Gadgetory

the Galaxy Note 8 is samsung's most feature packed phone and its first phone ever to have two cameras on the back that plus the S Pen Stylus tucked into the phone give power users a distinct advantage over phones like the galaxy s 8 but it's also Samsung's most expensive phone is it worth shelling out for this instead of the galaxy s 8 or s 8 plus the LG v 30 or the next iPhone or Google pixel well that's what we're here to find out starting with these two cameras on the back the dual 12 megapixel camera setup snaps all of those fancy depth effect photos your friends have been doing on the iPhone 7 plus and you know what on the whole they're pretty good as a bonus you can adjust the blur intensity before you take a shot or even after in addition to seeing your portrait the note 8 can also save a wide-angle version of the same picture so it's like getting two pics for the price of one both those camera lenses on the back have optical image stabilization and that's gonna help keep your videos from shaking badly even if you're on the move and for your selfies there is an 8 megapixel camera on the front the other thing that makes the note 8 stand out is the s-pen I really like the convenience of having a stylus for example being able to quickly jot down wine tasting notes came in handy at the Half Moon Bay wine and cheese company the S Pen will also easily open shortcuts from any app open a quick note from any screen and then stash it away is a floating bubble that you can come back to later you can even right up to 100 pages of notes from the lockscreen and then pin it there so you can go back and read them without having to unlock your phone one of my favorite features is the new eraser function which makes it a heck of a lot easier to get rid of all your groups all the messy writing is gone the S Pen lets you write all over the screen preview your photos take screenshots of what you actually want to highlight and not the whole screen and you can also make animated gifs from videos or from photos and messages you create yourself and then share them with your friends and the rest of the phone the note 8 gives you a bright brilliant screen there are shortcuts in the edge menu to quickly call friends and open apps and an enhanced split-screen mode that can open two apps at once there's the Bixby software that lets you control your phone with your voice you have wireless charging the state-of-the-art processor and the phone is water-resistant even the S Pen what's not so good is the fingerprint reader placement which is all the way on the back and off to the side you could also use the iris scanner on the front but that doesn't always work on the first try either sometimes it's just faster to use a pattern or pin okay pause but you're dying to ask is how's the battery and is it going to explode like last year's Galaxy Note 7 to be honest with you I don't know but we do know that Samsung has put it through advanced testing just like the Galaxy s8 and si+ and there haven't been any incidences with those phones at least reported yet I do know that the phone has gotten warm but not dangerously hot and not hotter than any other phones so fingers crossed the note 8 is certainly a great phone but is it worth all that cash well it depends if you have a note 5 or had to return your note 7 then yes splurge for the top-of-the-line features and all the extras that only that S Pen can bring but if you're not chomping at the bit to take artsy portraits the cheaper s8 phones have all the same core features without that second camera in stylus the no-date can pretty much do it all but unless you're planning to actually do it all there are plenty of other top-rate phones to choose from you