samsung [Updated] Samsung Galaxy Note8 launched, priced $930 unlocked in the US

[Drak3]

Just now, Trixanity said:

Well, their Samsung Experience/Grace UX is pretty much still Touchwiz with an updated UI.

What I said, with different wording.

 

1 minute ago, Trixanity said:

As far as I know it's still pretty much Touchwiz under the hood (lipstick on a pig essentially) with all the spaghetti programming, shoddy practices and performance bottlenecks that entails

Touchwiz hasn't actually been bad i  quite a long time. Most issues stem from bloatware like Facebook and Uber, as well as animation scaling making things seem sluggish.

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, mynameisjuan said:

My S8+ and even S8's can easily can get that. 

 

People need to realize how little impact AMOLED screens affect battery life.

I prefer more true to life colors of IPS LCD than the oversaturated colors of AMOLED. AMOLED's oversaturated color gamut is good for masking crappy photos to fool anyone who looks at it to make it look good even if the photo is not. Also, AMOLED displays are prone to screen burn in and as time goes by, whites becomes yellow hence, shorter lifespan than IPS LCD. 

 

But then, the last Samsung phone I've owned is a Note 2 so I don't know if Samsung fixed those issues. 

[shermantanker]

3 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I prefer more true to life colors of IPS LCD than the oversaturated colors of AMOLED. AMOLED's oversaturated color gamut is good for masking crappy photos to fool anyone who looks at it to make it look good even if the photo is not. Also, AMOLED displays are prone to screen burn in and as time goes by, whites becomes yellow hence, shorter lifespan than IPS LCD. 

 

But then, the last Samsung phone I've owned is a Note 2 so I don't know if Samsung fixed those issues. 

I wonder if Apple will go with a more color accurate display with the OLED on the 8. They have always prided themselves with accurate IPS panels, but don't know if they will keep that up with the new OLED display.

[Trixanity]

Just now, mynameisjuan said:

Thats not what I am talking about. I love the interface, I already said that. The problem is there is no standards for what protocols it supports...is its USB3.0, 2.0, does it support displays, does it support thunderbolt...etc...Thats what I hate type-c other than the connector.

That's what I was saying. You're complaining about the OEMs not specifying how they wired their USB port. The bandwidth and supported protocols depend on it. Right now it's pretty much "expect USB 2.0 and be happy if it supports more". It's up the OEM to make it support 5/10 gigabit speeds and displays. The USB-C standard is very flexible in that regard but also very optional.

 

2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

What I said, with different wording.

 

Touchwiz hasn't actually been bad i  quite a long time. Most issues stem from bloatware like Facebook and Uber, as well as animation scaling making things seem sluggish.

Every enthusiast, developer and critical reviewer still note (heh) horrible UI performance and shoddy programming practices. Been a while but I seem to recall an example of the lock screen running deprecated code that it no longer uses but it ends up causing lag because it has to run it anyway. Why? Because no one has cleaned up the code.

 

3 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I prefer more true to life colors of IPS LCD than the oversaturated colors of AMOLED. AMOLED's oversaturated color gamut is good for masking crappy photos to fool anyone who looks at it to make it look good even if the photo is not. Also, AMOLED displays are prone to screen burn in and as time goes by, whites becomes yellow hence, shorter lifespan than IPS LCD. 

 

But then, the last Samsung phone I've owned is a Note 2 so I don't know if Samsung fixed those issues. 

AMOLED can display 'true to life' colors just as good or better than IPS. It depends on the OEM to calibrate the display. It's only a few clicks away on a Samsung phone (saturated colors by default though). The saturated colors (at least partially) stem from a wide gamut display calibrated with a wide gamut profile but the content is created for a much narrower gamut. It messes the colors up. Android Oreo is color gamut aware and provides APIs to select the right color space automatically instead of requiring the user to manually change profiles.

[Ryujin2003]

37 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Why did you doubt it having type-c? Every phone in the past 2 years has had it.

 

But you statement is the reason why I hate type-c so much. I love the interface but there is no standards behind what it supports. My S8+ transfer speeds are quite good but I never officially looked at what protocol it is.

Unless it comes with support for USB 3, then it doesn't matter USB C or any other interface to me. Marketing uses type C as a selling point, which is useless by itself. My only electronic device that uses a type c interface is my GoPro, so the sahpe, size and color of the connector is not a priority... Yet.

[DocSwag]

36 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I think @wcreek will beg to differ. T-Mobile coverage sucks in Minnesota as it turns out. 

For me coverage is totally fine. I only lose coverage when on trips sometimes and a fair amount of the time I have wifi anyways. Plus you get other nice bonuses like data just slows down when you go past limit instead of getting charged more, as well as stuff like binge on and free data outside the us with the only drawback being 2g speeds.

25 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Well in the Midwest. Right as I was getting into Iowa I lost service because I was too far away from the Twin Cities.

 

Now here are somethings to point out @DocSwag I was using a Moto G2 and Family Mobile from Walmart which uses the TMobile towers.

 

But if you look at their coverage map you'll see there's a lot more holes in it than there are in the Verizon coverage map. Sure you might be saving money but if their infrastructure outside more densely populated areas is crap then what's the point? The only time I lost coverage while I was going through the mountains in Montana and Idaho was largely right in the Gallatin National Forest/Montana's portion of the Yellowstone National Park.

I had coverage mostly through the eastern parts of Oregon and Washington and the entire state of Idaho seemingly because on the return we hooked up north to Spokane, WA from Walla Walla, WA which got us back on I-90 to get back out east for the same stop in North Dakota that we took on the way out. I-90 took us through Northern Idaho. And I had service for a large majority of the trip out and trip back. 

Also Montana is such a big state that it almost took a day to go from one end to the other. Minnesota from one end to the other probably wouldn't be as bad. (North to South would be not too fun but whatever)

As above, T-Mobile works fine for me. Preference I guess. For you it just doesn't work.

[mynameisjuan]

11 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I prefer more true to life colors of IPS LCD than the oversaturated colors of AMOLED. AMOLED's oversaturated color gamut is good for masking crappy photos to fool anyone who looks at it to make it look good even if the photo is not. Also, AMOLED displays are prone to screen burn in and as time goes by, whites becomes yellow hence, shorter lifespan than IPS LCD. 

 

But then, the last Samsung phone I've owned is a Note 2 so I don't know if Samsung fixed those issues. 

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/display-mate-galaxy-s8-screen/

 

“most innovative and high performance” the company has ever lab tested and was particularly impressed by the device’s color accuracy and a wider spectrum of colors. The analysts found that the S8’s display could reproduce 113 percent of DCI-P3 and 142 percent of sRGB / Rec.709 color gamuts. "

 

OLED is not over saturated which everyone jump to.

[LAwLz]

2 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

OLED is not over saturated which everyone jump to.

Yep

SAMOLED displays used to be saturated as fuck. Then Samsung came to their senses and tried to improve things with the Galaxy S 5 (which was pretty mediocre in terms of color accuracy), and with the Galaxy S 6 they started being close to perfect.

[Doobeedoo]

All around it seems an amazing phone. Yeah shame battery isn't larger capacity for such handset but oh well we'll see tests probably will be solid. 

Have S6 myself and not into Note series. But doubt next phone will be from Samsung since they will only make 'edge' phones and they're terrible. 

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

Every enthusiast, developer and critical reviewer still note (heh) horrible UI performance and shoddy programming practices. Been a while but I seem to recall an example of the lock screen running deprecated code that it no longer uses but it ends up causing lag because it has to run it anyway. Why? Because no one has cleaned up the code.

I haven't seen anything other than "slightly laggy" in a long time, and it's not been something that loses any recommendation.

It's also nothing that is tested that well by most of them. It feels slower, therefore must be slower.

But I've tested my S4 and Note 4 against similar phones, different versions of Android, and different ROMs. Always came down to animation scaling and bloatware that carriers installed.

Touchwiz was only as bad as people think in the beginning.

[Mr.Meerkat]

40 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Also screen size does not equal phone size.

Tell me about it, there was a specific reason I pointed to the LG G6 as it both has a semi-UW aspect ratio and a high screen to body ratio so...  

 

36 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

One word: pen.

Fair point, completely forgot about it although my mother has owned 4 or 5 notes...

[TidaLWaveZ]

You know when I'm right, I'm right. 

 

• T-Mobile is the cheapest place to pick up a Note 8, where the phone runs for $930. Alternatively, the carrier is offering the new device for a $210 down payment and $30 monthly installments with T-Mobile’s Equipment Installment Plan, or for $0 down and $39 a month for Jump on Demand customers.
• Verizon has the Note 8 for $960, or for $40 a month for 24 months.
• At AT&T, the Note 8 runs for $950, or $31.67 for 30 months on an AT&T Next installment plan.

 

[ttam]

2 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Ok... Great,it's got USB C..... But is the damn thing USB 3.0 capable? Because if not, type C interface is garbage. I miss my S5. Much faster transfer of photos.

....Isn't usb 2 twice as fast as usb 3.0?

[Nineshadow]

The problem I see with the Note lineup in general is that there's little reason for it to exist these days. Ever since Samsung introduced "Plus" variants of their flagship, the only real selling point that I see in the Note has been the stylus (and maybe minor spec bumps, but that's to be expected since it launches half a year after the S line).

 

The Note blew away the market when it was introduced because it introduced the notion of a phablet, a smartphone with a really big display. People realized they wanted bigger and bigger screen, and over the course of a few years that's how the entire smartphone market progressed. Samsung, however, were the first ones to push the idea forward with the Note, and they won a lot of costumers that way. But these days, almost all smartphones have large enough displays. The difference in size between the S Plus and the Note is pretty negligible. So what's the point, I ask? I've always considered the stylus a gimmick. The Note has some extra software functionality that, again, is mostly gimmicky. It's not vastly superior when it comes to productivity and multi-tasking. Battery life seems to have taken a toll this year. The Note 8 looks like a slightly refreshed Galaxy S8 with some gimmicks added in. This also makes it so Samsung releases 2 flagships a year, and I think that's the main advantage of this strategy.

[ttam]

4 minutes ago, Nineshadow said:

The problem I see with the Note lineup in general is that there's little reason for it to exist these days. Ever since Samsung introduced "Plus" variants of their flagship, the only real selling point that I see in the Note has been the stylus (and maybe minor spec bumps, but that's to be expected since it launches half a year after the S line).

 

The Note blew away the market when it was introduced because it introduced the notion of a phablet, a smartphone with a really big display. People realized they wanted bigger and bigger screen, and over the course of a few years that's how the entire smartphone market progressed. Samsung, however, were the first ones to push the idea forward with the Note, and they won a lot of costumers that way. But these days, almost all smartphones have large enough displays. The difference in size between the S Plus and the Note is pretty negligible. So what's the point, I ask? I've always considered the stylus a gimmick. The Note has some extra software functionality that, again, is mostly gimmicky. It's not vastly superior when it comes to productivity and multi-tasking. Battery life seems to have taken a toll this year. The Note 8 looks like a slightly refreshed Galaxy S8 with some gimmicks added in. This also makes it so Samsung releases 2 flagships a year, and I think that's the main advantage of this strategy.

That's the generic response to the Note line, "I don't have a use for the pen so therefore it's a gimmick phone and useless" but to people that use it in a professional setting like myself, the pen is amazing. It lets me write something down quickly that I can then view on any computer, it lets me get a signature for a P/O or invoice or I can let my nephew doodle. The Note 8 is a refreshed S8 and they aren't hiding that. The S8 is a GREAT phone as is, so why is there a problem with updating it a little and making it bigger? That's pretty much how technology works.

 

And just like everyone else, and like everything else... there are going to be people that like it, love it, hate it and don't want it.

[Nineshadow]

Just now, ttam said:

That's the generic response to the Note line, "I don't have a use for the pen so therefore it's a gimmick phone and useless" but to people that use it in a professional setting like myself, the pen is amazing. It lets me write something down quickly that I can then view on any computer, it lets me get a signature for a P/O or invoice or I can let my nephew doodle. The Note 8 is a refreshed S8 and they aren't hiding that. The S8 is a GREAT phone as is, so why is there a problem with updating it a little and making it bigger? That's pretty much how technology works.

 

And just like everyone else, and like everything else... there are going to be people that like it, love it, hate it and don't want it.

It's not a problem. I wish they could have done something a little bit more special.

[mynameisjuan]

18 minutes ago, Nineshadow said:

It's not a problem. I wish they could have done something a little bit more special.

like what? The S8 and Note 8 have basically every feature you can pack into them.

[handymanshandle]

1 hour ago, DocSwag said:

For me coverage is totally fine. I only lose coverage when on trips sometimes and a fair amount of the time I have wifi anyways. Plus you get other nice bonuses like data just slows down when you go past limit instead of getting charged more, as well as stuff like binge on and free data outside the us with the only drawback being 2g speeds.

As above, T-Mobile works fine for me. Preference I guess. For you it just doesn't work.

Well it seems that you're in California. A far densely populated area.

[handymanshandle]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Yep

SAMOLED displays used to be saturated as fuck. Then Samsung came to their senses and tried to improve things with the Galaxy S 5 (which was pretty mediocre in terms of color accuracy), and with the Galaxy S 6 they started being close to perfect.

The S8+ is perfection.

[DocSwag]

2 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Well it seems that you're in California. A far densely populated area.

That is correct . I live in the land of good weather and expensive houses.

[handymanshandle]

2 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

That is correct . I live in the land of good weather and expensive houses.

Probably why Tmo works better for you.

[NumLock21]

Review from anandtech

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11751/samsung-galaxy-note-8-hands-on

[Andy_Sendra]

-apple remove the headphone jack to waterproof the phone

-samsung waterproofs the note 8 with the headphone jack and the s pen

also apple has some serious competition 

[Techicolors]

i hafta say, i like the corner curves on the note 8 than the S8's corners. there's just enough curve on my S8 that it can cut off certain objects. 

[captain_to_fire]

3 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Review from anandtech

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11751/samsung-galaxy-note-8-hands-on

Why do people in North America have to get the Snapdragon 835 variant whereas the rest of the world has to get the Exynos 8895 variant?