Gadgetory

Samsung is looking to leap forward by skipping the iteration number six and going straight to seven but is this new note device really worthy of such a leap well it's time to find out because it's Joshua Vergara from Android authority what's going on everybody and this is your first look and hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Note seven if you're looking at this device and it looks incredibly familiar well you're absolutely right it does retain a lot of the look and feel the design language that started with the Samsung Galaxy s6 and has moved on to devices like the s7 the note 5 and the s7 edge but there is a bit of refinement to this design language that actually makes a world of difference first of all the phone is now water-resistant but not just the phone but also the s-pen which means that you can actually take notes underwater though we may not necessarily know why you would want to it is a feature that is available now on the note 7 the designers of the note 7 made a big deal about this phones symmetry you have curves on the front for a curved display but they're also curves on the glass of the back and that means that both sides meet in the middle in order to meet the metallic skeleton the result is a very comfortable feel in the hand as the sides feel really smooth and that lip actually doesn't protrude out a whole lot the result also means that you have a somewhat more narrow device and it's less bulky than the note 5 that came before it aside from the very comfortable handling however a lot of what makes this a note device or a galaxy device actually remains the same plenty of the different elements are still in the same place that you would expect including the S Pen on the bottom that is now accompanied by one of the main changes which is a USB C charging port this is a brand new port for Galaxy phones in general and it means that you are going to need an adapter in order to adapt to micro USB cords luckily that will be included in the box popping out the SIM tray also reveals a micro SD card slot now you are able to use up to 2 terabytes in capacity for these cards but none of those actually exist Samsung however just recently released a 256 a gigabyte card that you could use to bolster these 64 gigabytes of base storage yes you heard it right 64 gigabytes is the main and there are no other capacities available from there however a lot of the internals and specifications remain largely the same you don't get too many changes as the phone comes with a 5.7 inch Super AMOLED display in that quad HD resolution that also boasts the always-on display underneath the surface you still have these same processors from the galaxy s7 and s7 edge whether it be the Snapdragon 820 or the latest Exynos processor with 4 gigabytes of RAM and the only real change besides from that is 830 500 milliamp hour battery that is larger definitely more in line with what a phablet phone like this should have and it also comes with the same Fasching that should get the phone power in no time at all now we are going to go ahead and mention the cameras here but we weren't able to get any examples or samples obviously but the camera package is still the same as that of the galaxy s7 12 megapixels on the rear at F 1.7 aperture with dual pixel construction so that you get very fast autofocus and better low-light shots the front-facing camera is still in F 1.7 aperture wide-angle lens with 5 megapixels to boast which brings us to one of the main features of every note device the s-pen the s-pen largely looks the same this year but it has been made 200 millimetres in length the length of a standard bulb head and it's only 3 grams in weight so it's still incredibly lightweight and has that button that you can use for a number of functions and before you even ask it does not go in backwards anymore there's not even a chance for you to break the s-pen this time around because that very small portion at the top the clicky top is just wide enough to stop it from even going in at all we dive into the S Pen features a little bit more in a feature focus video but we can take a look at a few of them here the main new feature is that in the screen off memo that you can create by just popping the S Pen out in standby mode you can take this memo and actually pin it to the always-on display that allows you to have a note always at the ready even if the phone is not necessarily being used the Air Command menu is a good way of seeing a few of the new features including the ability to translate from 71 different languages and also a magnify feature that will allow for closer looks at certain parts of the interface smart select now allows for a 15 second capture of an easily shareable gif basically you just put a frame onto any portion of the screen and it will record 15 seconds of whatever is going on it's an easy way of sending gifts through the smart select which already makes sharing pretty much anything very easy and finally the Notes app has been streamlined and it now consolidates a number of different applications that used to inundate the TouchWiz version of Note devices in the past and for an added bonus any of you who really love to use notes can actually use this app on galaxy s devices to in the future which brings us to security features and the iris scanner now essentially you have to take your glasses off and perhaps even contacts when first scanning the iris in order for you to have one set of irises that can unlock the device after that you pretty much unlock the device swipe up and an infrared camera with an infrared light rather at the top near the front-facing camera will scan for that set of irises and then just unlock the device straight into the interface it's a pretty nice way of getting straight into your phone if you're just going to be looking at it anyway the same security features that unlock the device can also be used for a secure folder and these are also things that we dive into a little bit more in a future focus video much of what makes this a note device is retained so it will feel very familiar but at least the UI has been streamlined there's no better place to look at that than in the settings menus so you'll see that there are lighter colors all around a lot of the menu items and a lot of the TouchWiz elements are now pretty much white with the colors to accent them and it just looks a lot cleaner all around it's also a little bit easier to navigate but of course there's a lot here to work with but speaking of interface changes of course we have the curved display on the note 7 which will be a mainstay of it you won't be getting a different version of this device anymore because we already have the s7 edge and you can look at that as a note 7 without an S Pen so the curves are here to stay and with the curves come the edge UX there's actually not a whole lot to say here as the edge UX features are pretty much the same as found on the s7 edge and so there you have it for this first look and hands-on with the samsung galaxy note 7 we have a lot of coverage of this phone including color comparisons to feature focus videos I've just mentioned and of course comparisons with some of the flagships in the Android space today you can take a look at even more about the note 7 at andrew authority comm but for the most part we are dealing with a phone that kind of takes the lead of the s7 line and just makes it bigger with of course that little friend in the S Pen pre-orders will start on August 3rd and then the phone will be made available all over the world on August 19 there are 4 different colors and you can take a look at that comparison in our color comparison video oh and also there is a new gear VR that is available as well and that is something you can find over at VR source comm so head on over there watch that video to see the new fourth iteration of VR and then bring it on back to Andrew thority because we are your source for all things Android