Bigger, Badder, But I Still Want More. Forgive me for passing up the chance to beat the exploding battery joke into the ground. Let’s get straight to the point: Samsung’s once dominant flagship phablet is back after a two year hiatus.

LATEST HEADLINES. 6 Women, Including Olivia Munn, Accuse Brett Ratner of Harassment or Misconduct 2 hours ago; The Weinstein Company Pulls Horror Movie ‘Polaroid. The Highlights. Netflix is surfing a wave of nostalgia come August 1, with classics (well, for some of us) like Innerspace and The Addams Family. You can also. Latest trending topics being covered on ZDNet including Reviews, Tech Industry, Security, Hardware, Apple, and Windows.

Sporting a stunning extra- widescreen 1. Galaxy Note 8 is bigger and more engaging than ever before, and it packs a larger power pack than any Note besides the ill- fated Galaxy Note 7 too. But a lot has changed since 2. Note 8 is now more expensive than ever. That means there are two questions it needs to answer: Does the Galaxy Note 8 still make sense in 2.

What is it? A giant phone with a built- in stylus. Like. It's about time Samsung joined the dual camera game. At first glance, the answer might be no. The Note 8’s 6. 3- inch 2. AMOLED display is insignificantly larger than the 6. S8 Plus (though that bezel- less design remains strikingly pretty), and its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8. GB of storage and built- in micro.

• October 2006 In the Q & A period after a recent talk, someone asked what made startups fail. After standing there gaping for a few seconds I realized this was kind of.
• The company currently has $208,748 on hand, according to the filing, up from about $120,000 earlier this year. Elio has remained hopeful that it could launch.

GamesRadar+ takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love.

SD card reader aren’t any different either. Aside from slightly boxier corners, the Note 8’s luscious glass and aluminum body is pretty much the same too. You even get the same annoying Bixby Button below the volume rocker, which still can’t be remapped to something useful.

The one small improvement is that Samsung has upped the Note 8's RAM from 4. GB to 6. GB, which is nice nod to the Galaxy Note’s traditional fan base of power users. However, on a day- to- day basis, it’s an improvement that isn’t always that noticeable (despite benchmarks that put the Note 8 a tiny bit ahead of its smaller siblings). That means the decision really hedges on Samsung’s signature S Pen stylus and the company’s first- ever dual camera module. Now I’ll be the first person to say that after years of improvements to mobile operating systems, we’ve gotten to a point where UIs are properly designed for touch- based navigation. Across both i. OS and Android, there’s never a time when you’re screaming out for a mouse or something more precise. Which, for me, softens the allure of a stylus.

But after over a week using the Note 8, the S Pen is starting to win me over. There’s just so much you can do, whether it’s jotting down notes without even unlocking the phone, or using the new full sentence translation feature to make up for my shoddy Mandarin reading comprehension. But strangely, the best part about the S Pen is the multiple methods it has for goofing off by making your own homegrown gifs. Option one is to whip out the S Pen, hit Smart Select and put a rectangle over any video you can see on the screen.

Boom. gif made. Option two, the Live Messages feature, is new for 2. Live Messages lets you make animated drawings on a background color of your choosing or even on top of pictures you’ve taken. It’s a virtual meme- making machine, and a joyful addition to a phone that’s so often seen in the hands of no- fun allowed corporate execs.

But that’s still only answering half the question of why you should get a Note 8 over the cheaper S8. The other part of the equation are Samsung’s new dual rear cams, which pairs the S8 and S8 Plus’ camera with a second 1. It’s a camera set up we’ve already seen in last year’s i. Phone 7 Plus. The little special sauce Samsung adds to the mix is the presence of optical image stabilization on both cameras.

This is a welcome improvement, because as things get farther away, camera shake tends to becomes a much bigger nuisance. Unfortunately, even with this new addition, the Note 8’s camera performance isn’t flawless. The first issue is that like on the i.

Phone 7 Plus, you don’t actually have full control over which lens you’re using. Sometimes in low- light environments, hitting the 2x button to zoom results in digital enhancement instead of optical. That means you are just cropping in and getting a lower resolution final image, instead of using the lens with double the focal length. At least it’s not a problem unique to the Note 8. Sometimes when the Note 8 opted for digital zoom instead of optical, the i.

Phone didn’t. While other times, the situation was reversed. And the really frustrating part is that neither phone offers an override for when you might know better than the silicon nanny holding your hand. Watch Taking Chance Online Etonline.

Yet even in ideal conditions, the Note 8 didn’t always nail it. Take, for example, photos I got when I tried to snap a picture of New York’s favorite large adult son at a recent Yankee’s game. At first I was absolutely thrilled that the Note 8’s zoom let me get up close and personal like not many phone cameras can. But when looking at pics side- by- side from the Note 8 and the i. Phone 7 Plus, things were close, but the i. Phone’s pic was sharper and less blown out.

But when you put a little effort in, the Note 8 can still absolutely dazzle. I was blown away by a shot I took of the nighttime New York skyline with Samsung’s new camera module.

I’ve taken this exact shot with a budget DSLR and not gotten something this good. Not only did it let me get everything out of that zoom lens, its photo is sharper, less noisy, and way more colorful than the best I could get from the i. Phone 7 Plus. On top of all that, Samsung has a new live focus mode that lets you adjust depth of field similar to how you might on a big DSLR or mirrorless camera. That lets you choose between backgrounds with the creamy blurriness portrait shooters love, or sharpness all the way from front to back depending on what you’re going for.

And you still get the super saturated colors and razor sharp focus that Samsung’s cameras have become known for. Camera and stylus aside, there are a few other little Samsung surprises like the new app pair feature, which lets you create combos that launch two apps in multi- window mode with a single touch—perfect for anyone who’s ever wanted to find an address from an email or text while keeping an eye on the map. And despite a battery that’s actually smaller in capacity than the one in the S8 Plus (3,3. Ah versus 3,5. 00 m. Ah), the Note 8’s time of 1. S8 Plus’s 1. 0: 4.

With stuff like this, the Galaxy Note 8 is starting to make a pretty good case, but I’m still not sure. The Galaxy Note 8 is supposed to be a phone of excess. It’s supposed to have all the most outrageous tech while simultaneously pushing boundaries that other companies wouldn’t dream about touching. Yet its screen is only marginally bigger than the S8 Plus’ and it doesn’t look that much different either. And even though I like many of the S Pen’s new features like Live Messages and full sentence translation, they really aren’t much more than a collection of handy software tricks. Samsung’s new dual camera module isn’t even a clear- cut winner against last year’s i. Phone 7 Plus, not to mention whatever new handsets Apple is planning on announcing next week.

So despite sporting best- in- class components from its screen to its stylus, Samsung’s phablet still seems a bit tame. The only thing about the Note 8 that’s really excessive these days is its price.

Now, I’m not saying people shouldn’t get one, that would be ridiculous! I just mean that you really need to find a deal if you want to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth. Carriers are already hocking buy one get one promos that would make getting two Note 8’s feel like stealing. Samsung is even offering its own pre- order bonuses with your choice of either a Gear 3. GB micro. SD card and a wireless charger. But shelling out a full $9.