plural of stylius?

      I have posted before about mock-Latin plurals of words that end in -us. The generally correct way of forming the plural is to add es. Thus we get viruses, campuses, grampuses, octopuses, omnibuses (buses), calluses, cactuses (yes!) and styluses. But the plural of opus is opera.

  2. djstardust

    Another price increase .....

    From £869 to £899 in a year.

    the Note 4 was £569 at launch so I don't see where the extra cost comes from ..... unless Samsung are copying Apple of course.

    Rather than selling it at a reasonable price point (£650 comes to mind) they would rather be stupid, price themselves out of the market and close manufacturing plants.

    Same issue with the Tab S4. £600 for the tablet and another £150 for the keyboard is ridiculous. They hardly sold any Tab S3 at that pricing point but that doesn't matter to someone in an office crunching numbers and making up silly prices. As much as I dislike apple the basic ipad at £319 is very good indeed and competitively priced for once.

    I don't understand companies these days (shakes head)

    1. Cavehomme_

      Re: Another price increase .....

      What do you Rosbeef expect after voting to jump off the cliffs of Dover as made attractive by Johnson and Mogg et al? Sterling has devalued significantly since the referendum, now you to pay much more for your imports. Welcome to the real world.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Another price increase .....

        What do you Rosbeef expect after voting to jump off the cliffs of Dover as made attractive by Johnson and Mogg et al? Sterling has devalued significantly since the referendum, now you to pay much more for your imports. Welcome to the real world.

        I'd agree that Sterling was sheltered by an undeserved Euro-related value that didn't reflect the UK economic performance. In this respect the fall in the exchange rate needs to be welcomed as a necessary balancing mechanism, and if Audis and continental holidays become more expensive, so be it.

        But what of La France? Sheltering in the Eurozone, hiding behind the strength of Germany who joined with an undervalued currency. Your appalling unemployment data says it all. How long can the Eurozone stagger on, with it fairyland economics, the huge disparity between northern and southern Europe, the unresolved debts bought by the ECB, and all the while the spectre of Turkey waiting to join and flood you with cheap labour, or not being allowed to join and flooding Europe with migrants?

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Another price increase .....

          This year will be the year of Linux on the desktop.

          And this year will be the year the whole of the eurozone is sucked into the CERN particle accelerator due to an ever increasing laundry list of items.

        2. Glen 1

          Re: Another price increase .....

          But what of La France UK?

          Sheltering in the EurozoneEEA, hiding behind the strength of Germany London, who joined with an undervalued currency.

          Your appalling unemployment under-employment data says it all.

          How long can the Eurozone UK stagger on, with it fairyland economics,

          the huge disparity between northern and southern Europe UK (within England especially), the unresolved debts bought by the ECB BoE (where do you think the QE went?),

          and all the while the spectre of Turkey Scotland waiting to join leave and flood you with cheap labour become a mecca for the better educated English speakers within the UK (who mostly voted remain),

          or not being allowed to join leave and flooding Europe (EU) with (formally British) migrants?

          Sorry if that was hard to follow, but I think I've made my point.

          1. Clunking Fist

            Re: Another price increase .....

            "Sorry if that was hard to follow, but I think I've made my point."

            That Northerners need their own currency? Sure, all hard-pressed regions in a country want to de-couple from the nation's currency.

            So you've just, effectively, argued for the disbanding of the Euro: when a whole country needs to de-couple from its over-valued currency, you know somethings seriously wrong.

            But then Remainers are arty types who don't really know how economies work or where their quango, university or council salaries come from. They probably think "demand curve" is an Brexitieers obsesion with EU bananas.

            1. Dan 55 Silver badge

              Re: Another price increase .....

              But then Remainers are arty types

              Of course they are...

              Scientists for EU

            2. Glen 1

              Re: Another price increase .....

              >That Northerners need their own currency?

              No. Unless you mean north of Watford. The south east of England needs its own currency.

              >So you've just, effectively, argued for the disbanding of the Euro.

              My point (that sadly went over your head) is that they're the same arguments.

              >... arty types who don't really know how economies work or where their ... salaries come from.

              One of our main clients is a multinational and is waiting for this clusterfuck to sort itself out before awarding/extending any contracts. The contractors *we* use have had their hours slashed. I am *ACUTELY* aware of where my salary comes from.

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