Samsung Galaxy Note7: First Impressions

The Samsung Galaxy Note series has always been the benchmark for phablets. Many had tried to follow with larger screen smartphones but nothing beats the productivity features of the S Pen.

With last year’s Galaxy Note5, Samsung has ditched its plastic build for a more premium glass and metal construction. However, this led to some compromises. The battery is no longer removable and power users frown upon the lack of a microSD expansion.

We managed to get our hands on a Galaxy Note7 and here’s what we think.

The jump to 7

First, let’s start with the name. Many would ask, what happened to the Note6? According to Samsung, the skip to 7 is to streamline its model name with the current Galaxy S series. So with the Galaxy S7/S7 edge being launched this year, calling the next flagship the Note7 would somewhat minimise any confusion among consumers.

Therefore, we can expect to see the Galaxy S8 and S8 edge in February next year, followed by the Note8 exactly one year from now.

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At first glance, the Note7 exterior is similar to the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. Side by side, the Note7 has a more squarish look compared to the Galaxy S7 edge. To some extent, the back looks like last year’s Galaxy Note5.

Upon closer inspection, we find that Samsung has added some refinement on the design. The curved glass for both front and back are symmetrical for a more balanced look. In the hands, the sides feel more rounded as the frame is flush with its glass panels.

Despite lacking the “edge” in the name, the Galaxy Note7 comes with a double curved 5.7” Quad HD Super AMOLED display. The screen is amazingly vibrant with text appearing sharp thanks to its high pixel density. There won’t be a flat non-edge Note7 so Samsung is just releasing just one new flagship for the 2nd half of the year.

While there are those who dislike the curvature of the curved display, the “edge” on the Galaxy Note7 isn’t as obvious as the Galaxy S7 edge. According to Samsung, this was done intentionally to maximise the work area for the S Pen.

In terms of size, it is barely wider than the S7 edge and because it uses a curved display and thinner bezels, the Note7 is actually narrower (by 2.2mm) than the Note5. Since it packs a larger 3,500mAh battery, it is slightly thicker at 7.9mm (Note5: 7.6mm) but they managed to make it lighter by a negligible 2 grams compared to the previous model.

Overall, it is still a typical Samsung flagship with its unmistakable home button and main camera at the rear that’s accompanied with a heart rate sensor. Like their recent flagships, the glass back with its reflective surface looks stunning but it’s still a fingerprint magnet. You probably would want to get a case for this.

One of the biggest change for the Note7 is a new USB Type-C port which is becoming a standard for new devices. The speaker is still a down firing unit, while the S Pen silo has been redesigned, making it impossible to insert the stylus the wrong way. This is also the first Galaxy Note to get IP68 dust and water resistance, and that also includes the S Pen.

Under the hood, the hardware is mostly derived from the current Galaxy S7/S7 edge. It runs on the same 14nm Exynos 8890 processor with the same 4GB of RAM. Even the cameras are carried over with a dual-pixel 12MP main camera with OIS and a front facing 5MP shooter. It’s like the saying if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

While we have nothing to complain about the performance, we still wished Samsung had given it a performance bump over its Galaxy S sibling. Having said that, it is more than capable to take on anything you throw at it. And yes, the camera is still superb with fast focusing and it takes great shots in low light thanks to its fast f/1.7 aperture.

On the software front, Samsung has made some welcome changes on the interface. It’s still TouchWiz on Android 6.0.1 but they have tweaked its pull down notifications panel and settings menu.

What we do like is the new camera interface where almost everything you need is just a swipe away. You can switch modes with a quick swipe from the left or add filters by swiping from the right. To take selfies, just swipe from either top or bottom, to switch to the front camera.

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The S Pen is the heart and soul of the Galaxy Note series. For the Note7, Samsung has doubled its pressure sensitivity from 2,048 (Note5) to 4,096 (Note7) levels which should greatly benefit illustrators and digital artists. As a casual S Pen user, we can’t really tell the difference to be honest.

There are several new notable features with the S Pen. There’s a hover on translate function that pops up instant translation when you hover your S Pen over any text on the display. So if you’re in some exotic restaurant, you can easily take a picture of the menu and use the S Pen to find out what it means. From what we noticed, it translates word by word and sometimes this isn’t ideal as words could mean something else depending on the whole sentence.

The Galaxy Note series was the pioneer of allowing 2 apps to be displayed simultaneously with its Multi Window feature. It was a smart idea back then but if you’re doing some typing like email, the keyboard could get in the way. The new “Glance” feature is a pretty clever way to overcome this problem.

Using the S Pen, you can turn your active app into a tiny pop-up which hovers around your display. So if you just need to take a peek for reference, just hover the S Pen over the glance pop up for a quick view, and hover off to get back to your previous app. This is faster than switching apps using the recent apps button and we reckon it’s more efficient than using Multi Window.

For the creative folks, the Note7’s S Pen aspires to be as realistic as a paint brush. Similar to watercolour painting, the brush strokes not only responds more accurately but it also mixes colours like the real thing (e.g. mixing red and yellow results orange).

If you love creating memes, the smart select tool lets you convert any video clip including YouTube into an animated GIF up to 15 seconds. Meanwhile, the screen off memo feature has been improved to allow pinning on the always on display, which is a nice touch.

Iris recognition is also a new feature on the Note7. It isn’t entirely new and we’ve seen this before on the latest Lumia and ZTE Axon devices. For this to work, Samsung has added an Iris camera at the front and it is assisted by an infrared light. We have to take off our glasses during the setup but it works pretty well with glasses on after that.

We tried it several times and it is amazingly quick provided you have the right distance and angle. Samsung recommends a distance between 25-35cm and it will tell you if you’re holding it too far. You can view these new features in action in our hands-on video on the next page. It’s a cool feature but in the end, this works practically as a secondary unlocking method in case your fingerprint scanner fails to work.

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At RM3,199, the Galaxy Note7 is the most expensive Note yet. While you won’t be totally wrong to call it an S7 edge with an S Pen, the Note7 is still a significant improvement over the Galaxy Note5. It has water resistance, a larger battery, a great camera and most importantly, 64GB of storage with the option to add more. While the hybrid dual-SIM design isn’t favoured for some people, the doubled storage more or less makes up for it.

For those who are hooked to the S Pen, you’ll be hard pressed to find another device that does productivity as well as the Galaxy Note7. In case you missed it, pre-orders will start on 8th August and it will hit stores nationwide on 19th August.

Galaxy Note7 Hands-on Video

Galaxy Note7 Photo Gallery