A Rooting/Modding Enthusiast's review on the Note 9 (N960F/DS)

[Mnky313]

Disclaimer: This is from the pov of me, someone who could care less about what most people look for in a smartphone (battery life, cameras, screen-to-body ratios, speakers, and probably more), I will still try and touch on these but don't expect me to talk much about them.

I am going to structure this review as more of a list than a traditional review, if you are interested in an overall conclusion it's hopefully at the bottom if I remember to put it there...

Performance: I don't really do anything performance intensive on my phone (like gaming) so that was one of the reasons I didn't mind going with the Exynos based Note9.  That being said it has been super quick and snappy, if you lower animation scale everything is super quick to open and switching between tasks has virtually no lag.
Rating: 8/10 - it ain't an SD855 plus but for most people it's plenty and should be fast enough for a long time.

Screen: It's awesome.  High resolution, bright, vibrant OLED display.  Best of all it doesn't some stupid f***ing bite taken out of it. Watching YouTube on the Note9 is awesome.
Rating: 10/10 - it's probably not the "Best smartphone screen ever" or whatever but it's awesome.

Battery: It's big and it lasts a long time, idk what else you want me to say, while playing with it for ~90 minutes of screen on time (at about 65% brightness) it only dropped to 87%.
Rating: 9/10 - I'm sure there's bigger, better batteries but I'm also sure it could easily last a day for almost anyone.

Size/Build: It's a big phone, like a really big phone so If you're coming from a non-plus Iphone or something like a non-plus galaxy s series there is quite the difference, that being said there is a one-handed mode and it (at least for me) isn't unwieldy or anything (unless you need to tap something in the top left with one hand, that's kind of an issue).  Build quality and feel is awesome, feels sturdy and not like it's gonna fall apart or anything, that being said it is also quite heavy so I would hope it's solid.  The S-pen doesn't feel as quality as the phone, it's all plastic and honestly feels like it could snap in half with little force, but it is nice to write with.
Rating: 8/10 - great feel, but large and pen feel could be better

Camera: I haven't used the camera much at all so look at another review for detailed information on the image quality, that being said the 2x optical zoom is cool and 960fps slow mo looks awesome.
Rating: 6.66/10 - It's got the zoom and standard lens, just needs a wide angle.

Now we are getting into the smaller features category, things that don't need their own paragraph or ratings, just nice-to-haves

Headphone Jack: It's there, it isn't anything special but hey, at least it exists *glares at Note 10 angrily*. I personally like it better on the top, it makes the phone  easier to hold when charging and listening to music.
SD Card Slot: Awesome to have (even though the BASE model is 128GB and even with my 70GB music library I still have plenty of space...
Bio-metric Authentication: The fingerprint sensor is lightning fast and easy enough to reach, I don't mind it on the back but in-screen ones are the future. Iris scanning was absolutely awful in my testing, took 3 tries to register and once it did you basically have to stare straight at your phone at just the right distance or it doesn't work, useful if you have it in a car maybe? or a desk dock? easier for me just to pick it up and unlock it with my finger.
Speaker(s): Honestly haven't tested it, again if you want information on this go find a better review... That being said Stereo speakers using the earpiece is cool.
S-Pen: Super cool, that being said you probably won't use it that much but having it as an option is still nice, the remote features are useful and there are a LOT of different things it can do now with the Note9. Writes very nice and feels natural to write with (in landscape mode, portrait mode makes you kind of lean your hand over the edge but it's still usable)
Bixby: why tho? I mean routines are cool but that's about it... (at least you can remap the button with root+ button mapper)

Now comes the part that talks about the more technical side and rooting/other stuff

If you are interested in rooting make sure you get a model that actually can be rooted/bootloader unlocked, these are:
All Exynos versions (N960N, N960F, N960FD, N960F/DS, there are probably more I forgot)
The China Snapdragon variant (N9600)

There are some annoyances even with these versions:

In order to unlock your bootloader you need to factory reset, this isn't a big issue as you're most likely doing this right after you get the phone anyway but it leads into the second annoyance.
There is a 7 DAY PERIOD where you can't flash custom binaries EVEN AFTER you enable OEM Unlock.  There are workaround (I did manage to bypass it), just search 'Note 9 KG State: Prenormal fix' but it's still annoying that it exists.

After you get the bootloader unlocked it's simple to flash TWRP, ROMs and get root.  The Galaxy Project is working great for me.

Overall Conclusion
 

It's an awesome phone, the Exynos ones are great for people who want/need root, highly recommend it.  The successor is frankly a shame and is not a worth upgrade. As Linus said it's kind of a catch all phone, doesn't have the best anything (except maybe screen) but it has everything and that's the key.  I can not find another comparable phone on the market that has even most of the features of the Note9.

This will probably be updated later but it's long enough and I have only used the phone for ~48 hours.