- [Michael] Samsung skipped a number
when it named it's newest Note,
so Mr. Mobile skipped over to
San Francisco to see what the big deal was.
What I found, was a familiar phone
that did familiar things in unfamiliar places.
I'm Michael Fisher and I spent an hour
with the new Galaxy Note Seven.
Here's what it is and what it isn't.
(upbeat tempo music)
If you don't know what a Galaxy Note is,
it's basically the reason your
smartphone's been getting bigger every year.
The original Galaxy Note was so oversized for its time
and so controversial for including a stylus
that it was almost a punchline when
it launched five years ago.
That is, until it sold 10 million units in under a year.
That spawned a family of oversized, overpowered tablets.
An annual offering from Samsung that outclassed
basically everything else on the market.
For the most part, the Note Seven lives up
to its fore bearers in the specs department.
Much of what's packed into the body here is top of the line.
Most crucially, Samsung addressed one of the
biggest criticisms of the Note Five
by bringing back Micro SD support so
you can expand the onboard 64 gigs of storage.
Sadly, the battery still isn't removable,
but it is 16% larger than last year's
and Samsung says it can be recharged just as quickly.
Either a quick charge 2.0 through the USB-C
or fast wireless charging Qi or PMA.
The new Note looks are also no surprise.
From a distance, you could easily mistake it
for its predecessor, that is, unless you
get the soothing coral blue version with gold accents,
my favorite of the release color options.
What sets it apart when you get up close is symmetry.
Front and back, side to side,
Samsung has made this the most visually balanced Note ever.
And on top of that, it added
IP68 water and dust resistance.
Finally, we have a Galaxy Note that won't die
if you get pushed into a pool with it.
That water resistance extends to the new S Pen stylus too.
And bonus, it won't break the phone if you put it
in backwards as happened with the early Note Fives.
Also, all the stylus related apps have
mercifully been combined into a single,
simpler hub called Samsung Notes.
And there are new fun tricks like
hovering over texts to translate it
and you can draw a box around a video to make it a GIF.
You can still take notes on the lock screen just
by popping out the pen and now you can set them
to persist until you discard them
which might be useful for say, shopping lists.
The screen is pressure sensitive like always,
with sensitivity now double what it was on the Note Five
and the display itself now curves
just slightly over the edges.
That means you've got the Edge UX,
custom panels for apps, contacts and widgets
that you scroll through with the thumb.
It looks cool, but as with last year's Edge Plus models,
I still found it kind of awkward to use on the Note Seven.
And for the VR heads out there,
there's a revised gear VR, Virtual Reality Headset,
with better mask padding, redone touch controls,
and adapters so it will work with both
USB Type C and Micro USB connectors.
So all of that's great, but I have to admit to
feeling a dash of deja vu here.
The Note line used to stand out.
It was so obviously bigger
and badder than any other smart phone.
But now, it looks so much like the non-Notes
that it doesn't feel quite as special.
Its spec sheet is essentially identical to the Galaxy S7.
Even the accessories are variations on
things we've seen before.
Though this waterproof wireless powerpack is pretty cool.
But you know what?
I said many of the same things
about the Galaxy S7 when it debuted.
That it was too similar to the S6 it was supposed to replace
and I was dead wrong about the S7.
So much so that I recently called it the
best Android phone you can buy right now.
And the Note Seven stands a good chance of
accomplishing the same thing for those who
want a bigger screen or a stylus
or a phone that lets you scan in
with your eyeball instead of your thumb.
Yeah, I buried the lead there so
one last thing, the iris scanner.
Which I don't find terribly exciting.
Yeah, there are cool aspects to it.
There's a secure locker that lets
you hide files behind an eye print,
but you can do the same thing much faster with a fingerprint
and there's also a fingerprint scanner here as usual.
Remember, I've been using a Lumia 950
for the past nine months and it's taught me
that no matter well an iris scanner works,
it's still pretty awkward on a phone.
My prediction is that I'll be signing in
most often with my thumb when I review the Note Seven
and despite my reserved tone,
I'm actually looking forward to it quite a bit.
Fun fact, I signed the lease for my current
apartment using a Note Five at a restaurant.
And I'm excited to see what else the king of
tablets makes possible this year.
Whether you're a Galaxy Geek or a Note Neophyte,
let me know what questions you
want answered in my Note Seven review.
Drop a line in the comments below,
subscribe to be the first to know when
the review goes live and thanks for watching.
Until next time, stay mobile my friends.