- I'm Andru Edwards, and you're watching Gear Live.
A few days ago at an event in New York City,
Samsung announced its brand new Galaxy Note 9 smart phone.
Judging by the looks on the outside,
you may assume that not much has changed from last year,
but Samsung did make some pretty big changes
on the inside of the phone, and today,
I'm gonna give you a look at the top five features
of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, sponsored by Qualcomm.
What is going on, Tech Squad?
Andru Edwards here, editor in chief at GearLive.com.
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Now, as I said today, we're taking a look
at the top five features of this phone right here.
This is the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
Now, as I mentioned on the outside,
it looks pretty similar to what Samsung released last year
with the Galaxy Note 8, in fact, it's so similar
that the only thing I can see at first glance that's obvious
is that the fingerprint reader has moved away
from being placed right next to the flash,
and they've moved it underneath the camera module.
That, in and of itself, is a welcome feature
as far as I'm concerned.
Now, the good things you liked about the hardware last year
like the fact that it has a headphone jack,
that still remains, and the confusing things
about last year like the fact that it has a dedicated button
to bring up Bixby, that remains as well.
But as I said, we're here to talk about what's new
so today, I've got five features I want to talk to you about
that make the Galaxy Note 9
something you might want to consider.
Now, as I mentioned at the beginning,
this video is sponsored by Qualcomm.
Qualcomm makes the Snapdragon 845
and the Snapdragon 845 is what's powering
a majority of the features.
The Galaxy Note 9 takes advantage
of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845,
with cutting-edge LTE, wifi, and Bluetooth features.
That includes second generation gigabit LTE
which supports peak download speeds
of 1.2 gigabits per second.
It's also got Qualcomm's aptX audio,
which allows the Galaxy Note 9 to support consistent,
high-quality sound over Bluetooth,
to supported wireless headsets and speakers.
Now, compared to the Galaxy Note 8,
the Galaxy Note 9 has a 53% faster CPU
and a 23% faster GPU.
Now, again, that's powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845
and that should give you an idea
of the amount of power that Samsung has packed
into this device, so knowing how impressive those specs are,
let's jump into the top five features of the Galaxy Note 9,
and let's start with one of everybody's favorite features,
mine included, and that's gonna be the camera.
Samsung Galaxy Note 9 features a dual camera system
similar to what you'd find on the Galaxy S9 Plus.
It sports a dual aperture wide lens,
which can switch between F2.4 and F1.5,
and it's also got a telephoto lens as well.
Both cameras will shoot the same scene
when zoomed in, allowing you to save the view
from both cameras.
The cameras also have dual optical image stabilization
and the Live Focus feature,
which we've seen on previous devices as well.
That's the feature that allows you to change
the amount of blur behind your subject,
both before and after the photo is taken.
Now, the Qualcomm Snapdragon does show its chops here
in the camera, specifically as it allows
for a few specific features.
First of all, that super slow-mo feature
that we saw on the S9, is carried over to the Note 9.
That allows you to shoot at 480 frames per second, at 720p.
Speaking of high frame rates,
the Galaxy Note 9 can also shoot 4K at 60 frames per second,
thanks to the Snapdragon 845 as well,
and that same processor also allows
for the great low-light photography,
and the near instant auto focus
that you'll find when using the camera.
One other interesting feature is the scene optimizer.
It utilizes Qualcomm's AI engine
to identify the elements of a photo
to categorize it into one of 20 different types
and instantly optimizes the photo based on the category.
For example, you may be taking a photo in sunset,
or you may be taking a photo of food,
or an animal, it'll automatically apply changes
to brightness, contrast, saturation,
and white balance before you take the photo,
to ensure the best possible end result.
Also, a new flaw detection feature
that will let you know if a shot was blurry,
if someone blinked, or if an image was too back-lit
or blown out, so as you can see,
the camera is pretty impressive here on the Note 9.
Samsung was able to pack in a bunch of extra features
into the camera software thanks in large part
to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845.
Now let's move on to another feature.
This one isn't apparent when looking at the phone,
but it is very apparent when you're using the phone,
and that is the battery life.
The battery life on the Galaxy Note 9 is stellar
due to the 4000 milliamp hour battery.
That's right, on the inside is a 4000 milliamp hour battery
which is the largest battery that's ever been included
in a Samsung Galaxy Note phone.
It's also larger than almost every other
Android flagship's battery that you'll find today.
Now, in addition to running the Note 9 battery
through its own multi-point safety check,
Samsung says they've also done extensive,
third party verification at well.
Specifically, Samsung says they've had the phone validated
and certified by outside companies UL and Exponent.
Now, the reason for that, if you weren't around back then
and weren't paying attention back then,
the Galaxy Note 7 failed spectacularly
due to battery problems, the phone was actually exploding,
blowing up, Samsung recalled it,
re-engineered the phone, re-released it,
and it started blowing up again,
and they had to pull the phone and cancel it completely,
so last year with the Galaxy Note 8,
Samsung was a bit more hesitant
to put a huge battery in that phone.
That was actually a disappointment from a lot of people,
the fact that the Note 8 didn't have that large battery,
so now we're back, Note 9, good job, Samsung.
4000 milliamp hours.
It'll take you a long long time before you run out of juice.
Basically, what you've got there is all day battery life.
All right, next big feature, again,
another one that's not apparent from the outside,
it really is what's on the inside that counts here,
and that is the storage capacity.
I need to give a big shout-out to Samsung
for starting the Note 9 at 128 gigabytes of storage.
That is the entry level storage amount.
Just a couple of years ago, I was complaining
about companies releasing phones with eight gigabytes
or even 16 gigabytes of storage at the bare minimum,
which was just too small an amount for this day and age.
Samsung's been shipping phones with 64 gigabytes of storage
at the base level, for a few years now,
but I was surprised to see that this year with the Note 9,
they're starting at 128 gigabytes, bare minimum,
with six gigabytes of RAM built in.
Now, that entry level phone will cost you $999,
basically a thousand bucks, but they didn't stop there.
They also have a second model which you can buy
which packs in 512 gigabytes
of storage, right in, built right into the phone.
Now, if you opt for the 512 gigabyte storage model,
you are also going to get, instead of six gigabytes of RAM,
eight gigabytes of RAM, 512 gigabytes of storage,
eight gigabytes of RAM, that model will sell
for $1,249, so basically, $1250,
so again, a thousand bucks for 128 gigabytes
and six gigs of RAM, or, pay $250 more,
and get 512 gigabytes and eight gigabytes of RAM.
But Samsung didn't stop there.
Whether you get the 128 or the 512 gigabyte version,
it also still has the built-in SD card slot.
The built-in SD card slot is in the SIM tray,
and that SD card slot supports
up to 512 gigabytes
when using a micro SD card, so in other words,
if you buy a 512 gigabyte Samsung Galaxy Note 9,
and then you get a 512 gigabyte external micro SD card,
you put that in the phone, and you have a phone
that has 1 terabyte of storage space.
I think that's pretty much unmatched
in current generation smartphones.
One terabyte of storage,
right here in your hand, pretty impressive.
Now, the phone is pretty big,
and we have seen one terabyte SSDs out there,
but those SSDs are pretty expensive,
so being able to pack in the same amount of storage
as you would get on a dedicated external SSD,
right into your Galaxy Note 9, super impressive.
All right, let's jump over to another one
of my favorite features, number four on my list
has got to be the new and improved S Pen.
This time around, Samsung is upgrading the S Pen
in a big way.
It's adding Bluetooth low energy,
turning the stylus from a mere note-taking accessory
into a full-fledged remote control for your phone.
The additional Bluetooth adds a few cool features
to the S Pen, for example,
now it functions as a remote camera shutter
letting you take pictures from up to 30 feet away.
There's also a presentation mode
that lets you control a slideshow remotely
when using Samsung's DeX feature.
The S Pen will also let you play and pause music
and video as well.
Pressing and holding the button opens the camera by default
but you can change that shortcut to launch any app
of your choosing.
Samsung says it's gonna be opening up
the S Pen's new Bluetooth features
to developers later this year.
Now, you may hear Bluetooth features and think,
okay, so the S Pen is now using way more energy
than it used to, and that is true,
it does take power to run the S Pen now,
but the beauty of it is that it charges right here
in the S Pen storage slot.
If the S Pen runs out of battery,
you put it in that slot and it will charge to full
in under one minute.
However, if you were in the middle of writing
and you don't have a minute to spare,
you'll be happy to know that the S Pen still functions
as a stylus and writing tool,
even when the battery is completely dead.
And now, last but not least, on my list
of my top five features on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9,
has to be obvious, this one is obvious
when looking at the phone,
and that is this gorgeous display.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 sports a 6.4-inch,
super AMOLED Quad HD plus display,
and as you can see, this display looks amazing.
That's thanks in part to the 516 pixels per inch,
giving it a 2960
by 1440 resolution.
The display is large enough to play games on,
which, by the way, is interesting,
because Samsung did announce Fortnite
coming to the Samsung Galaxy line of phones.
Here you can see some footage of Asphalt 9 running
on that large display, you're basically holding,
for all intents and purposes,
what feels like a small tablet.
The display is also optimized for YouTube.
YouTube did give this its stamp of approval,
cause the phone does support multiple resolutions
and can decode YouTube's VP9 codec.
In addition, you can also watch movies in HDR as well.
That's High Dynamic Range, giving you even more colors
and better contrast than on screens
that don't include that feature.
So there you have it guys, that was your look
at Samsung's brand new Galaxy Note 9.
This starts shipping on August 24th,
from carriers as well as from Samsung directly,
if you want to buy one and get it unlocked.
On the outside, it looks similar to last year,
but on the inside, thanks to that Qualcomm Snapdragon 845,
we're getting a new and refreshed Galaxy Note experience.
Now I want to hear from you, let me know what you think
of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
Is this a phone that's on your list?
Are you picking this up, are you skipping it
for something different or something better?
Drop a comment down below, I will meet you there
for further discussion.
Don't forget, you can now join the Tech Squad officially
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Thanks so much for watching, as always, guys.
I appreciate your support, I'm Andru Edwards,
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