Yesterday Samsung debuted its latest flagship phone to the world in the form of the Galaxy Note 9.
The South Korean manufacturer has billed this new device as the most advanced smartphone in the world, but how does it compare to its predecessor?
Looking at the specifications then, how does the Galaxy Note 9 stack up against the Galaxy Note 8?
Display
Let’s start up front with the display. For the new device Samsung has increased the amount of real estate with the Note 9’s screen housed in a slightly shorter and wider body to that of the Note 8.
At 6.4″ the new flagship is one inch larger than its predecessor, but both feature the same 2 960 X 1 440 resolution. The older phone does have a higher pixel density at 521ppi, but the 516ppi of the Note 9 should prove more than good enough.
In terms of the display, it seems like the differences between the two are margin and don’t really warrant an upgrade alone.
Cameras
How about the cameras? On the rear the Note 9 is utilising the same dual aperture system employed by the Galaxy S9, which is one of the best smartphone cameras on the market at the moment.
Samsung has not left it at that though, adding a bit more intelligence in the form of scene detection that will adjust the camera setting based on what is being captured.
It’s not a huge improvement when placed next to the Note 8’s dual 12MP camera system, but the intelligent functionality could come in handy for less seasoned mobile photographers.
Processor
Now for the processor, and this too is lifted from the Galaxy S9.
For South Africa, the octa-core Exynos 9810 chipset is doing the heavy lifting. This comprises of a quad-core 2.7GHz Mongoose M3 and quad-core 1.8GHz Cortex-A55 setup, which should keep things ticking over very nicely indeed.
We’ll know how the two Notes’ processors compare with a proper benchmark, but seeing as every new Exynos chipset is slightly more powerful than the previous one, the Note 9 likely has the edge here.
Memory
In terms of RAM, the Note 9 and Note 8 are pretty much on par, each serving up a 6GB model.
The big difference though is the onboard storage options for the Note 9, giving it an edge.
It comes in two sizes, 128GB and 512GB, with the latter set to arrive in South Africa in the next couple of months. The other significant talking point is the Note 9’s microSD slot, which can house up to 512GB of extra space. If you pick up the higher capacity model and Samsung’s new 512GB card when it launches, you’re looking at a full terabyte of storage on your phone.
As such the Note 9 is definitely packing more when it comes to memory.
Battery
The other aspect where things have been beefed up on the battery.
The Note 8 was fairly sizeable at 3 300mAh, but the Note 9 bumps things up to 4 000mAh.
Samsung is touting an “all day” battery life for the latter, but has not given a recommended amount of hours that users can expect from normal use.
We’re also quite keen to see how the new battery size effects fast charging, with the battery of the Note 7 resulting in a fairly large fiasco.
If things go smoothly in this regard, the Note 9’s claims of increased battery life could prove a major selling point.
Price
Seeing as we’ve moved on 12 months and the current rand-dollar exchange is not great, the Note 9 is more expensive than its predecessor.
The base 128GB model is up for pre-order at R18 999, with the 64GB version of the Note 8 costing around R16 499 when it first went on sale.
Obviously the Note 9 is more expensive as it features more onboard storage, but whether consumers will be willing to part with R19k remains to be seen.
Also interesting to see is how much the 512GB version of the Note 9 will sell for, with a R20k-plus price more than likely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjaL94yEJME&t=3s
