Striking the right Note

SINCE the day I received the Samsung Galaxy Note8 for review, the question that I was asked the most was, is it worth its price?
At RM3,999, RM300 more than the Samsung Galaxy S8+, the Note8 had better be more than just a large screen and a stylus.
For two weeks, the Note8 became my main driver and workhorse. It was the device I used to take notes, record interviews, take photos, take videos, and write stories.
The Note8 has a large screen that measures 6.3in across, 0.1in smaller than the S8+. Because it has a long 18.5:9 aspect ratio, the Note8 feels like a 5.2in phone which accommodates smaller hands.
I find the tall display perfect for reading web articles and browsing content, but not so much for viewing videos, reviewing photos, and for ebooks.
This is not because of the display resolution. The Note8 has a gorgeous 1440x2960 Super Amoled display.
However, most media are formatted in 16:9 for videos, or 4:6 for photos and ebooks. This leads to black bars, to make the media fit, or text that go beyond their intended flow.
At the bottom of the phone are a 3.5mm audio port, a USB Type-C port, the phone's speaker, and the stylus drawer.
While not many people would want to plug in headphones and charge their phones at the same time, I find having both a 3.5mm audio port and a USB Type-C port handy.
On my daily commute, I use the Note8 as both my GPS and podcast player. The phone is connected to my car stereo via the audio port and is kept charged up via a car charger.
This brings to another feature of the Note8 that I did not know would be useful: Dual-App.
Dual-App is a feature of the Apps Edge (the app shortcut drawer at the side of the Note8).
It lets you launch two apps at the same time, and they will appear as stacked windows. With a swipe and a tap, I could launch both my podcast app and Google Maps at the same time.
However, I found that in this configuration, the lower podcast app display froze if I set my destination on the map first. A quirk that I had to learn to avoid.
Some apps will also knock you out of the Dual-App screen.
The Note8 also has dual cameras. One is a 12MP autofocus sensor with 2x zoom and an f2.4 aperture. The other is a dual-pixel 12MP autofocus sensor with an f1.7 aperture.
Both cameras feature optical image stabilisation, which is a boon when shooting in low light, or when recording without a tripod.
I often shot with the wide lens, as the camera defaults to it when shooting.
I also occasionally used the Live Focus mode just for the dual-capture feature, which lets the camera take two shots – a zoom and a wide – at the same time.
Pictures taken using the Note8 are impressive, but tend to have a sharpness that feels artificial. Colours also pop more compared to the actual subject.
I was impressed with the wide-angle camera low-light performance, but the zoom camera tends to make dark shots look jagged.
I also appreciated some of the camera's novel tricks, like the ability to adjust the focal point after the shot.
The camera's video-recording capabilities are also notable. Although, to take full advantage of all the camera's capabilities such as HDR, video effects, and tracking, you would have to shoot in Full HD or lower.

On the flipside, the 8MP f1.7 front-facing camera takes quick, pleasant selfies that lean towards realism rather than synthesised beauty.
That said, there is a beauty mode with five parameters to fiddle with.
Beyond all that, the one feature that distinguishes the Note8 is the stylus.
The S Pen is touted as a creativity tool. It can be used to create digital sketches, animated messages, handwritten messages, and take notes.
Editing photos and videos are also made simpler with the accuracy and sensitivity of the S Pen.
I also found the handwriting to text input method a boon. Having handwritten messages and notes turned into legible and formatted text that I can cut and paste onto documents and edit later is useful.
It is not perfect, but it is impressive, with the way it could recognise regular and cursive handwriting.
Powering the Note8's Samsung Exynos 8895 octa-core processor, 6GB of RAM, and 64GB onboard storage is a 3,300mAh battery.
Performance is never an issue: multiple apps, graphics intensive games, and streaming do not slow down the Note8.
This is made more impressive by the phone's memory management, which is not aggressive.
It took the Note8 four days to get used to my usage patterns before I saw improvements in battery performance.
In the beginning, I used to end my day with only 30% battery left on the phone; by the end, it hovered at around 50% before I had to plug it in at night.
So, is the Samsung Galaxy Note8 worth its asking price?
To me it was. Its features certainly made my work and daily life easier and a little bit more fun.
But, at RM3,999 it is still pretty hard on the wallet.