Josh Miller/CNET Update, Aug. 9: The Galaxy Note 9 is now official, and we've gone hands-on. Original story follows. Get ready for Samsung's Galaxy Note 9. But if it's anything like the Galaxy S9, don't expect to be blown away. On Thursday, Samsung will introduce the Galaxy Note 9, its premium large-screen smartphone sporting an S Pen stylus. The stylus could include improvements that help it move beyond writing, drawing and navigation, and the uber-popular Fortnite game could make its Android debut on the Note 9. But overall, the new model is expected to get tweaks instead of major changes, something that could push the Note to the same fate as the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus: sluggish sales. Samsung's mainstream phones, which hit the market on March 16, added better cameras and improved audio, but they didn't quite fly off the shelves. In the second quarter -- the first full period of Galaxy S9 sales -- Samsung actually lost more market share than any other major handset maker and posted its worst performance since the second quarter of 2013. Its shipments tumbled 11 percent from the previous year to 70.8 million units, according to IHS Markit. Now playing: Watch this: Samsung, here's what the Note 9 needs The results underscore the tenuous position that even Samsung, the reigning smartphone champ, sits in amid intensifying competition from Chinese manufacturers like Huawei, Xiaomi and OnePlus. They also come as Apple's iPhone X successfully woos buyers in places like the US, even though it's the most expensive iPhone ever sold. "Samsung is struggling to fight off the competition with its Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus devices," IHS Markit said. "The company needs the next Galaxy Note to deliver in the latter part of the year." A core dilemma lies in the few changes Samsung made to the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, which focused on camera improvements but few physical changes. With the Note 9 expected to see limited changes as well, where's the draw? Slow sales The Note 9 launch comes about a month before Apple's next iPhones are expected and two weeks earlier than last year's Note 8 launch -- part of Samsung's effort to get a jump on Apple and revitalize its mobile business. In late July, during its quarterly earnings release, the company called the high-end smartphone market "stagnant" and characterized Galaxy S9 sales as "slow." "Demand for smartphones and tablets is forecast to increase in the second half as the market enters a period of strong seasonality, but competition is seen intensifying as new smartphone models are released," Samsung said in its press release. "In response, Samsung will seek to expand sales by introducing a new Galaxy Note earlier than usual, which offers exceptional performance for a reasonable price." Samsung didn't have further comment ahead of its event. It's getting harder for phone makers to shake things up every year. Consumers are holding onto their devices for longer and are finding tweaks like better cameras aren't enough to tempt them to upgrade every year or two. Even Apple struggled when it didn't make make huge alterations to its iPhone lineup for three straight years. Last year's introduction of the iPhone X turned things around, though, and Apple last week became the first public US company to be worth $1 trillion. Tech advances? The Note isn't Samsung's mainstream phone line, but it's still important. Samsung takes more risks with its bigger device, and it often tests new technology in the Note before rolling it out to its mainstream Galaxy S line. As CNET's Jessica Dolcourt wrote, the Note is usually Samsung's "'best for last' of the year." In the past, those riskier innovations included the iris scanner, which first appeared in 2016's ill-fated Note 7, and dual camera lenses, which debuted in last year's Note 8. Both features made their way to the Galaxy S line. Many hoped the Note 9 would include a virtual fingerprint reader under the front glass, but the latest rumors point to Samsung saving that for next year's Galaxy S10. That means Samsung may not take as many risks as usual with the Note lineup. Money, money, money A key factor in whether consumers will snub or scoop up the Note 9 is how much it costs. Prices for the latest and greatest smartphones overall have been rising. Apple's $1,000 iPhone X is $200 more than the previous most expensive iPhone, the 7 Plus -- but that hasn't really stopped people from buying the device. Apple said it has been the best-selling iPhone since its launch in November, and that's helped boost the iPhone's average selling price to $724 in the June quarter from $606 a year earlier. Prices for Samsung phones too have increased. The price of the Galaxy S9 varies depending on the carrier, but at Verizon, the phone costs $800, while the Galaxy S8 retailed for $720 when it debuted last year. If you buy the Galaxy S9 directly from Samsung, it also costs $720. That higher price from carriers is likely a factor for why the S9 and S9 Plus aren't selling as well as expected. "Carriers thought they could get away with charging more, possibly due to the success of the iPhone X," GlobalData analyst Avi Greengart said. "But it turns out that, no, the iPhone X was an exception." He added that he expects Samsung to either keep the Note 9 at the same price as the Note 8 -- it launched at $950 if bought directly from Samsung -- or even lower the price. "They understand they cannot raise prices without introducing something radically new," Greengart said. For Samsung, that "radially new something" may not happen until next year's expected foldable phone. Until then, Samsung may try to blow you away with the Note 9's price, instead of new bells and whistles. Tech Enabled: CNET chronicles tech's role in providing new kinds of accessibility. Blockchain Decoded: CNET looks at the tech powering bitcoin -- and soon, too, a myriad of services that will change your life.<doc-sep>Samsung’s Galaxy Note phones have always been about more. More screen, more battery, more specs, more power, more features; if you want more of something, the Note is the phone to get. It’s a phone designed and built for the power user who won’t settle for anything less. The new Note 9 gives the most more of any Note phone. It has the biggest screen, the fastest processor, the biggest battery, the largest storage, and the most features. And it also costs the most — the Note 9 starts at $1,000 and goes up to an eye-watering $1,250. It’s easily the most expensive Samsung smartphone ever sold in the US and the most expensive Android phone on the market right now. To get the most, you’ll have to pay the most. What the Note 9 doesn’t offer is anything new — unlike Note phones of prior years, it doesn’t debut any new technology or design ideas. It just takes everything that Samsung’s been doing with the past few versions of its phones and turns it all up a notch. I don’t think this lack of new stuff is necessarily a bad thing — the Note 9 is the best phone Samsung has ever made and arguably the best Android phone you can buy right now. But it’s not for everyone. Our review of Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Verge Score 8.5 out of 10 Good Stuff Gorgeous, vibrant, bright, big display Fast performance True all-day battery life Lots of storage, even in the base model Bad Stuff High price tag Large, unwieldy size Duplicate apps and extra features that don’t add much value Buy for $999.99 from Samsung Buy for $999.99 from Amazon The Note 9 doesn’t look much different from the Note 8. It has the same overall design, with curved glass on the front and back, and a metal frame. The glass is not as curved as on the Galaxy S9, and it has squarer corners, which gives the Note 9 a larger footprint than Samsung’s other phones. This is a big phone, and there’s no getting around it: if you don’t like oversized phones or want something that can be used in one hand, this isn’t the device for you. Either way, it’s very well made and feels as premium as a $1,000 phone should. One appreciated change from the Note 8 is the placement of the rear fingerprint scanner. Instead of being up near the camera, it’s now below it, which makes it much easier to reach with your index finger. But because the Note 9 is such a large phone, it will still be hard to hit for those with smaller hands. The first bit of more you get with the Note 9 is more screen: the 6.4-inch panel is larger than any screen on a premium Samsung phone before it. It’s only a smidge bigger than the Note 8’s 6.3-inch panel, but Samsung was able to shrink the bezels above and below the screen even further, so the Note 9 isn’t meaningfully larger than last year’s phone, despite its bigger display. It also doesn’t have a notch or cutout at the top of the display, which bucks the trend of phone design this year and is sure to make some people happy. The display itself is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Samsung: it’s a bright, colorful, pixel-dense OLED panel with deep blacks and great viewing angles. It’s easily the best screen available on a smartphone right now and is just gorgeous to look at, indoors or out. Galaxy Note 9 Specs 6.4-inch quad HD OLED display Snapdragon 845 processor with 6 / 8GB RAM 128 / 512GB storage with microSD support 4,000mAh battery with wired and wireless fast charging Dual 12-megapixel rear camera with OIS and switchable aperture 8-megapixel front camera with autofocus Gigabit LTE Cat. 18 Iris, facial, and fingerprint biometric authentication Android 8.1 Oreo Inside, the Note 9 has more storage than any other Samsung phone: the base model offers 128GB of space, while the more expensive version has a whopping 512GB. Both versions have microSD card slots, so you can get up to a full terabyte of storage on your phone if you’re willing to pay for it. It’s also worth noting that Samsung is offering twice as much storage as the iPhone X at each price point. But the most important bit of more you get with the Note 9 is more battery life. At 4,000mAh, the Note 9’s battery is the biggest the line has ever had, and the largest battery you can get in a Samsung phone. That’s 500mAh bigger than the battery in the S9 Plus and a full 700mAh larger than the one in last year’s Note 8. It’s also bigger than the battery in Google’s Pixel 2 XL, LG’s V35, HTC’s U12 Plus, the iPhone 8 Plus, or basically any other phone you can think of that’s for sale in the US right now. That translates into true, all-day battery life, even for the heaviest of users that stare at their phones all day long. I’m one of those users and the Note 9 has been able to give me between six and seven hours of on-screen time with my typical workflow, which is considerably more than I get with other contemporary devices. In the week or so I’ve been using the Note as my primary phone, there hasn’t been a single day where the battery didn’t last from the very moment I woke up to the point I went to bed at night. If there’s a single reason to justify the Note 9’s price and size, battery life is it. Battery life is the best justification for the Note 9’s size and price The Note 9 is clearly targeted to the person who uses their phone more than average, but if you are a lighter user, I could easily see the phone lasting two or maybe even three days between charges. When it does come time to charge up, the Note 9 supports both fast wired and fast wireless charging, like most Samsung phones have for the past few years. I would have liked to see Samsung improve the wired charging speeds this time around, especially since the battery is so much larger on the Note 9, but I don’t think most people will have an issue with how fast you can recharge the battery. Like virtually every other flagship Android phone this year, including Samsung’s own Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, the Note 9 uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor. It’s paired with either 6GB (in the entry model) or 8GB (in the $1,250 version) of RAM and it has performed flawlessly in the time I’ve been using the phone. The Note 9 is very snappy and responsive, even in the entry-level model I’ve been testing for this review, and I haven’t encountered any issues with choppiness, lag, or stuttering when scrolling. Apps open quickly and switching between a bunch of different apps is a breeze. But it’s not remarkably better than any other flagship phone I’ve used this year, since most of them are using the same processor. You can get the same level of performance from a OnePlus 6, which costs half the price of the Note 9. Another similarity the Note 9 shares with the Galaxy S9 Plus is its camera system. The rear camera is a dual 12-megapixel system, with a wide-angle lens with switchable apertures and a telephoto lens for zooming in closer on your subject or creating portrait blur effects. The front camera has 8 megapixels of resolution and autofocus. Since it’s basically the same camera platform as the S9 Plus, images from the Note 9 are unsurprisingly very similar to those from the S9. They are sharp and vibrant, with great low-light performance. Autofocus is lightning quick and there are plenty of modes in the camera app for various effects and video shooting. The Samsung cameras are certainly among the best you can get right now, and it really comes down to personal preference, whether or not you like the way the images look compared to Google or Apple’s cameras. The Note 9’s camera app does have a couple of new features, adopting some of the auto scene-detecting AI features other phones have shipped with this year. Point it at something and it will try to identify what that object is and optimize the camera settings for it. Samsung says the camera can recognize 20 different types of scenes, including food, portraits, pets, landscapes, beaches, sunrises and sunsets, and more. In my tests, it did a good job identifying animals, food, and plants, and it did so quicker than other phones with similar features. But I didn’t notice much of a difference in the images after it had allegedly optimized them. Grid View I did appreciate the other new feature in the camera app, which gives you a notification if the last picture you took might be blurry or the person in it blinked, so you can take it again. The Note 9 does separate itself a little from the S9 line with its S Pen stylus. Like every Note phone before it, you can use the Note 9’s stylus to jot down notes, doodle, or navigate the phone’s interface. The new feature this year is the ability to use the button on it as a remote to snap a picture, skip a track in a music player, or advance a slide in a presentation. It’s neat, but as someone who’s never really found much use for the S Pen, it isn’t something that I found very useful. There are S Pen diehards out there who might appreciate these features, though — you probably already know if you’re one of them. The Note 9 also brings some improvements to Samsung’s DeX feature, which lets you plug the phone into a computer monitor and use it like a desktop computer. Instead of requiring a special dock, you can load DeX with a simple USB-C to HDMI adapter on the Note 9, which makes it a bit easier to get up and running than with an S9. The Note 9 can be used as a trackpad when it’s plugged in to a larger screen, or you can doodle on it with the S Pen and have your drawings show up on the big screen. But DeX is still DeX, and to really make the most use out of it, not only do you need an external display, you’ll need a keyboard and mouse, too, because the Note 9’s trackpad feature is rather bad. Using DeX, even with all the aforementioned accessories, is still slow, cumbersome, and frustrating, with app incompatibilities and bottlenecks. I liken it to drinking a milkshake through a coffee stirrer: you’ll get some milkshake eventually, but you’ll also get frustrated and end up with a headache. At that point, you might as well just use a laptop like everyone else. Samsung’s other software bugbears are present on the Note 9, too. It’s running Android 8.1 Oreo, but there’s zero indication when it might get Android 9 Pie, which was publicly released for Google’s phones earlier this month. There are still lots of unnecessary duplicate apps, even on the unlocked model I’ve been using, so out of the box there are two web browsers, two email apps, two photo galleries, and so on. Bixby and DeX both have gotten cosmetic enhancements that don’t address their underlying problems And there’s Bixby, Samsung’s oft-maligned voice assistant. The Note 9 has a revamped version of Bixby, with an adjusted user interface and deeper integration with third-party services. But like DeX, these improvements are merely skin-deep and Bixby has all of the same problems it’s always had: it’s slow, stupid, and generally not as good as Google Assistant, which is conveniently also on the phone. For example, I asked Bixby to “give me directions to JFK”, and it routed me to a fried chicken joint with “JFK” in the name instead of the international airport. I like fried chicken as much as anyone, but those weren’t the wings I was looking for.<doc-sep>
Samsung introduce the new Galaxy Note9 The Galaxy Note 9 was shown off at Samsung's Unpacked event in New York City with the company noting the product was designed for its "most loyal" customers. DJ Koh, the President and CEO of IT and Mobile Communications Division for Samsung Electronics, said: “The Note has always been our showcase for premium technology and industry-defining innovation, and Galaxy Note 9 is no exception. "It’s designed for a level of performance, power and intelligence that today’s power users want and need. “Note fans are Samsung’s most loyal; we know they want it all, to get the most out of work and play, and Galaxy Note 9 is the only phone that can keep up with their busy lives.” But just how powerful is the Galaxy Note 9 compared to the other flagship the South Korean tech giant announced back in February, the Galaxy S9 and S9+? Design The Galaxy Note 9 retains the same design as the Note 8 with a few refinements. Note 9 boasts a 6.4-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED panel with similar sized bezels to its predecessor. But the device's biggest change comes on its rear - the fingerprint sensor has been moved below the camera sensor. This is presumably a move Samsung made after many insisted the scanner on the Note 8 was too hard to reach. Note 9 comes with Samsung's signature curved screen that seamlessly blends into the phone's body. The phablet's trump card has always been its S Pen accessory, and this year it is greatly improved. The S Pen now has Bluetooth, allowing the user to perform a variety of functions such as control music playback and the camera shutter by using it directly. The accessory has always been exclusive to the Note and has been widely adored by those that use the flagship. Performance on all three phones is incredibly fast In a similar fashion, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ retained largely the same design of its predecessor. The flagship also moved its fingerprint sensor to a position lower down on the device to make it more accessible. However, the S9+ received an added telephoto camera lens on the back of the device that allowed more detail to be kept in snaps where a user zoomed in. The S9 and S9+ have smaller panels than the Note 9 with the former touting a 6.2-inch screen while the latter only comes with a 5.8-inch. Note 9 appears more rectangular, and for that reason the curved edges of its screen do not seem as prominent as on the S9 and S9+. Both phones are incredibly similar in design with each boasting a body formed of front and black glass panels with an aluminium frame. Performance During the Galaxy Note 9 reveal event, the South Korean tech giant boasted the huge specifications featured by the new phablet. It insisted this would allow users to perform tasks easier than ever. The Note 9 comes in two versions - one with 128GB of internal storage and featuring 6GB of RAM while the other packs 512GB of memory and 8GB of RAM. Both versions of the Note 9 should be blisteringly fast at performing everyday functions for users. The phablet comes with a Exynos 9810 chip in some territories such as the UK and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 in others. These are the same chipsets used by the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+. The biggest difference between the S flagship and the new Note 9 is when it comes to RAM. S9 only comes with 4GB of RAM while the S9+ comes with 6GB. Note 9 boasts a 6.4-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED panel But the Note 9 comes with at least 6GB as standard and maxes out at 8GB. Added RAM means the higher-specced Note 9 should be better at handling more apps at once than either the S9 or the S9+. The one area the S9 and S9+ appeared to fall short was in terms of battery life. Many users insisted the device did not last as long as they thought it would. The S9 boasts a 3000mAh battery while the S9+ packs one with 3500mAh. But the Note 9 trumps both phones with an enormous 4000mAh battery. Samsung was keen to stress the device should easily allow power users to get through an entire day on a single charge.