Went to a Samsung store yesterday. Tested the Samsung Note 8 for over 2 hours and was grilling the sales people there about what it can do and showing me how to do things, in the process.
Two words: Mind Blown.
This device is so feature packed it's not even funny. I had a Note 3 for 6 weeks, 4 years ago, and sold it to a friend because of too many issues. None of these issues were evident in the Note 8. This device is absolutely mint. It is the closest smartphone you will find to a personal computer and it fits right in your pocket.
Looks and feels very premium, unlike my old Note 3 which came with a removable plastic back.
Easy to hold in one hand.
The camera is ridiculously good.
My favourite feature, the screen, a Samsung employee showed me a video in landscape, holy crap it looked 3D, as if you were there seeing it for real, cinematic effect he called it.
The multitasking, unreal.
The calculator has a built in currency converter.
The customisation, it is insane what you can do when compared to ios.
The floating windows.
The S-Pen, you can literally use it as a mouse.
The local filing system, the Samsung guy used the pen to create an MS spreadsheet and saved it direct to his Note, can do the same with MSW and MSPP.
The camera has a floating button for goodness sakes lol, where you can position the camera button anywhere you want on the screen, for more convenience.
And so much, much, much more.
It was buttery smooth, and like an iphone, it just worked.
Then I went up the escalator to the Apple store to try out the iPhone 8 Plus. After a minute I was like blah. Then I tried the 10.5 inch iPad Pro, after 2 minutes I was like blah. I used the Apple Pencil to draw and that was cool, but I was doing the same thing on the Note 8. Sure the ipad has a bigger screen but I'm not into drawing so the ipad didn't blow any wind up my skirt.
I was with my cousin who has also been an iphone user for 8 years, and she said "I am damaged now". In other words, after playing with the Note 8, she can't look at another iphone.
For those of you who like me have been iphone users for the longest time and are not excited by the X or the 8, or if you are intrigued by the Note 8, do yourself a favour and test it out in the store.
As for me, after everything I said above, I have decided not to get the Note 8. But I'm not getting the X or iPhone 8 either. Instead, I am going to hold onto my iphone 6 Plus until next year, and then I'm getting the Note 9. The 2 things that scared me away from the Note 8 in the end were the touch ID button being at the back and only 64 gigs of local storage. It does have expandable storage but you cannot store apps on an SD card. With a screen like that and with 6 gigs of ram, I fully intend to take advantage of app intensive games and apps, but they take up a lot of room. So I prefer more local storage.
The guy in the store said Samsung is working on a bendable/flexible screen for the Note 9. I don't know how that will work, especially with the glass back, but knowing how quickly Samsung moves, I anticipate that the Note 9 will come with touch ID under the display and more local storage. And if it turns out that neither happens, the Note 9 will still be significantly better than the Note 8 anyway so I intend to go with it.
The only thing that will stop me getting the Note 9 is if the 2018 iphone iteration also comes with features that blow me away. But I'm not holding my breath. I expect the 2018 X iteration will come in a Plus model which will be the killer feature for 2018 (wow), a better chip and camera, more anamojis, and a couple of other features which will be totally useless (ala 3D touch) in the whole scheme of things. Thanks but no thanks.
Bring on the Note 9.
like it's 2017 and that is what makes something matter now, not it's functionality or convenience, it's if a magazine covers it. How pathetic.
