Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Review! By Tim Schofield

Hey Ron Tim Schofield, here very happy to be back making videos I apologize for the delay was out of town and in the process of moving, and we are now in the brand-new apartment. I see it as a completely clean slate. Something for me to really make my own I have a lot of plans and yes, I will be doing a full office setup. Video coming shortly. I will need to unpack, get everything all set up. Anyways I have a lot of videos planned, including this note 9 review, of course, and I have the new iPhones coming pixel 3 coming soon, while we May 20 coming soon just a lot of different devices coming out, and I have other plans as well so stay tuned for that, maybe even a couple giveaways here and there, so I know, I did wait a little while to make this review.

However, I have had so much hands-on time with the Galaxy Note 9 went on a couple different trips, I'll post. My other note, 9 videos down below it. Just actually got back from Europe and was using the note 9 there. So I have a lot of different experience using this phone, so it's going to get started in the full review. So here is Samsung's latest flagship, denote nine I.

Think Samsung's motto as of late should really be no compromises, because with this phone you really don't have to sacrifice anything. Yes, it does have a higher price tag, starting at $1000. So at that higher price point, you aren't sacrificing anything. For example, you know, sacrifice a headphone jack. For example, you don't sacrifice expandable storage, with a micro SD card and speaking of storage, that $1000 base model has 128 gigs of storage already, which you can expand up to 512 gigs with that SD card.

However, they also have the model at $250 extra for the 512 gigs internal storage. Now you also get two extra gigs of ram with that higher price model and, in my opinion, at the moment you don't need the extra Ram. These are just very big questions that I've gotten that I'm answering right out of the bat you don't need those extra two gigs of ram at the moment, however, will future-proof your phone? If you plan on hanging on to it for longer than a year, and this no compromises take by Samsung, has definitely shown in their design, one of the, if not the best-looking phone I have ever used just really gorgeous I personally, really like the curved sides on the display and hands down. In my opinion, this is the best display on any smartphone. At the moment you do have that ip68 rating, so dust and water resistance.

Also, it does have wireless charging, which means you do have a glass back which does collect fingerprints as you can see, but so does every other phone with a glass back. The note 9 also has a fingerprint scanner on the back and a very conveniently located location which works very well also. The swipe down gesture is very underrated, in my opinion, on fingerprint scanners, which a lot of Android phones have but nice that it's on the back, and you can swipe down found towards the bottom of the device. You see one of these stereo speakers, the other one is actually in the earpiece right here, which sound very good, definitely above average in terms of quality and sound level, not as good as front-facing speakers. In my opinion, I prefer sound just directly coming at you, but you do have one earpiece coming at you, then you do have the bottom fire one Oh.

So in terms of design its no worthy aesthetically, the s-pen does come out and protrude out just a little from the bottom of the note 9, which aesthetically is not the best looking. It would look much better if it was flush. Trust me, however, this is much more convenient and practical when finding it and actually pressing it in it makes it much easier to press in and pop out and also there's a catch right here. So you don't have to worry about it ever falling out. Even if you have it in this position, it will not fall out whatsoever.

It catches the s-pen. So that's not something you ever have to worry about. I, never accidentally had the s-pen eject randomly or anything like that. It's its very secure in place, and it's very easy and practical to get out of the note 9 and here's a look at my Galaxy Note 8, and if you take a look down at the bottom right-hand corner here, you'll see, I did drop it, and it's shattered right. There you'll see the screen has cracks in it and such I dropped it from about 5 feet onto concrete I knew it was going to crack as soon as I dropped it complete accident, and you'll, see in the upper left hand, corner exact same fate just shattered.

It has some cracks along the screen. It works just fine, just aesthetically, and it has those cracks, doesn't look good. So I would like to prevent that happening. So I have decided to actually toss a case on my Galaxy Note 9, and I'm, going with the Rhino shield case. It was actually the sponsor of this video.

However, I've used these cases before and completely support them and really support their product. These are a couple of the Rhino shield, solid suitcases. I have a carbon-fiber one on right now, or you can smoke them more plain. Black cutouts are great, very precise. They do cover up the buttons.

Here's a look down at the bottom. It actually is still pretty easy to take out the s-pen, even with a case on it, because they have a bit of a curve down on the side here with an opening. So when you do press it in and pull it out, you can just grab it from that side there. It's really easy, also stay on the insides, a bit of a honeycomb look, it's called shock spread which can absorb up to 11 feet, so I'm actually felt pretty safe. With this case on my Galaxy Note, 9- and it does actually come over the lip here- so I'm not really worried about it, not catching on the corners or anything it completes.

He covers the top of the phone and I can set it down slide it around, and it's actually rubbing on the case and also for those of you that don't want a full on case. They do have a very solid bumper, which does cover all the corners as well, and you can actually pair it with one of their screen protectors if you'd like to they have a 3d curved screen protector, which is on the front, so it will actually curve with it with the display and then also, of course, just a back protector. So that might be a route. You'd want to go, definitely check out Rhino shield. You can use code, Timmy Schofield for 20% off for two weeks and 10% off after that, so link will be down below definitely check out these cases.

For the note, 9 or other devices highly recommended by me, the one downside I could potentially see with the note 9 is its size. It is a larger phone which is great for consuming media I love watching videos on this phone. However, it can be a little large when using it for just basic things like sending a text. I, don't necessarily need that big of a screen, however, so it kind of goes both ways. Overall.

Personally, I wish was a little smaller, but then you kind of have to sacrifice battery life as well, because it has a smaller body to fit that battery in so it kind of goes both ways: I love having the bigger battery life personally I just wish. It was just a little smaller for the sake of the review. Video I've taken the cases off, but now I want to talk about the display, and as I mentioned, it is actually my favorite display in any smartphone right now. It's a six point, four inches, 1440p Super AMOLED display everything looks gorgeous on it. Yeah, the colors might be a little over saturated, but I actually kind of like that.

That's just a personal preference of mine. Also, it is an 18 and 1/2 by 9 aspect ratio. That's why you see these black bars on a 16:9 video. However, you can pinch in. You do crop out a little of the video, but you can zoom to fit it to make it actually fill up that entire aspect ratio on the display, colors really pop.

It's an AMOLED display, also great feature on this phone. Very underrated, in my opinion, is the hard press home button. So if you're in a full-screen mode, you can hard press where the home button is, and it will take you all the way back home, which I really do like. That's a very big side. Note I'm, sorry about that, but again Super AMOLED display, so the blacks are completely dark.

And, speaking of that, if you go ahead and go to your lock screen, it hasn't always on this, which I love, I actually have gotten so used to always on displays when I use the phone that doesn't have one I'm, actually a little disappointed, it's great to just glance at your phone and see the time. In this case you see the date and battery percentage, and if you have notifications, those pop up as well, if you have music playing, it will actually show up, you could double tap on it, and then you can actually control that specific music. If you would like to straight from the always-on display and yes, the always-on display is going to use a little of battery. However, not that menu, because it only lights up a few pixels due to that Super, AMOLED display and speaking of battery life. It is great, it gets me through a full day every single day, I'm not really worried at all.

If I go ahead and go to some of these statistics, you'll see here seven percent battery left with five hours of screen on time, which, for me, as long as it gets over about four and a half hours screen on time, I am very happy with it and swiping over you'll see four hours. Five minute screen on time with 32% batteries still left so overall battery life has been great, gives me through a full day, not the best battery life at any phone I've used, however, definitely good enough to get you through a full day, maybe a little extra. If you don't use it too heavily moving along. Let's talk about that s-pen one of the most useful features I use with the s-pen is the screen off memo where I could just go ahead and write a quick note. Maybe a phone number, maybe just a quick thought and all I have to do- is put the pen back in the phone.

It saves it to my notes and that's it put it back in my pocket. It locks the phone again and that's all I have to do I, don't even unlock the phone to use the s-pen a really great feature of it. There's a close look at that S Pen. It does click like a regular pen which I find myself doing maybe out of habit. Also, there is a button here for action, controls more on that just a second and that's really about it very fine tip sensitive.

So it will actually determine how hard you're pressing on the screen maybe make things a little bolder. A little lighter overall, pretty comfortable in the hand a little smaller than a normal pen or pencil that you're used to, but of course it has to fit in a phone. So that's totally. Ok, the S Pen also has Bluetooth capabilities, which means you can control your phone. There are specific actions that you can do.

If I press and hold the button on the S Pen, it will open up that camera. I can single press it, and it will snap a quick picture. If I double press, it will actually start to record a video. So there are actions. This is great.

Actually, when taking group shots, if you set something up on a tripod, anything like that, you can just press the button, and it will snap that picture for you or even if you want to go ahead and take a selfie, you can actually change it. So you, the action of double, presses, switch to the front-facing camera. If you hold that out- and you want to hold that s pen and not have to worry about, maybe pressing the volume key or the screen itself, you could just press that button and there's that selfie that it takes and, of course, another feature of the S Pen. That I really like is the play pause feature with YouTube when watching videos I just tap it once, and I just had the S Pen sitting there. While maybe this video is autoplay on my desk, while I eat something I can let it just sit there and then, instead of having to tap the screen press pause, I could just have the S Pen just press the button.

It'll go ahead and pause, or I could double press, and it will actually skip to the next video with this icon right here. It brings up a full list of different shortcuts and there's a lot of functionality to this S Pen I find that you could do a lot of different things. Furthermore, it takes a little while to train yourself, though you're not just going to think. Oh, I can do this with my ass pan right away. You kind of have to go into all the options and learn them and say: oh well, I guess in this scenario, I can use this part of the S Pen.

There's a lot that goes into it. You could add a bunch of shortcuts whether you want a specific, app shortcut or functions. There's coloring, Bixby, vision, magnify glance. All of these up on the side as well. The ones I find that I use the most screen writes a good one.

It'll take a screenshot of what's on there, and then you can go ahead and maybe circle something you can change the coloring on this as well. You can just go ahead and write on it. Share it, save it crop it whatever. Whatever you would like to do. Also, just creating a note is another good one.

I find that, when I'm sitting in a meeting, something like that creating a note, great I prefer to actually handwrite, over type, just a personal preference of mine, another fun one that I like is actually a live message. Believe it or not, there's a lot of customizations. You can have hearts you can use. Maybe a paintbrush ink change the coloring on it, how thick the coloring is and then, if you go ahead and write something if I'm the squiggling and I had done, it'll go ahead and process that video and, of course it's quick to do so. It's just processing a full video, and then it will go ahead and play it.

It'll save it. You can send it out, it's fun to send notes this way, I find it a little more personal. It's in your handwriting. It's just kind of a little neat way to express yourself so overall I'm, a big fan of the s-pen, just make note that there is a bit of a curve in learning all the different functions and knowing exactly when you can use specific things, and just remembering that you have all of this functionality in a little pen. On the back of the Galaxy Note, 9 is a dual camera system.

One of the lenses, the irregular lens, actually has a dual aperture mode, which will open and close depending on how much light it wants to let in depending on how much light is in the room. Also, it has a two time, zoom lens, which comes in crazy, handy I, love having a two time, zoom lens, especially when I'm traveling just getting shots of maybe landscapes or specific cityscapes. It's really useful and handy to have a 2-ton zoom a little video session right now, but there is a mode within the camera called scenes and what it does is it determines what you're, looking at through the camera and optimizes the image based on the shot that you're taking so whether it's a landscape, animal flowers, just a bunch of different options, waterfalls even I, actually tested this out quite a bit. In my note, 9 experience, video, which I'll link below, of course, and you get some perfect shots and I just find that overall, it's something that works for me, I would say about 70% of the time. I prefer the shot with the scene optimizer on it.

So it's getting there I think it does need some tweaks to make it better. Just changing the color settings and the of the specific thing you take a picture of so it just kind of depends on me. I wish there was a simple way to turn it on and off whether I could say: hey take one picture with the scene: optimizer turn it off and take one without it. I wish there was a way to do that. Maybe in the future they will add that and overall I would say the note 9 camerae competes for the best camera out right now.

It has a lot of different features of live focus mode to blur everything around your subject. Then, three to five feet: a nice pro mode panorama auto a super slow mode which I highly recommend. It's its really fantastic using it. Basically, you just start recording, and then you can actually tap when it does the slo-mo in it. It works really well.

I really showed it off in my other video check that out. If you want to see more in depth, look at that. You also have a nice hyperlapse mode if you'd like to record and do some hyperlapse, maybe of a drive or a plane ride, and here's a look at some of the shots that I took from the Galaxy Note.9 both bright light, dark light scenarios does a good job in both. You will see that it will somewhat over saturate the colors just a little, which, in my opinion, is totally fine. Some people like those colors to pop and that's just pretty standard of most Samsung cameras.

They do over saturate those colors just a little, which again might be downside for some up for me, I, don't mind it whatsoever. The Galaxy Note 9 does run Android 8.1 Oreo at the moment and overall they do have their skin over Android as well, which I find has a crazy amount of customization options which you might like. You might not there's just so many things that you can actually change, customize and so many features as well. You'll see all of these smart alert, easy mute, direct call palm swipe to capture smart caption. Furthermore, you may or may not know what they are.

For example, if you don't know what to rec call is tap on it, bring the phone closer here to call the contact whose message on the contact details are currently on the screen, and you might not know you could do that. If you have someone's contact details up- and you put it up to your ear, it will start to call that person which is really cool. However, you just kind of need to go in and learn all of these things similar to that of the s-pen there's just so many features. You might run into some that you might not know about that. You might not have known about even six months into owning the phone in terms of performance.

The note 9 has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, and it handles just about everything I throw at. It is very smooth, very quick, even when playing games, whether I'm playing higher-end games like fortnight or pub G, or even just asphalt, 9 like I'm playing right here. Graphics are great, it doesn't overheat very smooth and then, if I want to go ahead and do some multitasking maybe go in to the Play Store or find an app something like that. Go back home, maybe I want to go to the calculator. Do a quick calculation I can do that.

Let's go into the camera. Maybe snap a picture, a couple pictures and then go back home, go to the Settings app scroll down, maybe see what the lock screen is going on, and then we could go ahead and go back to our recent apps. Go all the way back to asphalt, 9 loads right back out. No, no issues with RAM management whatsoever, but you'd see, is very smooth and snappy. I've had no problems with it.

Slowing down, I think Samsung gets a bad rap because their previous skins over Android we're definitely slowing down the system. But at the moment, they're newer system is just fine. Everything's very quick, very snappy I've been very pleased with performance, so that would be my full review on the Samsung Galaxy note 9. Hopefully you enjoyed the video if you did be sure to click that thumbs up overall one of the best phones. You can buy right now, yes, hefty price tag, but you really don't have to compromise on anything.

You don't have to remove any features. Furthermore, you get just about everything with this phone anyways, a lot of new videos coming in the very near future be sure to click that subscribe button, so you're notified of all of them and as always guys. Thank you very much for watching.

Source : Tim Schofield