Samsung Galaxy Note 9 officially announced

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is now official, with a feature rich redesigned S Pen, thinner bezels, expandable microSD storage, a headphone jack and no notch. Hardware features include generous 4000mAh battery, up to 512GB of internal storage and powered by the latest Snapdragon 845 processor with up to 8GB of RAM. There is very little this powerhouse cannot do.

DESIGN

Samsung has built the Note 9 on its familiar Galaxy design, the glass metal construction with sleek curves that fit comfortably in your hand. The handset is offered in four different colors ocean blue, lavender purple, metallic copper, and midnight black. Each color comes with an S Pen which contrasts its color, hoping to add a new layer of style to Samsung's latest flagship.

S Pen

The updated S Pen now comes with wireless functionality through Bluetooth connectivity. This allows you to use the S Pen to be used to control your media like pausing or skipping an audio track.

Charging your device for around 40 seconds will give your S Pen 30 minutes of battery life, so its unlikely you will have to worry about the S Pen battery running low.

HARDWARE

The version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 marketed in the United States will be powered by Qualcomm's 10nm Snapdragon 845 chipset. Global variants of the flagship will use a similarly powerful 10nm chip from Exynos.

Samsung claims that this setup will offer a big improvement in CPU and GPU performance over the Galaxy Note 8. In order to allow users to take maximum advantage of the power, Samsung has even added in an innovative water-cooling solution, which allows you to play the most graphics intensive games without your device heating up.

The base model of the Note 9 comes with 128GB of internal storage, but customers can select a massive 512GB model if they wish so. While this may feel like overkill on a new device, users who record several 4k videos and capture multiple photos will eventually appreciate the extra storage. Additionally, the handset supports up to 512GB of microSD if you need even more.

Camera

The Galaxy Note 9 features a dual 12-megapixel rear camera setup. Samsung has opted for a horizontal arrangement for its cameras compared to the Galaxy S9+ vertical arrangement. Both cameras feature optical image stabilization. The main camera has an f/2.4 variable aperture, which increases to f/1.5 in low light for enhanced photos in the dark. The secondary rear camera is a telephoto lens, with 2x zoom (52mm lens on the tele cam and 26mm lens on the wide one).

Samsung also has a new feature called the 'Scene Optimized' mode, which uses AI to automatically recognize up to 20 different scenarios to make your final image look perfect.

The front camera has an 8MP sensor, which should be ideal for video calls and rich selfies.


RELEASE AND AVAILABILITY

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 can be pre-ordered starting Friday, August 10th and will be available on August 24th. Customers in the United States will be able to pick it up from all major retailers and carriers, or unlocked on Samsung.


The base model with 128GB of storage an 6GB of RAM is priced at $1000 in the United States, while the 512GB model with 8GB of RAM will cost $1250.