Cellphones review note 9 3 trieu năm 2024

Considering how much we plan to use the Galaxy Note9 in the coming year (it's bound to be the phone we pick up more than any other), and how often we will have to unlock it, I must say we're a little disappointed by the biometric improvements in this year's model.

We were rather hoping that Samsung would have brought its biometric system up to the standard of the iPhone X, or at the very least given the Note9 a fingerprint scanner on the front where it's easy to access, like the fingerprint scanner on the P20 Pro. But alas, after four days of using the Note9, we have to report that its unlocking system is still a little clunky.

The fingerprint scanner has been moved a few millimetres farther away from the rear camera, which should mean you smudge the camera lens a little less than you did on the Note8, but even in the marginally improved location the scanner is still a little too hard to find when you reach your finger around the back to unlock the phone.

Meanwhile the Note9's improved face/iris recognition system is still slightly hit and miss, especially for those of us who wear glasses. It's a lot more accurate and consistent than it was on the Note8, but it's still not up to the high standard that Apple has set with the iPhone X's seamless biometric system.

The fingerprint scanner has been moved from next to the camera to just below it. That's still too close to the camera, though.

The camera on the Note9 is improved, too, and is now more or less the same camera you get on the Samsung Galaxy S9, plus a few improvements in the artificial intelligence system that helps the phone optimise your photos, based on what the AI decides it's looking at.

(We expect those same AI improvements will filter through to the S9, by the way, in the shape of a software update.)

The AI, which works out whether you're pointing the lens at a person, at a landscape, at flowers or at a building, did seem to work well in our tests, which looked at five of the 20 scenes Samsung says the AI system is capable of identifying.

It did a good job of correctly and speedily identifying what it was looking at, and it mostly seemed to add appealing optimisations, such as increased colour saturation for flowers but not for faces.

The other colours available in Australia are Metallic Copper and Midnight Black.

In more than a few of our other tests, using it alongside the iPhone X and the P20 Pro, it took the best pictures of all the top-tier camera phones, but on the whole we still rate the Huawei P20 Pro as having a better camera, due in main part to its astonishingly good low-light photography and, closely related, its excellent dynamic range.

Clear improvements

Battery life has been improved in this year's model, too, but once again it doesn't reach the high bar set by its rivals.

The Note9 now has a 4000mAh battery, up from 3300mAh on the Note8 (making the new phone feel slightly thicker in the hand, but not troublingly so), which Samsung says gives the Note an "all day" battery life.

Based on our four days of usage, which admittedly isn't quite enough to conclusively judge this matter, Samsung is exactly right. The Note9 will get you through a day of medium-level usage without the need to recharge, which is an improvement on the Note8, which you often have to recharge by dinner time.

A day is great, but it's not the two days that Huawei gives you from its flagship phones, which we think is important for those inevitable occasions when, due to reasons that are perhaps outside of your control, or perhaps inside of an alcohol bottle, you can't or don't recharge your phone overnight.

Though, to be fair to Samsung, the Note9 is more useful than the Huawei P20 Pro, due to the former having a pen that the latter does not, so you're probably going to use the Note9 more than the P20 Pro, putting more strain on the battery. If the Note9 lasted a day and a half, next to the P20 Pro's two days, we'd call it a tie.

S Pen brilliance

Which brings me to the pen, or the S Pen as it's known.

The S Pen is the reason you buy a Note and not some other phone with a better camera, a better battery life or better biometrics.

It's the thing that lets you take just your phone, and not your phone and a laptop or a notebook, to meetings. It's the thing that lets you pull your phone out of your pocket and quickly jot down some notes without unlocking the phone, using the "screen off" memo system Samsung introduced with the Note 5.

The S Pen, in a word, is brilliant, and it's the reason we rate the Note as the best, most useful phone on the market.

This year it's even more brilliant than ever.

The screen off memo is slightly improved this year, in that it now writes in the colour of the S Pen itself rather than just in white. Our Note9 review unit was the Ocean Blue model with the bright yellow S Pen, so our screen off memos write in yellow on the black screen.

It looks amazing, though slightly less so when you later go into the notes you took and realise they've been saved as yellow on a white background. If you find it hard to read, you can revert to last year's black on white.

Remote control

The biggest S Pen improvement, though, is the addition of a small Bluetooth transmitter in the pen, so it doubles as a remote control for the phone, controlling features like the camera, video playback (including YouTube, Netflix, Plex), audio playback and slideshow presentations.

The button on the S Pen, which used to control only handwriting-related features, now takes photos, or pauses your video, when you press on it.

(And I'm pleased to report that it still works for the handwriting-related features, even when the battery powering the Bluetooth transmitter has run out and needs recharging.)

The remote actually has a much longer range than the 10 metres Samsung advertises. In our tests the range extends as far as 36 metres away from the phone, which is ideal if you want to take selfies in which you are not the only thing in the shot, but have disappeared into the scenery.

At 35 metres from the lens, you're just a tiny part of the bigger scene, which is exactly how it is in the broader scheme of things.

Two-handed

But it turns out that the S Pen remote is incredibly useful not just for distant selfies, but also when you've got your phone in your hand. We tested the Note9's camera under a number of circumstances, such as in a crowd, when it was awkward to reach out the phone, and press the phone's shutter button, both at the same time.

Being able to hold the phone with one hand, and trigger it by pressing the button on the S Pen in your other hand, is a real improvement.

Though it's not the improvement it could be. There are actually two buttons on the S Pen, the one in the middle and one at the end, that you click to extend the pen to pull it out of its slot.

That clicker button, not the middle button, is what the remote control functions should be linked to. It's easier to find, and it's so much more satisfying to use. It even makes a clicking noise, which would be perfect for taking photos. Why Samsung chose the wrong, middle button is mystifying.

If nothing else, choosing the right button on the remote would have won them a couple more letters in the name of our perfect phone, maybe more than a couple.

What are the common problems with the Note 9?

Battery doesn't charge or show a charging indicator. Device crashes, resets, restarts. Can't connect to the Internet. Screen is blank, has distorted images or bleeding colors.

How many years does Note 9 last?

New Samsung devices are promised 4 years of OS upgrades and 5 years of security updates. There is nothing wrong with being frugal, but you have to be willing to admit when you've gotten your money's worth.

Is the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 no longer supported?

Despite support officially ending in late 2022 after four years, the Galaxy Note 9 has received a surprise update with the February 2023 security patch. In recent years, Samsung has cleaned up a murky reputation when it comes to Galaxy devices software support windows and update cadence.

What is good about Samsung Note 9?

Well, the good news is that the new Galaxy Note comes packing a far more potent 4,000mAh battery, which not only feels more suitable for a super-powerful flagship phone with massive 6.4-inch Super AMOLED screen, but also far more competitive with its rival devices, too.