Samsung is preparing to unveil the Galaxy Note 9 in New York City on August 9th. Frankly, the Note 9 is one of the worst-kept secrets in the industry right now. The phone has been spotted passing through the FCC, appeared on Geekbench, and has been leaked a dozen times by reliable tipsters. The rumor mill has revealed almost all of the Galaxy Note 9 features. In fact, Samsung’s mobile business head DJ Koh was recently seen using the Note 9 and its S Pen stylus.
There will be few surprises when Samsung unveils the Note 9 next month. Thanks to the consistent and reliable flow of leaks, we know pretty much everything about the upcoming phablet. It is going to be a boring upgrade in terms of design. It will look almost identical to the Galaxy S9 Plus with only a few minor changes.
The Note 9 is said to have a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED Infinity display with 2960 x 1440 resolution. The phone will have a 93% screen-to-body ratio, thanks to thinner bezels at the top and bottom of the screen. The fingerprint reader will be on the back panel. It will also have dual cameras and LED flash on the back.
S Pen? pic.twitter.com/xizmWw9J2W
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) July 17, 2018
Despite its similarities with the S9 Plus in appearance, the Galaxy Note 9 will boast some incredibly cool features that would make it worth buying. Here they are:
Improved dual camera
The Note 9 is getting a horizontally-aligned dual camera system on the back. The cameras were arranged vertically on the Galaxy S9 Plus, so why is Samsung switching to the horizontal orientation? To make room for a bigger battery inside the phone.
According to supply chain leaks, the next-gen phablet will have a 12MP wide-angle lens and a 12MP telephoto lens on the rear. Both the lenses are said to support OIS. The front camera will be 8-megapixel, and is expected to offer innovative features such as portrait selfies. Samsung is rumored to be working with Mantis Vision to include a 3D depth-sensing module in Galaxy Note 9 for 3D facial recognition, portrait selfies, and augmented reality.
Just like Galaxy S9 Plus, the Note 9 would offer dual apertures and Super Slo-mo features. The dual aperture technology allows the camera to switch between the two apertures depending on the lighting conditions. Folks at CNet speculate that Samsung could add dual apertures to the Note 9’s front camera as well. We expect camera to be one of the biggest Galaxy Note 9 features.
According to SamMobile, the Note 9 camera will feature Samsung’s new ISOCELL Plus technology. The new sensors offer improved light sensitivity and better color accuracy, especially in low-light conditions.
An all-new S Pen stylus
The current S Pen is in no way a mediocre stylus. But the Galaxy Note 9’s S Pen will take stylus usability to a whole new level. Samsung’s new stylus was recently certified by the US FCC with model number EJ-PN960. The FCC listing revealed that it will be Bluetooth-enabled.
Even before the rumor mill spotted the FCC filing, Chinese tipster Ice Universe had said the new S Pen would allow you to control music playback, self-timer, and more. You will be able to play and pause music and skip tracks. You could also capture photos using the stylus from a distance, such as when the phablet is placed on a tripod.
The Galaxy Note9 SPen can be used to control long-range self-timer, control music playback, because it is a Bluetooth device, it will do something unrelated to the pen. pic.twitter.com/WPS83xUskq
— ICE UNIVERSE (@UniverseIce) July 1, 2018
According to XDA Developers, the new S Pen will have a built-in battery. Samsung could also allow users to unlock the device using the S Pen, even after the stylus has been removed from the slot. It isn’t clear whether the S Pen will have a fingerprint reader integrated into its button or it will function as a smart unlock.
Galaxy Note 9 features: Bixby 2.0 AI assistant
Let’s admit it. The original Bixby wasn’t that great, and not many people were actively using it. The Korean company has confirmed that it is working on an upgraded Bixby 2.0 AI assistant that would offer faster response times, improved noise-canceling, and better natural-language processing. It means the new voice assistant will enable a more natural communication between the user and the device.
Samsung is currently testing the new Bixby with more than 800 partners around the world. It is unclear whether the company will allow users to disable Bixby altogether or reconfigure the Bixby button to activate other apps.
The Bixby 2.0 voice assistant will not just be used in the Galaxy Note 9. The Korean company plans to integrate it into devices across its entire ecosystem including TVs, tablets, smartwatches, etc.
A bigger battery
Consumers always expect their phone’s battery to last a little longer. The Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S9 offer a pretty good battery life, but the Note 9 promises to be even better. According to Ice Universe, the Galaxy Note 9 features a huge 4,000mAh battery. A few other reports claim it will be 3,850mAh. Whichever battery size Samsung chooses to incorporate in the Note 9, it will be much bigger than the Galaxy Note 8’s 3,300mAh and Galaxy S9 Plus’s 3,500mAh battery.
Samsung is reportedly changing the Note 9’s rear camera orientation from vertical to horizontal only to accommodate the bigger battery. The Note 9’s battery is rumored to support video playback of up to 25 hours. It will also support wireless charging and fast-charging.
These features make the Note 9 a killer phone worth buying. It will be competing against the 2018 iPhones, LG V40 ThinQ, and Google’s third-gen Pixel phones. Other rumored Galaxy Note 9 features include Snapdragon 845 or Exynos 9810 chips, up to 8GB RAM, up to 512GB of internal storage, a microSD Card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
