Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Launched; 1250$ for 512GB Variant

After many leaks and anticipation, Samsung launched the Galaxy Note 9 on 9th August 2018 in New York. What we thought would be a generic sandwich of glass and metal has turned out to be quite an interesting phone. But its damn expensive. One kidney might not work, you’d have to sell both to buy this phone. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 starts at $999.99 in the USA and will be available at online stores and physical stores starting from August 24. That is for a base model with 128GB storage. There’s a version with 512GB storage and it will cost you $1249.99.

Let’s get the specs out of the way first. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will have either a Snapdragon 845 chip or some version of Exynos chip engineered by Samsung depending on the region. The base model with 128GB storage comes with a 6GB RAM, and the 512GB version comes with 8GB RAM. Both these devices are some of the most powerful Android handsets currently available.

Now, let’s dive into the interesting bits. At the front, the Note 9 features the same quad-HD AMOLED display that everybody raves about. It’s the most gorgeous panel on a phone. Period. On the back, there is a dual camera setup with a variable aperture like the Galaxy S9 Plus. They have AI features like scene recognition which will optimize the color tone of your picture based on the scene. The layout of the cameras is unexpected though – they are stacked horizontally. With every manufacturer adopting vertically stacked cameras, even Samsung in the S9 Plus, a horizontally stacked camera looks unique and appealing again. This also makes it easy to differentiate Note 9 from the S9 Plus. Other design changes include the placement of the fingerprint sensor; it now sits just below the camera modules and the heart rate sensor.

Though the changes on the outside seem few, there are some radical improvements on the inside of the Note 9. The phone now has a 4000 mAh battery, up from 3300 mAh on the Note 8. This signals substantial improvement in the battery life. The phone now has a dual speaker setup for an immersive audio experience. The cooling system has been improved, Samsung calls it the water carbon cooling system. It will be useful when you play Fortnite on your phone, which was released for Android on the launch event itself. Samsung Galaxy devices will be available to download the game with no hassle. Other compatible devices will have to wait for the invite to the beta.

The most innovative improvements have been made to the S-Pen, the one thing that draws the line between the Galaxy S9 Plus and the Note 9. The pen now works with low-powered Bluetooth. And Samsung has brought some cool intuitive features to the pen using this technology. You can now use the button on the S-Pen to take a picture without touching the phone. You can use it as a remote to control your powerpoint presentations, or as a play/pause button for your music. The possibilities will be endless once Samsung lets app developer work on this feature. To charge the pen, you just insert it in its place on the phone and it will give you a battery life of 30 min within 40 seconds. That is amazing.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is available in 4 new colors – black, blue, lilac purple, and copper. These colors are unique to Samsung and make the phone look like some ornament. The Note 9’s first impression has been amazing across the board. Only after it falls into the hands of the public in the coming weeks, we will see if it is really worth its mind-boggling, eye-watering, bank-robbing price.