Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy Note 7 is finally here with reviews calling it the return of the phablet king. The Android device, unveiled by Samsung on 2 August at the Galaxy Unpacked event in New York, is also a smartphone by the way.
The phablet phone is the successor to the 2015 Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and the big brother of look-alike Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. It was released on August 19 in the United States and is expected to launch officially on September 2 in Europe.
Probably one of the most leaked gadgets this year, the much-awaited handset has already broken records and taken by surprise many countries around the world. Galaxy Note 7 surpassed the pre-orders record in South Korea with more than 200,000 units pre-ordered within two days. It doubled the number set by the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge.
Canada also stated that pre-orders were extraordinary, while the high demand forced countries like Malaysia, Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine to reschedule the Note 7’s release to September due to a shortage in supply.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 features new design and specs
It sports a 5.7-inch display with a curved AMOLED screen at a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. It comes with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage (53GB after mandatory installs) and includes a microSD slot for cards up to 256GB. The slot was controversially missing in the Galaxy Note 5.
The handset features the same camera module as the Galaxy S7 series of smartphones. It has a 12-megapixel sharp shooting rear camera capable of capturing 4K. The secondary front-facing camera is a 5-megapixel ISOCELL sensor. Both cameras have Auto HDR capability.
The phablet is powered by an Exynos 8890 Octa SoC internationally, while it will ship with a Snapdragon 820 SoC to China. It natively runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and is expected to receive Android 7.0 Nougat update in January 2017.
Samsung’s latest features come with a price
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 includes high-end features like the cameras, fingerprint scanner, wireless charging, and waterproofing. It’s the first Galaxy that can be unlocked with iris scanner as well as to feature Grace UX, a redesigned version of Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface.
Finally, it’s also Samsung’s pioneer in USB Type-C specification and supports the S Pen stylus, one of the best small pens available. The device’s slogan certainly matches the so called best phablet in the market.
The Galaxy Note 7 thinks big but also costs big with a $900 price tag. It’s without a doubt the greatest con of the phablet smartphone. For comparison, high-end rivals like sibling Galaxy S7 Edge costs $670; the Google Nexus 6P costs $499; and the Apple iPhone 6S Plus $649.
Source: The Guardian