Small Hands Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,567 words · ~7 min read
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samsung's galaxy note 7 was such an incredible step forward for Android
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phone design as a whole that i like many people
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couldn't help but get wrapped up in a whirlwind romance
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but like the bad girl who lights your world on fire
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then lights your house on fire our relationship was over as fast as it
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began so is the note 8
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a note 7 with the arsonist tendencies
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removed and is that even enough a year
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later let's find out
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i buy power and MSI's new lineup of gaming laptops feature Intel 7th
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generation core i7 processors check them out at the link below the most
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immediately obvious feature of the note 8 is the same nearly bezel-less design
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and 18 and a half by nine aspect ratio OLED screen is the galaxy s8 but
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bigger indeed at 6.3 inches this is the
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biggest screen they've ever crammed into a note device and i want to get this out
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of the way very early in the video whether you prefer the default more
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vivid color profile or the more true to the original content developer mode srgb
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tweaked one content consumption on this device is an
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unbelievable experience if you love scrolling vertically then whether
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it's photos or text you'll be seeing more of it and bigger than ever before
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and i'm not sure if they planned it this way
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but the perfect black levels of the OLED screen makes 21x9 content appear as
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though it has a perfectly even frame around it that's super small it's less
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like watching a movie on your phone and more like holding a movie in your hand
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unfortunately you'll also be holding the audio in your hand
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even apple has finally implemented earpiece assisted stereo sound so what's
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the excuse samsung is this just a courageous move to assume
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that most users who give a crap about sound are using bluetooth or headphones
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at this point that's possible but it still really
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detracts from what could be what i would describe as the near
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perfect mobile movie watching experience
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let's talk about handling i praised the note 7's hold ability with my
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fun-sized hands and some of the same ergonomic tweaks
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return here notably the two-sided curved glass and
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very similar 75 millimeter width with
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nice flat sides that give you a little bit more edge to hold on to
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but the taller screen comes at a cost here
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the note 8 weighs so much more than its predecessor that even though i haven't
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held one of those in months it was obvious to me the first time i touched
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it and it hurts accessibility of both
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top of the screen ui elements like the compose button in samsung's sms app and
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the rear-facing fingerprint sensor from a natural holding position which is
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another disappointment every note device has had something
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noteworthy about it that has set it apart from the s line
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a balls to the wall CPU epic expandability something
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with the note 7 it was the iris scanner which is back and it's pretty handy when
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i'm not outside and it works but what i was really hoping for was the
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rumored under screen fingerprint sensor to bring that back to the front of the
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device and instead of that i got
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i don't know what did i get well compared to the s8 plus it's the
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same 10 nanometer CPU same GPU uh we got
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six gigs of RAM versus four on the micro sd expandable 64 gig storage version and
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i guess we got a dual camera system so it better be a pretty amazing camera
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then right well i'm not going to complain because
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the s8 and iphone 7 are already as good as i feel is reasonable to ask of a cell
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phone at this point anything else is icing and to be clear
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it's better samsung's color science still isn't as
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true to life as apple's but in a way that will probably appeal to lots of
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mainstream folks and i definitely appreciate the easy configuration and
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advanced control options available in their app finally as a daily samsung user their
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lightning fast double tap camera launch continues to allow me to capture
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precious moments with my kids and pets that i would otherwise miss
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it's just that i'm not an artistic photo
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taker meaning that their post-processing blur effect
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on top of looking unnatural next to true bokeh
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doesn't do much for me i super appreciate the 2x optical zoom and the
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optical image stabilization on both of the 12 megapixel rear cameras
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but overall a dual camera system wasn't enough to sell me on the iphone 7 plus
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so it's not enough here and in samsung's case the photos from the zoom camera are
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significantly softer than the wide so a fair bit of the difference can often be
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made up with digital zoom anyway okay then what about the style
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excuse me uh s pen well what to say about that it's cool
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you can highlight text for translation uh sketch or jot down difficult to input
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things like math formulas more accurately and with less latency than
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ever before and they've added a whack of cool features for it including notably
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the ability to jot down up to a hundred pages of memos
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without ever turning your screen on thanks to the always-on OLED display
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i just personally find that not all
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but much of what it does can be easily accomplished with my fingers in the time
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that it takes to remove the s pen from its holster adjust my grip and start
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using it it's certainly not something that i
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would personally give up 200 milliamp hours of battery life for it if given
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the choice which is a drag because getting back to
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our s8 plus versus note comparison that is one difference along with price
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that favors the s8 plus battery life on
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the phone that can do it all is just not
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that impressive something samsung seems to be aware of given that it ships with
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a battery saving resolution downscaling tweak enabled by default
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raising the question of why they bother putting a
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2960x1440 screen on it in the first place and speaking of things i wish they
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hadn't included a non-reprogrammable dedicated button for
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their digital assistant bixby let's say for a minute that i love bixby
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let's say i was blown away by the way that you can basically execute macros on
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your phone i would still understand the point of view of people who think that a
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computer vision based shopping feature that can't recognize a bloody iphone
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doesn't need a dedicated button and i would still lobby samsung to look past
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their own arrogance to the demands of their customers a significant percentage
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of which have gone out of their way to download some janky third-party app in
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order to be able to remap the thing
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so then nutshell time i still mostly like the tweaks in the
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latest iteration of touchwiz screenshot and clipboard management is epic and
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samsung's keyboard prediction is actually better than ever
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but especially at this price i can't help but notice that samsung played it
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really safe this time no squeeze input
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no dolby atmos no built-in sundial no quantum leap forward
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in industrial design the note 8 is not
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bad it's arguably the most versatile phone
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on the market it does everything
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it just feels like for some reason when samsung removed the fire from the note 7
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the spark of our love went out too
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one thing i probably should have mentioned in the main video is how freaking slippery the back of the note 8
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is without a sexy dbrand skin it's just
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something that didn't really occur to me until i was shooting this dbrand
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integration after the fact with dbrand you can not only protect your device
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from incidental scuffs and scratches but you can make it look better and hold
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better too i personally recommend their dragon skin but they've also got a wide
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variety of different vibrant colors and textures that are all authentic 3m vinyl
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the best part of dbrand's site is that it takes out the guesswork you just go
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through their configurator pick out the skins that you like they ship it to you
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affordably worldwide not to mention extremely quickly and the whole
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installation process just takes a few minutes so go check them out at the link
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in the video description and skin up your device today
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or like in a couple days when it arrives
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so thanks for watching guys if this video sucks you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to
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where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is
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our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum
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which you should totally join