Galaxy Note 9 Three Months Later – How Much Better Did It Get?
Galaxy Note 9 Three Months Later – How Much Better Did It Get?
2018-12-13
I want to give a big TechnoBuffalo sized
hug to kaavo for sponsoring this video
and generally making content like this
happen what's going on everybody
John retinue from TechnoBuffalo and it
seems like every note video I do somehow
morphs into like a family vlog going all
the way back to the note 7 and I wanted
to revisit the note 9 and somehow it
turned out to be the same thing it's
surprisingly been three months since the
note 9 came out and there's been so many
phones that have come out since and I
want to say I kind of forgot about it
and maybe you guys have too since the
note 9 hit we've had pixels we've had
iPhones we've got some of the best from
hallway that have hit 1 plus 60 and all
these phones are neck neck and neck and
it can be tough to pick the right one so
my initial plan was to take the phone
home and use it over Thanksgiving break
and revisit it turns out my entire
family got sick and I was shut in for
five days really only staring at the
screen on the note 9 so fair warning
there's excessive sweatpants pajamas and
sick kids in this video
since I blast from the phone on there's
been about six iterative software
updates and Sam slug notoriously is not
the fastest for big OS updates like Oreo
to pie but they do a nice job with sort
of the smaller incremental type updates
so what we've got now on the note 9 is a
pretty mature and optimized version of
Android 8.1 so the most recent update
was claiming camera improvements and bug
fixes so figure we'd give it a shot I
fought the urge to put the leaked beta
of Samsung's one UI and Android Pi on
here but hear me out I want to use a
phone as Samsung intend did not face my
thoughts and opinions on some leaked
beta issues so when that does hit I
promise you we will do an entirely
separate video on one UI and the note 9
so on the initial review I absolutely
love the phone but I did in all fairness
have a few issues so let's start with
those issues
the iris detection would not work with
sunglasses on so I was outside wants
unlock my phone I had to take them off
it was annoying samsung fix it not only
does it work now with sunglasses and
polarized sunglasses actually works
really quickly so nice work Samsung the
other issue I had with signal strength
so our review we did it on a 6 state
road trip and I couldn't necessarily get
a strong signal as we were driving
across all of those states and I
couldn't duplicate the road trips out of
it but I do somehow managed to live in a
complete cellular wasteland and I was
able to pull down a consistent one of
two bars ish on LTE and that doesn't
mean much but it meant to me was that I
could make phone calls and phone calls
came in and that in itself was huge the
other big knock was price I mean this
phone goes as high as twelve hundred and
fifty bucks and that seemed insane at
the time and then the iPhone came out
told Sam something to hold its beer and
being the holiday season there are huge
discounts now to be had on the note nine
the price issue really isn't so much of
an issue anymore I've seen discounts as
much as five or six hundred bucks on
some carriers also this is going back to
our s9 review I mocked Samsung's
internet browser and I was shocked with
the passion
and though I guess love that you guys
had in the comments so while I was stuck
at home taking care of sick kids I use
internet browser exclusively and while I
still maintain it's not quite the level
of Chrome admittedly it's better than I
expected so I'm gonna be a big person
and I'm gonna I'm gonna admit that I was
wrong is is not that bad it's actually
actually pretty useful so while we're on
the topic of things that I was wrong
about but now miss IR blasters I didn't
really care much about them when they
were on Samsung phones but now that
they're gone I got an IR shaped hole in
my heart now I doubt it's ever gonna
come back to Samsung flagships but there
are some pretty awesome third-party
products that can do the same thing plus
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it's one that I've been following for
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all right so on to those camera updates
and there's been a ton of them here so
for fun I took a bunch of pictures
before the software update and then
tried to duplicate them afterwards there
was like about 30 minutes in between and
there thought that the camera launched
slow on the note 9 but it launches
noticeably quicker pictures also still
look incredible it does appear the
default saturation it's kind of a
samsung hallmark got toned down a bit to
my eye they looked a little bit
natural also the live focus so I guess
samsung's portrait mode
I thought does a really good job
especially when you have multiple people
so I had all my kids sitting on my lap
did a really nice job with focus and the
gradual background blur the HDR - which
already looked awesome seemed to improve
to my eyes but I don't know maybe it's
psychosomatic you can you can tell me in
the comments video quality on the note 9
still blows me away the speakers on this
thing are a beast and I'm surprised that
no one's talking about how good the
built-in mics are they don't sound
better they get initially but they still
sound really good and after not using
the phone for a while I personally
forgot how good Samsung screens just
look and I think it's a matter of fact
to say that Samsung makes the best
screens in mobile even the default
resolution is set to Full HD plus I also
really like how Samsung does they're
always on display and since it had been
about five weeks I also forgot how much
Samsung's default notification tone
bothers me that is the first thing I
changed when I switched to a Samsung
phone I'm still digging the launch or
even though it's gonna be different when
one UI comes I didn't install a
third-party launcher I'm still ok with
it the s-pen was nice to have I used it
just for the sake of testing thinking I
wanna take selfies was nice I don't draw
that much on the screen I know it's a
big reason people get the note phones is
for the s-pen it didn't feel giant ly
improve it for what I had before but
before it was really good the S Pen is
the best version of a stylus right now
on a phone so like take notes in your
phone the note is still gonna be good
and obviously the size didn't change but
it feels gigantic in the hand and the
back is a little bit slippery and a
warning it is not sweatpants friendly I
was on an absolute tear over the holiday
weekend losing stuff I had a minor heart
attack and thought I lost my wedding
ring and for a solid 10 minutes I was
pretty sure that I also managed to lose
the note 9 it slipped out of my pocket
and I was just killing with sweatpants
in between the couch cushions which also
means it can slip out if you are out and
about and perhaps go crashing on the
floor fortunately I haven't dropped it
yet but the back is
somehow crazy scratched but in all
fairness screen is not scratched at all
so that's good battery are still awesome
it's a 4000 million power battery and I
saw about 10% ish improvement for what I
saw when I first reviewed it so
obviously software has gotten better it
also still charges insanely fast other
things that seem improved intelligence
can unlock is also quicker I liked
having LED notification back he was nice
after coming from the 60 that got rid of
it I also still love Samsung pay
although I didn't get out to try it and
hallelujah does a headphone jack on here
that I didn't need to use over the
weekend but it's here and it's got IP 68
and they put a big battery in there the
note 9 kind of checks every single box
that you would expect performance was
still really good and if Samsung's got a
bit of a rep for slowing down over time
I don't get slowdown issues sixes are a
missed Amtrak and a 45 is generally a
recipe for speed and Samsung's got it
down
obviously with one UI hits it's gonna
get faster but no speed decreases and it
seemed like a speedy little demon at me
I felt like bad for almost forgetting
about the note 9 it is a phone that just
came out and should be considered
amongst the pantheon of the best phones
in the market not just the best Android
phones and now with huge discounts it's
even more of sort of an appealing
prospect if you want a phone that's
gonna be fast if you want a phone that's
going to have amongst the best cameras
out there and hands down have the best
screen view performance give you battery
life and at least know that some point
in the near future it is going to get
Android Pi the note 9 is an awesome
phone and I kind of don't want to forget
about it again I'm gonna keep using it
I'm gonna keep it on my desk so I can
stare at it and remember this and 1ui it
again we will do another
video so generally I'm pretty harsh and
reviews but again I want to give Sam
some credit for fixing the problems that
I had at the initial review did you guys
pick up a note 9 especially during the
holiday sales you pick one up when it
came out back in August hook to your
thoughts on it that was three months
later with the note 9 my usual plan was
to go out and about with my family and
retest the phone instead I got shut in
and got to use the phone much more than
a human being should be on a phone you
guys like Yugi visited videos let us
know in the comments down below until
next time I'm John render Zachary pretty
much you know nobody's really gotten out
of our jammas what kind of what game is
are you laying here yeah
monster Inca and daddy is just wearing
clothes we should go outside should we
know so we'll be playing with cars sick
kid let's try to do our best sick
impression okay ready you do it first
I'll do mine
you okay
but it
so how you guys feeling this weekend
yeah we've pretty much been hanging out
huh yeah you guys want to give give a
wave yeah we spent a lot of time in the
house sick and still smiling all right
bye guys
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