I cancelled my Pre Order for the same reason, my S9+ is literally perfect, It runs so incredibly smooth with none of the Animation issues I've been reading about with the Note 9. The camera also works flawlessly on my S9, no focus issues whatsoever, i think i might hold out for the S10 though i'm sure the Note 9 issues will be sorted via software update.
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Samsung Galaxy Note 9
- Thread starter jamezr
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If you have the s9+ no point getting note 9.
I was contemplating whether I wanted to replace my s8+. In the end, cant resist the 512gb and bigger screen
I’m lusting for the 8GB version..There’s something about more RAM that’s a boner..even if I’d never really need it!
Flossy's real review
Eh. I like Floss but his phone reviews are all the same now.
Initial release:
"MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR GO"
"Price is too GOT-DAM high"
"No lag. Beautiful!"
Review of a the following year's Samsung device:
"No lag! Unlike last year's S/Note, which began lagging."
In fairness, most smartphone reviewers don't have much to say about any of these devices anymore. The top tier Android flagships all virtually do the same stuff with the same internals. iPhone is the iPhone. Nothing new under the sun.
he spent a long time ranting that the purple wasn't manly enough in that video. I still watched most of it but I was like "ok, move on about the colors"
Agree. I like watching reviews for entertainment value (I'm sad, I know) but like I said in an earlier post, until you get the phone in your own hands, you never really know what it's going to be like.
These reviewers only really get to use the phone for a few days, or in some cases 1-2 weeks. Then they head straight back to their daily driver or hop onto a new phone.
Pinch of salt required.
From my experience with Samsung phones whether or not you experience odd issues especially like lag, animation stutters, overheating and an ugly display are often luck of the draw. My husband had a Note 7 with a horrible murky display and mine had a beautiful display. I had a Galaxy S7 that was constantly overheating, but the one I got later in the year was and still is fabulous.
My S8+ and my husband's have pink stained displays and animation stutters and genuine app lags. Additionally mine suffers from bad static crackle on calls and really poor audio on video recording. But my friend loves hers and insists hers is flawless, because it is.
I don't think there's anything about the overall design and performance of the Note 9 that is problematic. I am just going to wait until they've had their production line running awhile longer and have had time to take in customer feedback and make any necessary fixes and adjustments. And maybe improve the consistency in quality of their output once the preorder pressure cooker period is past.
My S9+ actually had a display issue that made it undesirable for me to watch movies on it in a dark room. I only very recently got the patch to fix that issue and NOW I consider my S9+ "practically perfect". Ah...Samsung.
When I canceled my preorder I did have to provide a reason and I was very upfront and listed concerns over reported light bleed, lag, animation lag, and blurry photos. They really need to know by now exactly how to get these phones just right and get better consistency in quality as well as better customer service for Samsung Direct customers. They can't do that without feedback, which I do believe they listen to.
My S8+ and my husband's have pink stained displays and animation stutters and genuine app lags. Additionally mine suffers from bad static crackle on calls and really poor audio on video recording. But my friend loves hers and insists hers is flawless, because it is.
I don't think there's anything about the overall design and performance of the Note 9 that is problematic. I am just going to wait until they've had their production line running awhile longer and have had time to take in customer feedback and make any necessary fixes and adjustments. And maybe improve the consistency in quality of their output once the preorder pressure cooker period is past.
My S9+ actually had a display issue that made it undesirable for me to watch movies on it in a dark room. I only very recently got the patch to fix that issue and NOW I consider my S9+ "practically perfect". Ah...Samsung.
When I canceled my preorder I did have to provide a reason and I was very upfront and listed concerns over reported light bleed, lag, animation lag, and blurry photos. They really need to know by now exactly how to get these phones just right and get better consistency in quality as well as better customer service for Samsung Direct customers. They can't do that without feedback, which I do believe they listen to.
I watch reviews for precisely the same reason: I get to see the phone in action. Really don't care that much about their opinions. I respect some of them: MKBHD, Mr Mobile. Ericka Griffen, List @ Mobiletechreview immediately come to mind. They don't give boilerplate pass/fail to stuff, they tend to get into the nerd details we care about. Floss, however, just loves phones. All phones (except Essential. I don't think I've ever heard him crap so hard on a phone before).
So, yeah, these videos definitely scratch the itch before you get ahold of the device.
He raves about the Note line but then ditches them as soon as the minutely different S Series comes out 6 months later. Surely if you love the Note line then the S-Pen beats any tiny processor upgrades.
I get what you're saying.
That said, it's unusual for me to watch a review/opinion piece for more than an hour, and Flossy digs deep. His vids show more of what you can do on the phone rather than a 10 minute opinion piece.
Sure, his banter is informal and sure, he does dwell on the almost miscellaneous at times, but he digs deeper than most reviewers, and I appreciate that.
Case in point, being able to use a certain fingerprint to access the secure folder.
He shows it, only one other reviewer showed this and it was a video dedicated to the feature.
I look forward to Flossy's vids.
I put more weight on MKBHD's vids, I'll take what he says more seriously.
I was entertained, but I get your point.
Just finished setting up my note 9. . . I cannot believe how big it is compared to the iPhone X.
I like SuperSaf because I can HEAR how the audio sounds for the videos and I get a good idea of overall camera performance from his thorough videos. Too often reviewers will dub in music over the video samples so I can't tell how good the sound is going to be for my videos. That's important to me and for the longest time it was an aspect that had been left out of reviews until Saf started emphasizing it. I don't know if he was the first to do that but he is one of the best.
Anyway Saf and the newer reviewers who are emulating his style are a big help to me when I'm evaluating potential phone purchases.
There are some people I find really entertaining, but I don't really trust their opinions after checking their recommendations against actual user reviews. I appreciate that they show me interesting new products I might not have found on my own. But that's as far as it goes.
YouTube is a funny place. There's all kind of interesting things to be found. There are people on there who insist almost all famous celebrities are either reptilian humanoids or people who have undergone gender reassignment. If we were to apply their wonky criteria to analyzing myself, we might conclude I am alpaca.
Anyway Saf and the newer reviewers who are emulating his style are a big help to me when I'm evaluating potential phone purchases.
There are some people I find really entertaining, but I don't really trust their opinions after checking their recommendations against actual user reviews. I appreciate that they show me interesting new products I might not have found on my own. But that's as far as it goes.
YouTube is a funny place. There's all kind of interesting things to be found. There are people on there who insist almost all famous celebrities are either reptilian humanoids or people who have undergone gender reassignment. If we were to apply their wonky criteria to analyzing myself, we might conclude I am alpaca.
For someone who doesn't use Android, that review was a great insight into what I'm missing out on &/or don't need.
Flossy's very thorough & entertaining at the same time.
I think you may be getting too caught up with his catch phrases. His reviews have substance & are still very informative imo.
& it's not like he can go back & change his review from a year ago - if lag creeps in, then at least he mentions it in future reviews.
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One of the funniest partshe spent a long time ranting that the purple wasn't manly enough in that video. I still watched most of it but I was like "ok, move on about the colors"
"I was hurt".I LOVE Floss! And I watch his vids for the same reason. And I like that he’s still kinda old school: the phone, and a pair of hands using it. That’s all. The banter is fine, he’s funny and knows his stuff. My point was that when it comes to sammy phones, his take is identical. Right down to the throwaway comment in the following year’s sammy vid that the previous sammy did start lagging, while proclaiming how lag free the new one is.
But he says his S9+ is lag free, yet I'm sure you'll have someone complain their S9+ has lag. At this point in the game, lag is a complaint that you hear from all kinds of users. MKBHD stopped using his Pixel because of lag. And he was referring to real lag, and not these micro stutters that some like to call lag. He even bought a new Pixel because the lag was so bad, and it didn't help. But again, I'm sure you'll have many saying their Pixel is Pure Android, and it never lags. You have millions of people complaining their iPhone lags to the point they need to buy a new phone as well. Again, millions will say their iPhone is buttery smooth. Complaints of lag will always be around. One thing I know you're sure, the complaint of Samsung phones lagging more that the next OEM's phone, is old and no longer true.
I fundementally agree with everything you’re saying. My S9 Plus runs like a champion. And back when I had the S7 Edge, it ran great. Also, I’m a fan of Samsung Experience. My note 9 has been acting weird but I’m thinking I have a lemon.
My comment was aimed at Floss’s idiosyncrasies. It wasn’t meant to criticize Sammy. I agree with you, I think people reflexively crap on Sammy’s skin unfairly.
Adding to this, sometimes phones can have a dodgy couple of weeks....
When MKBHD complained about his Pixel 2 lagging, mine was absolutely fine and I couldn't understand the complaints. THEN, mine started lagging for a couple of weeks, really horribly!! But THENNNN, mine mysteriously fixed itself and now it's flying again.
TBH this forum and other users in comments sections gives me more genuinely useful information than most of the YouTube reviewers, but that's OK, I love you lot.
When MKBHD complained about his Pixel 2 lagging, mine was absolutely fine and I couldn't understand the complaints. THEN, mine started lagging for a couple of weeks, really horribly!! But THENNNN, mine mysteriously fixed itself and now it's flying again.
TBH this forum and other users in comments sections gives me more genuinely useful information than most of the YouTube reviewers, but that's OK, I love you lot.
These are my thoughts on the Note9 as it pertains to my use case.
Design: The phone is big, no doubt, but I’ve adjusted to it rather easily. The size has pros and cons. Video and images look great at this size, and the amount of content you can fit on the screen is impressive. I’d prefer it to be slightly easier to use one-handed, but I’ve also found I use two hands with pretty much every device these days (even smaller phones) because it’s just more comfortable for extended periods. Still, typing and such would obviously be easier in a smaller form factor. This thing is beautiful aesthetically in every facet, and I do not mind the small bezels at the top and bottom. They put the fingerprint sensor in the correct location this time, and I never have problems with it now that I’ve adjusted. I’d maybe prefer it to be round instead of rectangular to fit the finger more naturally, but that’s just nitpicking. While I personally find notches a non-issue while using, I do appreciate that a notch-less design gives a uniformity to the entire front panel. Just a personal preference. I really appreciate the headphone jack (my truck doesn’t have Bluetooth) without losing water resistance. Not much else to say really, it’s stellar. Oh, I love the Ocean Blue color.
Software: I’ve used iOS, stock Android and skinned Android phones over the years, and I prefer stock Android of the three. I do like the small added features Samsung tosses in, and I think they have improved and refined the skin since the days of TouchWiz, but everything with stock Android just feels and looks cleaner. While I think duplicate apps are dumb, I’m using the Samsung apps mainly to keep the cohesiveness of the entire OS. Samsung’s apps are fine. They are mostly just skinned Google apps, which again is dumb, but have a few nice features thrown in on top. Time will only tell on how quickly software updates will arrive. Really though, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything with Pie on this phone besides half-baked gestures, which I’m hoping Samsung will refine in their release. Not much to say, you either like their take or don’t. I happen to like it for the added features.
Performance: Performance is crazy. Like blisteringly fast and smooth compared to any other Android phone I’ve used in the past. I’ve always appreciated iOS’s performance, because everything feels so smooth. The SD 845 feels like Android is finally on par with iPhone X in smoothness and performance. I don’t care about benchmarks and I don’t care about the updated A12 coming that will be mega-fast, because the fact is I’ll never notice a difference in performance between the two based on my use case. Games run smooth, video is smooth, browsing is smooth, pretty much anything I do is buttery smooth. iOS has always been king when it comes to performance in my use case, but not anymore. It’s like a 1a/1b situation now. I’ll feel comfortable using either and knowing performance won’t be an issue. Expandable storage should be standard honestly, if only for the sake of user options. Folks like me can settle for the smaller storage size, knowing it can be expanded to our needs at a cheaper cost. The stereo speakers sound fantastic and get plenty loud for my preference.
Display: Display is gorgeous. I prefer the punchier colors of Samsung’s displays. Any type of media content looks inevitably fantastic. There’s not much to say – We know Samsung is good at the display thing. BUT. I have one very minor gripe. What I love about the iPhone X screen is the calibration at the sub-pixel level that Apple did. Samsung made the display, but Apple designed and calibrated it. And it paid off. Calibration at the sub-pixel level offered, what I think is, a slightly crisper display. There’s always been something about OLED and my eyes that I can notice the difference when holding the two side-by-side. In real world use I love the Note9 display, and this is completely a non-issue because it is a fantastic display. Just a slight gripe that I’ve seen no one else mention. For me, the perfect display right now would be the iPhone X’s calibrated panel with Samsung’s punchier colors.
S Pen: I use this way more than I thought I would, but only for a few things. I’m not a big note taker, but I’ll pop it out for the occasional smart select, gif animation, live message and glance. I actually use it on this forum for selecting a portion of a post that I want to quote, instead of using my big fingers. I find it way more accurate for small things like that. I use it on occasion if I just feel like browsing around the phone and not having to use my finger. Bluetooth functionality is cool, but I’ll probably only use it for music controls when I already have it out for something else. Still, it’s nice to have all the options it can offer. I’m all about user options.
Battery: Battery is why I bought this phone, and it delivers. I’ve always been a user with battery anxiety, even if I didn’t ever really have to worry about it. I turn the percentage off, and hell I’ve even disabled the battery icon from the status bar before. I can use this one all-day with 5+ hours of screen time and still have plenty of juice left. My battery has not dropped below 18% in a full day, and that was with 7.5 hrs of SOT. That SOT may not apply to you, because everyone’s use case is different, but it’s outstanding for me and my use. I’m not doing anything different than any other phone I’ve ever used from a settings standpoint. The most I could have maxed out at before would have been 5-6 hrs SOT before completely dead. Battery anxiety gone.
I feel confident in saying a) this is the most complete package offered in any smartphone to this point and b) it is worth the $1,000 price tag. I can’t say the same thing about the iPhone X that I had. I’m in love.
Design: The phone is big, no doubt, but I’ve adjusted to it rather easily. The size has pros and cons. Video and images look great at this size, and the amount of content you can fit on the screen is impressive. I’d prefer it to be slightly easier to use one-handed, but I’ve also found I use two hands with pretty much every device these days (even smaller phones) because it’s just more comfortable for extended periods. Still, typing and such would obviously be easier in a smaller form factor. This thing is beautiful aesthetically in every facet, and I do not mind the small bezels at the top and bottom. They put the fingerprint sensor in the correct location this time, and I never have problems with it now that I’ve adjusted. I’d maybe prefer it to be round instead of rectangular to fit the finger more naturally, but that’s just nitpicking. While I personally find notches a non-issue while using, I do appreciate that a notch-less design gives a uniformity to the entire front panel. Just a personal preference. I really appreciate the headphone jack (my truck doesn’t have Bluetooth) without losing water resistance. Not much else to say really, it’s stellar. Oh, I love the Ocean Blue color.
Software: I’ve used iOS, stock Android and skinned Android phones over the years, and I prefer stock Android of the three. I do like the small added features Samsung tosses in, and I think they have improved and refined the skin since the days of TouchWiz, but everything with stock Android just feels and looks cleaner. While I think duplicate apps are dumb, I’m using the Samsung apps mainly to keep the cohesiveness of the entire OS. Samsung’s apps are fine. They are mostly just skinned Google apps, which again is dumb, but have a few nice features thrown in on top. Time will only tell on how quickly software updates will arrive. Really though, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything with Pie on this phone besides half-baked gestures, which I’m hoping Samsung will refine in their release. Not much to say, you either like their take or don’t. I happen to like it for the added features.
Performance: Performance is crazy. Like blisteringly fast and smooth compared to any other Android phone I’ve used in the past. I’ve always appreciated iOS’s performance, because everything feels so smooth. The SD 845 feels like Android is finally on par with iPhone X in smoothness and performance. I don’t care about benchmarks and I don’t care about the updated A12 coming that will be mega-fast, because the fact is I’ll never notice a difference in performance between the two based on my use case. Games run smooth, video is smooth, browsing is smooth, pretty much anything I do is buttery smooth. iOS has always been king when it comes to performance in my use case, but not anymore. It’s like a 1a/1b situation now. I’ll feel comfortable using either and knowing performance won’t be an issue. Expandable storage should be standard honestly, if only for the sake of user options. Folks like me can settle for the smaller storage size, knowing it can be expanded to our needs at a cheaper cost. The stereo speakers sound fantastic and get plenty loud for my preference.
Display: Display is gorgeous. I prefer the punchier colors of Samsung’s displays. Any type of media content looks inevitably fantastic. There’s not much to say – We know Samsung is good at the display thing. BUT. I have one very minor gripe. What I love about the iPhone X screen is the calibration at the sub-pixel level that Apple did. Samsung made the display, but Apple designed and calibrated it. And it paid off. Calibration at the sub-pixel level offered, what I think is, a slightly crisper display. There’s always been something about OLED and my eyes that I can notice the difference when holding the two side-by-side. In real world use I love the Note9 display, and this is completely a non-issue because it is a fantastic display. Just a slight gripe that I’ve seen no one else mention. For me, the perfect display right now would be the iPhone X’s calibrated panel with Samsung’s punchier colors.
S Pen: I use this way more than I thought I would, but only for a few things. I’m not a big note taker, but I’ll pop it out for the occasional smart select, gif animation, live message and glance. I actually use it on this forum for selecting a portion of a post that I want to quote, instead of using my big fingers. I find it way more accurate for small things like that. I use it on occasion if I just feel like browsing around the phone and not having to use my finger. Bluetooth functionality is cool, but I’ll probably only use it for music controls when I already have it out for something else. Still, it’s nice to have all the options it can offer. I’m all about user options.
Battery: Battery is why I bought this phone, and it delivers. I’ve always been a user with battery anxiety, even if I didn’t ever really have to worry about it. I turn the percentage off, and hell I’ve even disabled the battery icon from the status bar before. I can use this one all-day with 5+ hours of screen time and still have plenty of juice left. My battery has not dropped below 18% in a full day, and that was with 7.5 hrs of SOT. That SOT may not apply to you, because everyone’s use case is different, but it’s outstanding for me and my use. I’m not doing anything different than any other phone I’ve ever used from a settings standpoint. The most I could have maxed out at before would have been 5-6 hrs SOT before completely dead. Battery anxiety gone.
I feel confident in saying a) this is the most complete package offered in any smartphone to this point and b) it is worth the $1,000 price tag. I can’t say the same thing about the iPhone X that I had. I’m in love.
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