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Samsung Galaxy Note 7 - Are flagship phones truly dead??

2016-09-02
what innovation is left in phones I mean what could possibly make you run out and spend nearly a thousand dollars on a cell phone when companies like oneplus and ZTE are convincing consumers that they should be able to have devices with six gigs of RAM in their pockets for less than half the cost is the answer curved glass and more ways to scan your body parts well Samsung sure hope so and let's take a closer look at the note 7 my new daily driver and the first note class device to earn that position Corsairs NL series fans feature magnetic levitation technology and custom engineered rotors to provide a high performance low noise experience if that sounds cool you can learn more at the link in the video description the S series has traditionally launched first as the mainstream performance member of the generational family with the note following months later aimed squarely at enthusiasts heavy content consumers and productivity freaks with a stylus larger screen refined software and beefier hardware specs being its usual calling cards and the note 7 continues this tradition in some ways but like the note 5 before it has broken with the community's expectations in others well the note 7 does have a larger screen a stylus and is the first to launch with Samsung's reimagined TouchWiz Grace UX spec wise it's pretty much identical to the s7 s7 active and to an even greater degree the s7 edge it rocks in Exynos 88-90 octa-core processor 4 gigs of DDR 4 RAM 64 gigs of on-board storage with microSD expansion for those wondering by the way if the dual SIM plus microSD mod from the s7 and s7 edge still works it does but the tray is more fragile now so be careful and then around the back is the same dual flash equipped 12 megapixel F 1.7 4k video primary camera that's been with us since the s7 not that I'm complaining the bump is actually more pronounced than usual but it launches lightning fast has great low-light performance has this cool auto slowdown for playback of your slow-motion clips where it detects the fast-moving part of the video and then you just fine-tune it which is kind of cool and generally continues to be my favorite smartphone camera for capturing all the moments that I do on the sides you'll find the lock button and volume buttons their tactile feedback feels quality but I wish they weren't directly opposing each other even though I'm starting to wonder if there's any point in me even continuing to say that anymore down at the bottom we find the three and a half inch headphone jack something we might not be able to take for granted for much longer a fast-charging compatible type-c connector to go along with the new gear VR a microphone port a speaker port that is loud enough but shares its non-optimal palm firing attribute with the other 5.7 inch device I keep in my pocket and finally the holder for the improved s-pen that now boasts 360 samples per second updates and 4096 pressure levels along with here's a new one IP 68 water resistance with or without the pen in its holder dam up front is another first a 5.7 inch curved Corning Gorilla Glass 5 2560 by 1440 AMOLED HD our display with almost no HDR content available I can't really comment too much on that but it looks great with everything else as usual and as for the glass well the main advantage of Corning's fifth-generation glass is supposed to be improved drop resistance from selfie levels but whether that actually works outside of a controlled lab environment and perhaps more importantly whether that comes at the cost of less scratch resistance is still a developing story that I will be keeping an eye on as someone who doesn't usually destroy phones for the sake of making a video all I can really contribute to that is that in my two weeks with the device it doesn't have a single mark whereas some of the worst that I've seen managed to get scuffed up in a pocket with my plastic headphones very considerably in that time so let's talk about what other features make the note 7 an upgrade over the s7 edge if you had your hopes up for a return to removability for the 35 milliamp hour battery sorry they're much more subtle than that the 3d glass on the back is now curved to the same degree as the front one which sounds like a very small tweak but when combined with the basically bezel-less looking front curved glass and the strong accidental touch rejection along the sides makes this aside from being in my opinion the sexiest phone to date by far the most holdable note device yet for small handed folks like me in spite of them having to make room for the s-pen inside so then on that subject well the stylus is a lot of fun to doodle with and great for screenshotting and marking up things like webpages to send to others but with that said as a non artist I don't think I'm getting the most out of it and I don't see myself paying a big premium for the privilege of using it I mean there's a lot of functionality but I've never felt the need to create a Jif out of something that I'm watching on my phone though aside from the way you need to fight with the UI of whatever you're capturing I will say it's pretty intuitive to use on top of that as a millennial I actually type or dictate much faster than I write with a pen and again maybe age is a factor here but I'd probably tell my grandparents to get something else I'm having fond memories of my briefing on the Galaxy mega right now if they really need a magnification wand in order to use their phone and glance a feature I was actually kind of excited about that let's you hover over a minimized app to refer back to it quickly would sell me on it if it was any faster than just using task switcher I tried using it for compiling a prop list and doing internet research but even in that case the multitask view would work better that is if sheets was supported anyway with that said the translate feature looks awesome if you ever translate anything which I generally don't and when it comes to the feel of using the stylus if I was the kind of person who used it a lot I would be amped about the improvements that have been made to the leg and the overall natural feeling of it so I have to give kudos there moving on it's got fast wireless charging though to be clear I still don't recommend using it when it takes literally four seconds to plug your phone into a low current one amp charger before you go to sleep which coupled with the excellent battery management of modern devices like the note 7 will get most people through all but the most demanding days but it's still a cool feature and Samsung's Wireless charge battery case is a pretty neat magnetic phone snap-on case as an option for emergencies as for the headline feature the iris scanner having spent more time with it I'm really impressed by how quickly and usually how well it works but it just didn't add anything to the experience for me whether I'm looking at my phone on my desk taking it on my pocket grabbing it from a car dock or tell wherever people keep their phones in every situation it was as fast or faster for me to get a finger on the home button instead of pointing the display at myself and adding the extra step of swiping the screen which doesn't mean it's not cool as all hell and a huge step forward for biometric authentication I just want to see a software update where I can use it as an additional authentication factor for stuff like the cool new secure folder feature I mean I'd rest easier knowing that you need my password and one of either my fingerprint or an iris scanner maybe some combination of all three in order to get into my private contacts pictures and documents on the subject of software then let's talk about grace UX XDA developers has an article declaring it to be a trash sandwich so there's that but as a heavy phone user but one who doesn't really try to do much out of the ordinary with my device the main difference I noticed was the appearance sorry Samsung software engineers who probably worked really hard on this the clipboard feature is still awesome Flipboard is still there to suck up 15 minutes of my life when I accidentally swipe to the left auto caller ID is still really cool I guess I guess there's a cool battery optimization button and you can customize your power profiles now which gives you better more granular control over the power savings of your device the always-on display can hold a shopping list or a picture and has icons for your notifications on it now though you still can't preview them like you count on Motorola devices and I guess the edge panels are neat with location contextual junk that you might want to do being the highlight for me over the default speed dial shortcut that are already in there t9 dialing is the king of absolutely everything and has made the contact list and speed dial on my phones the least access thing for years now which leaves I guess then only the conclusion interestingly one of the least watched parts of my videos so I'll try to keep it short the note 7 is really great I wouldn't pay $1000 unlocked for it personally but if I didn't have to pay for phones which I don't then it's the one that I would choose to use the charging port digs into my finger a little bit and the touch screen stylus accuracy falls away a little bit near the edges if you're trying to position a cursor but these are the biggest complaints I could come up with it's functional and beautiful with the slight adjustment to the curve making a much bigger difference to its usability than I could have possibly expected so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked do you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured like oh I don't know this phone at the link in the video description they desire to say that out of them also linked in the description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and 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