Even with the addition of the Samsung logo – pleasingly low-key in grey text – it doesn’t look at all overcrowded here. Above the composition window you have options to toggle on Dual Capture and Full-screen Capture (18. These phones use the same processor as the Note 8 – in the UK you’ll get the octa-core Exynos 8895 with integrated ARM Mali-G71 GPU but in other areas Samsung specifies the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, the same chip that has featured in multiple 2017 flagships. Two other, smaller new enhancements: the included PEN UP app now has coloring books in it, and you can use the S Pen to swipe text to do language translations.

DeX support means the Note 8 is compatible with the DeX docking station (an optional extra), allowing you to use it like a PC with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Colours are natural and true to live, and there’s no evidence of blurring even at the extreme edges of the image. The company will have taken the greatest amount of care to ensure everything works as it should, and it would be hugely, hugely surprising to see it repeat the same mistakes.Crammed with up-to-date internals, including Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor (or Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 if you aren’t Stateside), complete with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. The added grip (and peace of mind) let us operate it with one hand, whereas we struggled with the pure glass body at such tall and wide dimensions. The two cameras both have optical image stabilization, which explains why the S8's low-light performance is so much better than, say, the Essential Phone's.

The Note 8 comes with a lot of bells and whistles, including a microSD card slot, which you can use to boost the 64GB of onboard storage, a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, iris- and face-scanning tech and even a headphone jack. Samsung could fix this issue with an in-glass front fingerprint sensor, but the technology isn’t ready yet. But Bixby can do pretty much everything OK Google can do, plus manage settings and local applications on the phone. There are some features people might argue are gimmicky, such as the new Live Message feature that lets you create and share animated GIFs, but actually we love that feature and were we able to keep the handset a little longer our friends would be well and truly fed up with all the GIFs we’d sent them over WhatsApp. App Pairs is a helpful addition and an extension of Multi Window, allowing you to display two apps on the screen at the same time, but by tapping a single icon.With decades of editorial experience under her belt, she’ll keep you up-to-date and connected through simple, down-to-earth information in the most budget-friendly and sustainable way possible. The S8 and S8+, which followed the Note 7, haven’t suffered from any battery issues and Samsung has talked up its new eight-point battery safety process repeatedly.

It isn’t quite as good as the wide-angle lens next to it, but it’s a significant improvement over the OnePlus 5’s telephoto snapper, which tended to produce inconsistent, irregularly detailed shots in lower light. Front Camera Features Auto Focus HDR Screen Flash Gesture Shot Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) Panorama Selfie Face Detection 1.

That’s a good 10% increase in multi-core processing when put against the Exynos 8890-equipped Galaxy Note 7. That means it is lower in capacity than the 3,500mAh Galaxy S8+, but it’s unlikely that the 200mAh loss will make a huge difference to battery life, especially when you also factor in the savings afforded by the new 10nm processor. is preferred), the Note 8 produces wholly accurate colours across the board, even if images are a tad overexposed.

However, there is one major problem: voice recognition is poor, and Bixby kept misunderstanding what the testers were asking for. The Note 8 can activate Bixby once you say "Hi Bixby," as well as by pressing a button on the left side of the phone. There is no better processor, no better screen, no better sound quality, no better reception, and no better camera. We pointed the camera at a bottle of Evian, for example, and it was able to show us photos of other bottles of water when we selected Images.Samsung’s excellent S Pen stylus – the pointing stick that gives the Note its name – can now be used to jot quick notes on the screen while it’s off, for on the fly note-taking. In any case, I'd choose the wide-angle or telephoto dual-lens options over the Essential (and Huawei's) black-and-white/color dual lens, which doesn't seem to bring any picture-taking advantages. In low light the Note 8 also did a great job of picking out the details on our scene of random objects. There are two types of people in the world – those who will use the Note 8’s S Pen, and those who think they’re going to use it, but will stop taking it out of its holster after about a week.