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The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is a little bigger, a little more colorful, and a little more powerful than all prior Note phones, but be warned: it’s a little more expensive, too.
It’s the biggest Android phone that will grab your attention in 2018, with a sizeable 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, a huge 4,000mAh battery for all-day performance, and up to 512GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM.
See all Samsung Galaxy Note 9 deals
Slot in a 512GB microSD card (which Samsung will gladly sell you), and you can have the first mainstream 1TB phone in your hands. That’s bigger than a lot of laptops.
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Update: We’ve tested the Galaxy Note 9 for over a month now and it remains the best phone money can buy – at a dramatically high price. We’ve also paired it with the recommended Samsung Galaxy Watch, which we were equally impressed with.
US: Note 9 deals in the US
UK: Note 9 deals in the UK
AU: Note 9 deals in Australia
Good news – the Note 9 doesn’t actually feel any bigger than last year’s 6.3-inch Note 8, and it inherits a bunch of this year’s 5.8-inch Galaxy S9 and 6.2-inch Galaxy S9 Plus features, including camera specs.
The camera is better than the Note 8, with a dual 12MP rear setup that has dual-aperture technology, and can record Super Slow Mo videos. There are stereo speakers, and AR Emoji is back with some finer avatar customizations, but rest assured, it’ll still look nothing like you.
Exclusive to the Note 9 camera are automatic scene optimizer and flaw detection features that enhance photos (though, Samsung has a habit of rolling these features out to older phones later on).
The S Pen is still a handy tool for jotting down notes, but it now has Bluetooth for remote-controlled shortcuts that are customizable (unlike the annoying Bixby button that you can’t even turn off anymore). Want to pose for a photo 30 feet away? This S Pen can help you do that and more. It works great, but you may have trouble finding a spot to rest your precious and expensive Note 9 for full-body snapshots. We ended up with a lot of shots at bad camera angles, so it’s a good idea on paper, but doesn’t always work out like we first envisioned.
Bad news – the price feels much bigger. Get ready to pay iPhone XS-level prices for the entry-level 128GB and 6GB model. Ouch. It’s meant for power users, according to Samsung – the physical size, storage size, price, and battery capacity all tell us that. It sees Note 9 buyers as people who spend a lot of time on their phone and want the best of the best – they buy the best AV receiver, the best TV, and so forth.
The Note 9 is our top smartphone recommendation – that is, if you want to own a giant, feature-filled phone with a stylus and hate saving money. Ongoing Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals are the biggest threat to this upgrade that, ironically, is all about going big in a variety of small ways.
Check out our hands-on video below to see the Galaxy Note 9 in action:
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Samsung Galaxy Note 9 release date and price
Release date is August 24, with an iPhone X-like starting price
$1,000 (£899 / AU$1,499 / AED 3,699) for 128GB/6GB
$1,250 (£1,099 / AU$1,799 / AED 4,599) for 512GB/8GB
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 released on Friday, August 24, sooner than anyone had expected a year ago. The Note 8 came out on September 15 in the US and UK last year (September 22 in Australia and Middle East).
Why the early Note 9 release date? The theory is that Samsung wanted to rush it out to beat the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max that Apple announced on September 12.
Talking of Samsung’s chief competition, the Note 9 price rivals that of Apple’s flagship handsets, rather than undercutting it as we’d hoped from an Android phone.
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The Note 9 price is $1,000 (£899 / AU$1,499 / AED 3,699) with 128GB of internal storage and 6GB of RAM, and $1,250 (£1,099 / $AU1,799 / AED 4,599) for 512GB and 8GB of RAM.
Yes, that entry-level 128GB configuration does double the iPhone X’s 64GB of storage for the same price, and is therefore a better value. But it’s also a hike of $70 (£30) over the Note 8 launch price and $150 (£30, AU$150) more than the launch price of the Galaxy S9 Plus, a very similar smartphone. So it depends on how you look at it, and where you live.
In the US, Samsung will sell the phone unlocked and also through carriers like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and US Cellular. Pre-orders in the US opened on August 10 with Note 9 bundle deals. You’ll either get a free Fortnite Galaxy Skin and 15,000 V-bucks or AKG N60 Noise Cancelling Headphones (or both for $99).
In Australia you can also pick up the Note 9 from the country’s biggest telcos, with Vodafone, Telstra and Optus each offering a number of data-heavy plans – we’ve taken the liberty of comparing Australia’s best Samsung Galaxy Note 9 pre-order deals.
Note 9 colors in the US are Ocean Blue with a yellow S Pen (it also writes in yellow for the ultimate color contrast) and Lavender Purple with a purple pen (which writes in purple digital ink). In the UK it’s available in those two colors plus Midnight Black, while the colors for Australia have been confirmed as Ocean Blue and Midnight Black. Other regions may get a Copper color, we were told by Samsung – colors are region-dependent.
New S Pen magic tricks
Bluetooth stylus has custom shortcuts
Great for remotely taking photos, works up to 30 feet away
Charges quickly while embedded in the phone
Norma note-taking works even when uncharged
The new S Pen is this year’s big gimmick for the Note, and it’s capable of performing Bluetooth-connected magic tricks from up to 30 feet away. Samsung’s engineers managed to squeeze a small supercapacitor and tiny Bluetooth Low-Energy antenna into the otherwise unchanged stylus so that it can perform various remote functions. It’s the type of gimmick we ended up liking – sometimes.
