Galaxy Note 9 Review: A $1000 Phone That's Actually Worth Buying By MrMobile [Michael Fisher]

- Power user, it's a term we used to use to describe people who use their smart phones all the time for everything. And it's those people that the original Samsung Galaxy Note was built to satisfy back in 2011. But in 2018, everyone is a power user. And so the Galaxy Note has had to adapt. I've reviewed the Galaxy Note, nine times. - Nine times? - Nine times.

- I've covered astronomical successes and spectacular flame outs and I'll tell ya now that with only one exception, the Galaxy Note 9 is as close to power user perfection as Samsung has ever gotten. (upbeat music) I covered the basics in the hands on last week folks. But to recap, the Note 9 is a wider, heavier, thicker slab that takes the Galaxy Note back to its roots as a two handed behemoth. More miniature tablet than oversized smart phone. I compliment Samsung for bucking industry trends here.

Every year the phones I review get thinner and the anger in the comments gets louder. Some folks wouldn't mind a thicker phone as long as it means having a bigger battery. Well the Note 9 delivers that and for the same price as an Iphone 10, it also retains the headphone jack that Apple omits and builds in an S pen that no other phone has. Normally I save pricing and conclusions for the end of the video but why put it off. Unless you're all in on Apple's eco system, if you're gonna spend $1000 on a phone, the Galaxy Note 9 is the one you should be buying.

That's not to say there's no room for improvement. The big chassis and a lack of tactile ques make the fingerprint sensor tough to feel out for the first few days. If you don't wanna use that the iris scanner is still here, but it's also still pretty slow. And Samsung's virtual assistant Bixby is still not great, it couldn't find the closest Dunkin Donuts even when I was standing inside of one. It couldn't understand the phrase wake me up at 8 a.

m. til it got an update and when I used it to search for a convenience store it got me lost in the middle of Brooklyn. To no ones great surprise, this is not the Gold Street Market. Samsung stresses that it's still unfinished software until the Note 9 starts shipping. Who knows, maybe it'll magically get great on launch day.

But Bixby's track record is not good and gives me no reason to expect it'll ever be good enough to justify having it's own button. Which you still cannot reassign and which you will still constantly press by accident. Elsewhere this phone is a story of familiar strengths. All the high points of the Galaxy S9 have been imported to the Note 9 and in some cases improved. If you're looking for a better, brighter, or more accurate smart phone display, you will not find it and Samsung managed to blow it up to a huge 6.4 inches without resorting to a notch. The silicon is top shelf and well the option to go up to 8 gigs of ram and 512 gigs of storage is excessive for all but the hardest core.

Well the hardest core is who this is for. For the record I reviewed the lower tier version and had no performance issues of any kind. Even while playing the new Fortnight for Android. The phone does employ a revised cooling system with several improvements over the Note 8. Thanks to Samsung for these technical details.

But like any phone it will still get warm under a heavy load, I don't recommend cooling it off in the rain when it does. But the IP68 rating means that if you do, it should survive just fine. The Note 9 cameras also copied the S9s and that's good news because with the exception of the predictably bad portrait mode, these are some of the best cameras you can ask for. When the Note improves, it does so with AI. And look I hate the AI buzzword, the parlor tricks the phone does, oh I think I'm looking at food so I'm gonna up the saturation, yeah, I can take it or leave it.

What's impressive is taking a photo and then getting told by the Note 9 that some might've blinked or that the shot was blurry, you might wanna take it again. That's the kind of feature that helps real people shooting photos in the real world. These are not real people in the real world, they're tech bloggers in a fake living room at Samsung's New York headquarters. But I'm showing you these shots because they're all self portraits I took remotely with the new Bluetooth enabled S pen. If you just pop out the pen, you point the phone at yourself and click away.

And then there's media control. I thought I'd never use the pen for this but one day I was doodling while listening to Spotify on the very loud speakers. And I realized I could skip tracks with the S pen button, without really getting away from what I was doing. If the S pen is to the Note as a mouse is to a computer. It's kinda like Samsung just added a whole extra button here.

I do with Samsung would address some loose ends that've been around for way to long. See every year since 2013, I've renewed the lease on my apartment with the Galaxy Note and every year it's a little more complicated than it should be. I shouldn't have to go download an app from Adobe to sign a contract. That app should be built in out of the box. Also the fact that I never know whether an app is gonna recognize hover short cuts drives me nuts.

Android is inconsistent to a degree, I get it. But the least Samsung could do is make sure all of it's own apps are S pen optimized. It's kinda like the new version of Samsung Decks, it's great that you can use the Note 9 as a faux desktop computer in a pinch and it works well. But it still feels kinda like a pet project or at least a way to push people into buying a $50 adapter that in my view should probably come in the box with a thousand dollar smart phone. The last big point is one you've been asking about since I unboxed the Note 9.

This is one of the biggest batteries you can find on a mainstream smart phone today and it definitely lasts longer than the one in the Note 8. When I check with Andrew Martonik at Android Central, he called his Note 9s endurance good enough for a full day without being worried. But he also said that it's no champion. While that might sound vague, I know just where he's coming from, see I've used phones with truly legendary battery life like the old MotoZ Play or the May10 Pro. Phones that would have more than half a charge left after a 16 hour day.

And the Note 9, doesn't quite get there. Yes I know there are static side by side battery tests that come to a different conclusion. And if you put stock in those folks great. All I can do is show you my usage so you can compare your own to mine. And tell ya that after six years of reviewing phones, the Note 9 battery strikes me as very good.

But you're not gonna get two days out of it on a single charge unless you do some really aggressive power management. It's just that for such a big phone and such a big battery, I did expect a bit more. When I started this review I mentioned that the Note 9 is the closest the line has gotten to perfection with one exception. Well folks, that exception is the Galaxy Note 4. It's the phone I see most often brought up by nostalgic Note owners and why I wouldn't want to go back to its over rot software or its old camera.

I do miss the fact that I could replace its battery or throw it around without worrying about breaking it. Because no matter how strong the Gorilla Glass on the Note 9 is, the fact remains that it's still a glass phone and it's gonna get scratched up pretty easily. So protect it with a special case from tech21. Tech21's new cases for the Note 9 pack impact absorbing materials called FlexShock and BulletShield. They're more than just intense names.

They keep your phone protected from drops of up to three and a half meters and tech21 drop tests its cases, 20 times to ensure durable, long lasting protection. Get your tech21 case for the Note 9 or almost any phone at the link in the description below. And thanks to tech21 for sponsoring this video. So is the Note 9 for you? Well look, if you're not in a place where you can toss 10 Benjamins at a phone, you can get 80% of what the Note 9 offers for half the price with a Galaxy S9 or Pixel 2 or a One Plus Six. But if you still consider yourself a power user in 2018, someone who is investing in a do everything pocket computer instead of just another smart phone, well I'll go ahead and say it again.

If you're gonna drop $1000 on any phone, the Galaxy Note 9 is the one that deserves it. Call me crazy folks, but you may have some opinions of your own about this, share 'em in the comments below. And be sure and subscribe to the Mr. Mobile on YouTube so you don't miss more coverage on mobile technology from Samsung and others as we get ready for the EFA 2018 Tradeshow in Berlin. And if you want more Mr.

Mobile every week, follow me @themrmobile, until next time, thanks for watching and stay mobile my friends.

Source : MrMobile [Michael Fisher]