Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review: top smartphone, but ...

This year too, Samsung placed after the S devices a new note: The Galaxy Note 9. This is a flagship with an integrated stylus. My test report.
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Unboxing and initial setup
Like every other packaging for Samsung smartphones, that of the Note 9 is mostly black. On the case is a graphic of the S-Pen I'll get to later and the name of the phone. If you pull the box out of the case, which is made of cardboard, and open it, you surprisingly don't see the smartphone immediately. First, Samsung actually packed the case with a SIM tool and the instructions.
Only below is the Note 9. If you take this out of the package with all the contents, you will find all the accessories. This includes the power supply unit, the USB-C cable, in-ears from AKG and two adapters that can be used to transfer data to the Note from another device, more on this in a moment.
- Picture: TechnikNews
- Picture: TechnikNews
- Picture: TechnikNews
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- Picture: TechnikNews
- Picture: TechnikNews
- Picture: TechnikNews
The initial setup of the flagship is very easy, as is always the case with Android. You enter your Google account, log in to Samsung if necessary, agree to the terms and conditions, set a screen lock method and possibly create a backup from another smartphone. Instead of the latter, the data can also be transferred using the aforementioned adapter and the Smart Switch app.
After about 20 minutes you can start using the smartphone.
Glass on glass with excellent speakers
The Galaxy Note 9 has a pretty ordinary design, at least by today's standards. The back and front are made of glass, more precisely Gorilla Glass 5, and are held together by an aluminum frame. I noticed two things about the glass relatively soon that I didn't like at all: My test device had a fairly deep scratch when it was unpacked and the glass was full of fingerprints within a few seconds. In return, the Note 9 even supports quick wireless charging thanks to the choice of material.
- The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 even has a headphone jack (picture: TechnikNews)
- My test device already had a rather deep scratch in the glass on the back (picture: TechnikNews)
Briefly a word about the available color options. In Austria you can choose between Midnight Black and Ocean Blue. For other countries there is also Lavander Purple and Copper. Some will definitely be happy about the headphone plug, which Samsung also installed here. Next to it is the USB-C port, the slot for the S Pen and one of a total of two speakers. These support Dolby Atmos and sound incredibly good. So far, I've never had a smartphone with better speakers in my hands.
Two SIM cards or one SIM card and one microSD card can be placed in the SIM slot on the top of the device. There is a small fingerprint sensor under the dual camera. This is placed better than the Note 8, but is still not the best of the best. So the sensor often didn't react when I protried to unlock the Note 9.
The best display on the market
The fabulous Super AMOLED display, which has a size of 9 inches and a maximum resolution of WQHD + (6,4 × 2960 pixels), extends on the front of the Samsung Galaxy Note 1440. When unpacking, however, only FHD + (2220 × 1080 pixels) is set as the resolution, optionally it can be reduced to HD + (1480 × 720 pixels). This allows the remaining runtime to be increased when the battery level is low. I can't think of any negative points about the display. The maximum brightness is more than sufficient and the sharpness of the picture is on top.
Of course, both sides of the display are rounded off again. Samsung calls the Edge display. In my opinion, the whole thing looks very good, especially when you swipe through the app drawer and the apps flow onto the display. Unfortunately, I noticed that the suppression of the palm rest does not always work reliably.
The Galaxy Note 9 does not have a notch, which is due to the fact that there is an iris scanner for Intelligent Scan next to the front camera and the ambient light sensor. With Intelligent Scan, the Note 9 can often be unlocked even faster than with the fingerprint sensor. Samsung installed the second of the two Dolby Atmos speakers in the earpiece.
No outstanding performance
My Galaxy Note 9 configuration uses Samsung's own Exynos 9810, an octa-core processor. It is supported by the Mali-G72 graphics card and 6 gigabytes of RAM with 128 gigabytes of internal storage. However, there is also a version with 512 gigabytes of storage and 8 gigabytes of RAM.
The performance of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is generally OK. Apps start up very quickly and the overall operating speed is pleasantly high. The smartphone also had no problems with Asphalt 9 or Oceanhorn. There were just a few wobbly animations now and then, which I think is due to the software.
Unfortunately, I have to say that the performance is not really outstanding. Because anyone who read my review of the Honor 8X knows that I pretty much said the same words there on this subject. There is hardly any difference, especially in everyday life. And the Honor 8X with an RRP of 250 euros is a lot cheaper than the Note 9 here from Samsung.
For real? Does this smartphone support Quick Charge?
A few words about the battery. Despite the slot for the S Pen, it is 4000mAh. The bottom line is that I was always able to achieve a maximum screen-on time of four and a half hours before the smartphone had to be plugged in again in the evening. It is charged via the USB-C port, even with Quick Charge. Unfortunately, charging with Quick Charge always took at least two hours. When I used the Note while it was charging, it only charged to 50 percent in two hours. In my opinion, that really shouldn't be allowed.
In addition, with the Honor 8X, which is known to be much cheaper, I often manage a screen-on time of eight hours without any problems. Sure, the display has a lower resolution, but the battery in the Note is larger. In my opinion, this is also a pretty big disadvantage of the phone.
Software with some cool features
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 still runs Android 8.1 Oreo with the Experience UI. Android 9 Pie with the One UI should then come in January 2019. A big plus point with the software: The security patch is the one for November, so it's brand new. The one for the current month will certainly not be long in coming.
Overall, I think the Experience UI is very nice. It is definitely the best interface Samsung has ever developed to date. But it is not perfect. For example, some bloatware was preinstalled. I also noticed that the settings were getting quite cluttered.
There are things like the edge panels for that. These are small palettes consisting of a wide variety of shortcuts that can be called up by swiping the edge into the display. There are even more Edge panels to download from the Samsung Store. I also found the app pairs pretty useful. An app pair always consists of two apps that start in split-screen mode when you call it up. I also thought it was great that you can change the font.
S Pen
The unique selling point of the Note devices: The S Pen. In my case, it has the color of the device itself and resides in a small slot on the underside of the smartphone. It can be used in two ways: with or without bluetooth. To enable the latter, the pen becomes a battery that is charged in the storage slot. Then it is also possible to use it as a remote shutter release for photos, which can be quite useful. The S Pen can also be used for media control, which I found a little pointless.
Of course, there are also some software features for the pen. Here two stood out during my use, including the first screen-off memo. If you pull the pen out of the device and it is locked, a writing surface opens for quick notes. These are then stored in the Notes app. Then I liked the feature called Live Message. Here you can write or draw a message on a small area with various effects, which the software then animates and saves as a GIF for sending.
camera
Samsung installed two cameras in the Galaxy Note 9. Both have a resolution of 12 megapixels, but a different aperture. One lens is a telephoto lens with f / 2.4 and the other lens is a wide-angle lens that can switch between f / 1.5 and f / 2.4. The front camera has a resolution of 8MP.
For the most part, I liked the photos that the device spit out very much. Especially with pictures that were taken in good light, you can hardly see a mistake. The same applies to the images from the selfie camera. Even if the surroundings are a little darker, a lot of details can still be seen. In low light, however, there is noise in the images.
- Picture: TechnikNews
- Picture: TechnikNews
- Picture: TechnikNews
- Picture: TechnikNews
- Picture: TechnikNews
Of course, there is also a portrait mode on the Note 9. The pictures taken with this mode also convinced me. The corners of the subjects are hardly washed out and the blurring effect can even be readjusted afterwards. Pretty handy if you don't find the right strength right away.
The device can record videos in up to 4K up to 60 frames pro second or in 720p with 960 frames pro record second. The latter mode is used for videos in slow motion. Here I noticed that the colors are quite yellow. The 4K recordings all looked great.
The AR emojis, which are very similar to the animojis from Apple, are a nice gimmick, but I hardly used them. In addition, this figure looks very unlike me.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is the best Note and the best smartphone that Samsung has ever made. But I have a problem with it. It doesn't really offer many things that I couldn't get from another, usually even cheaper, smartphone. For example, the battery life is a lot worse than that of the OnePlus 6T or my Honor 8X. In addition, the everyday performance in particular is only on the same level as that of my Honor 8X. And that's a shame, because the Note 9 costs a lot more money. But the display and the speakers with Dolby Atmos are breathtaking. Samsung fans will definitely have a lot of fun with the Galaxy Note 9. Everyone else is better off with a OnePlus 6T or a similar device.
Prices and availability
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is available from Samsung in the colors and configurations specified above at a starting price of 799 euros. The most expensive configuration with 512 gigabytes of memory and eight gigabytes of RAM costs 999 euros. Of course, the Note 9 is also available from retailers such as MediaMarkt, Saturn or Amazon.
We would like to thank Samsung for providing the test device.
The pictures look more pixelated and noisy than good ... or is that compressed for your page?
What the?! The Honor 8X is much slower than the Note 9! In addition, you cannot use the OnePlus 6T with 1TB of storage!
That's not true. The two models are both at eye level. Just not with the price.
Who needs 1TB of storage on their cell phone ?!
It goes without saying that the Honor 8X is slower when it comes to more complex things. But only a little slower. And in everyday life you won't notice any difference in operation.
Regards
David from TechnikNews
Is this device also up for grabs? LG Andi
why should they give this away? where is that 😀
Hi Robi,
Andi probably wanted to know if we were giving it away at one of our Advent competitions. That is not the case, but we have other great things in store - again on Sunday.
Regards
David Haydl from TechnikNews
Hi Andi, unfortunately we are not giving away the grade 9 this year, but it is guaranteed to be exciting in the coming weeks here at our Advent competition, so check back often! 🙂