The Galaxy Note 8 is the biggest reimagining of Samsungs best smartphones for productivity, and more than enough to right the major wrongs of the recalled Note 7. This is a mega-sized mea culpa.

Our month of testing has us convinced: this is a true redesign of your average smartphone from top-to-bottom, edge-to-edge, and rear Camera to, well, rear camera. There are now two cameras on the back, a first for a Samsung flagship smartphone. It takes brilliant portrait photos, and you can even edit them post-capture to adjust the depth of field.

The S Pen stylus returns, and it has a larger 6.3-inch Infinity Display to work with but one that doesnt increase the dimensions of the actual phone too much. The Note 8 acts like a big, borderless glass canvas for your important handwritten notes and masterpiece doodles.

Watch our video review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 below. 

Why buy this instead of the 6.2-inch Galaxy S8 Plus? The extra tenth of an inch doesnt really matter, but loyal Note fans adore the S Pen functionality, power users are going to benefit from the 6GB of RAM, and we loved the superior dual-lens camera in our tests you will too.

This is the most powerful Samsung phone yet. It does, however, cost you in three ways. Its too big for some its technically Samsungs best, but not the best for everyone. Youre going to need a Note 8 case to confidently hold this unwieldy glass beast, and two hands to operate it.

The big screen also comes at the cost of the Notes usual oval-shaped fingerprint sensor home button. Its gone. The on-screen button that replaces it works fine, but the fingerprint sensor is now located on the back of the device and off-center its a textbook flawed design, and the alternative iris scanner doesnt always work when you want to unlock the phone.

Then theres the Note 8 price. If you want top-of-the-line specs, the one of the most advanced cameras, a stunning display, and streamlined multitasking on a phone, youre really going to pay for them. The Note 8 costs more than the S8 Plus, although if youre going to sink a lot of money into a device that you use everyday, you may as well go all the way.

Can your wallet, and the extent of your grip, handle the Note 8? Thats pretty much all that you if you have faith in Samsung again need to ask yourself before buying this phone.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8's biggest rival is the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, and Google's camera is slightly better but its screen is worse, in our opinion. And the all-new iPhone X launches on November 3 with a borderless display, facial recognition and an equally sizable prize tag, but that requires switching over from Android to iOS 11.

The Note 8 rules supreme in the big-screen, big-power, big-price arena, as we'll demonstrate in our full review.

Price and release date

• At $929 (£869, AU$1,499), it's the most expensive phone you'll buy
• Deals for have popped up before Black Friday and Cyber Monday 
• Released on September 15 in US and UK, September 22 in Australia

The Galaxy Note 8 release date was Friday, September 15 in the US and UK, while Australia will got the new phone on September 22.

The official Note 8 price is $929 (£869, AU$1,499), and US carriers have it for as much as $40 a month for 24 months, though wed suggest getting the unlocked, carrier-agnostic version. The best deal we can find is on Amazon US for $914.

Either way, its going to be the most expensive smartphone youve ever bought. The Galaxy S8 Plus, for comparison, cost $829 (£779, AU$1,349) at launch, but you can now get Plus for around $750 in the US, while Galaxy S8 deals make the smaller version almost half the price of the Note 8.

Good news, though: you can already find Galaxy Note 8 deals in the US and also in the UK. At launch in the US, it came with either a free Gear 360 camera or a 128GB memory card and fast wireless charger. We expect similar repeat deals.

In the UK the freebie was a DeX docking station, and theres a dual-SIM version available. Best Buy is also offering $150 off the phone, and T-Mobile offers a $200 rebate via Samsung Pay offer and throws in a free Samsung tablet.

Design and display

• 6.3-inch 'Infinity Display' redefines the Note look and feel
• But it's 9mm taller than any Note phone it's the new big
• Water-resistant up to 1.5m (5ft) for 30 minutes
• The best color, Deep Sea Blue, won't launch right away

The Note 8 maximizes Samsungs dual curved edge and nearly bezel-less Infinity Display to the point where this phone feels like a mini tablet from the future. Its impressive-looking, but also big and heavy 9mm taller than any previous Note phone, and 195g.

Stretching your fingers is well worth if you can physically manage it. Its expansive 6.3-inch display now without a physical home button has an unheard-of 83% screen-to-body ratio. The iPhones have a 67% screen-to-body ratio for comparison. That's a lot less screen for such big phones, at least until iPhone 8 arrives to change everything. 

Samsung keeps topping itself, launching phones with the worlds best display every six months. Its maximum brightness, 3K resolution with Mobile HDR Premium, and wider color gamut are hard for anyone else to compete with. It's Always-On Display continues to be an appealing feature in a smartphone.

Lit up, the all-screen Note 8 feels like were carrying around a piece of light when were out and about. It's much better than the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL display, Google's biggest weakness.

The entire front glows with unimpeded information as long as you dont drop and crack it, and youll need to be extra careful as the entire phone is enveloped in glass wrapped around an aluminum frame. Combined with its size, this makes for one slippery smartphone.

While we spent most of the time using this phone naked (thats without a case), we did test several Note 8 cases and instantly felt more confident carrying it around. Why? The added grip (and peace of mind) let us operate it with one hand, whereas we struggled with the pure glass body at such tall and wide dimensions. Sorry youre going to need a case with this phone.

There are very few Note 8 colors. It comes in muted tones of Midnight Black and Orchid Gray, while the Maple Gold and Deep Sea Blue colors will launch in other regions, which will likely come out later this year or early next year if you dont see them yet; Samsung, annoyingly, refreshes its phones with new colors after a few months, much to the chagrin of loyal early adopters.

You also wont get the best sound from the Note 8. It's a multimedia powerhouse visually, but its bottom-firing speaker still had us cupping the bottom of the phone to get better audio. Samsung has yet to deliver dual front-facing speakers like the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, or customizable Hi-Fi audio like the LG V30. Maybe next year.

The Note 8 is IP68 water-resistant, so it can survive up to 1.5m (5ft) underwater for 30 minutes, and it uses the reversible USB-C standard. Both are new perks for most Note fans. Theres also no camera bump, and that gaudy Samsung logo has been moved to the rear, no longer staring you in the face. Unfortunately, the fingerprint sensor has moved there, too.

The fingerprint sensor has marginally improved

• No physical home button means a rear fingerprint sensor
• It's further away from the camera vs the S8 and S8 Plus sensor
• Iris scanner and face unlock are poor substitutes 

We hate the fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy Note 8, just as we did on the S8 and S8 Plus. Maybe a tiny bit less, but we still dont like its off-center rear location for the same reason: we keep blindly smudging the far-too-close dual-lens camera. Its really difficult to unlock the phone.

Whats improved slightly? The offset fingerprint sensor and center-aligned camera are a few milimeters further away from each other. Samsung wisely moved the flash and heart rate monitor in between the sensor (which requires your fingerprints) and the camera (which always gets fingerprint smudges all over it). That built-in heart rate monitor you forget still existed on Samsung phones now serves a purpose again.

Samsungs unlocking alternatives dont work as advertised. Face unlock has proven to be less secure, so much so that we dont even suggest using it. And while you wont fool the iris scanner, it wont recognize you wearing sunglasses, or walking and holding the phone at the improper distance.

Its ironic that we have a phone that looks like it comes from the future, yet its been designed with a fingerprint sensor thats become a textbook design misfire on smartphones. Samsung could fix this issue with an in-glass front fingerprint sensor, but the technology isnt ready yet. Expect this to be a grand announcement for the Galaxy S9 or Note 9 please act surprised.

The S Pen is full of new and old tricks

• Easy to sign documents and write directly on screenshots
• Note-taking expands with convenient off-screen memos
• Live Messages, GIF Capture add fun to this productivity tool

There are two types of people in the world those who will use the Note 8s S Pen, and those who think theyre going to use it, but will stop taking it out of its holster after about a week. Its like everyones desire to own a Fitbit you had good intentions when you set out to buy it.

Anyone who sticks with the S Pen, however, will get their moneys worth from the Note 8. We signed a PDF contract last week without having to print or scan it in fact, we didnt even have to leave the email app. We also jotted down handwritten notes and took screenshots that we were instantly able to mark up.

Plus the S Pen is also great for sketching with over 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity.

These features usually reserved for pro-level tablets or 2-in-1 computers are even handier on a phone. After all, the best note-taking device is the one you have with you all the time.

Frequent note-takers will love the off-screen memo feature, which lets you jot down white-ink notes on the turned-off black screen as soon as you eject the S Pen. Off-screen memos, introduced with the doomed Note 7, enable you to capture your thoughts without having to unlock the phone first.

The Note 7 also debuted S Pen features like GIF Capture and Translate, but these will be new to most Note 8 users. And new to the Note 8 is the ability to write out Live Messages, creating sparkly animations that you can send to anyone in GIF form. 

If the S Pen lets you skip a few archaic steps like printing, finding a working pen, and scanning a document the Note 8 may be worth the extra $105 over the similarly sized S8 Plus.

Specs and performance

• Impossible to slow down thanks to the new 6GB of RAM
• The Snapdragon 835 chip is fast. The Exynos chip is faster
• 64GB, but includes a microSD card slot for extra storage

The Galaxy Note 8 is the fastest Samsung phone you can buy thanks to its souped-up internal specs, including the all-new 6GB of RAM and latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset. In the UK and other regions its even faster, courtesy of Samsungs Exynos chipsets.

We couldnt slow this phone down if we tried and we did try. Running Geekbench software, the Note 8 CPU averaged a 6,524 multi-core score under normal use.

We couldnt even get below the 6,000 mark when weighing it down by downloading a ridiculous number of apps, running Google Maps and playing music in the background all at the same time (6,164 was the lowest we hit).

This is much faster than our S8 Plus tests, which finally did break the 6,000 barrier, but under ideal conditions.

All of this is awesome news for multitaskers and power-users who want to fully take advantage of this S Pen-equipped device and harness the productivity benefits of the plug-and-play DeX docking station. And while the Note 8 comes with just the one storage option 64GB of internal storage it includes a microSD card slot for expansion. Its not lacking in any way productivity-wise.

Interface and apps

• Streamlined menus make for the best Samsung interface yet
• App Pairing opens up multitasking windows more quickly
• No timetable on the Android 8.0 Oreo update

While everyone waits for Googles Android Oreo update, Samsungs software is just as good, and in some cases even better. Its steadily been burying its TouchWiz menu complexities and app bloatware; you shouldnt dismiss Samsung anymore for its past software mistakes.

The Note 8 showcases the best of its Samsung Experience software, touting a finely balanced interface thats streamlined, yet has more options than stock Android 7.0 Nougat. Its menus are laid out logically and, when you cant find something, theres always a helpful suggestion.

Our favorite new feature is App Pairing. Its a new custom slide out menu that removes a step to multitasking, launching two apps at the same time. Real-life examples where this has helped included being on a video call, and needing to constantly reference emails (Hangouts + Gmail). Likewise, if you're constantly cross-references who's looking at your LinkedIn profile with Facebook, you can immediately launch both, one on top one of bottom, with App Pairing.

Bixby was great that one time it worked right

• Bixby could be better than Siri and Assistant, but isn't
• It can fully execute commands, replacing the need for touch 
• The biggest problem? It'll have trouble understanding you
• Bixby 2.0 is on the way, Samsung announced in October

“Blow the pooper app” is what Bixby heard. What we actually said was “Download the Uber app”, on a New York City street that wasnt particularly loud. We were 80% amused and 20% annoyed at its mistake, but, since we were carrying heavy stuff and clutching a large phone, those percentages flipped after about five ill-fated attempts.

This is Samsungs voice-powered virtual assistant in a nutshell. It has a lot of potential, and is leagues smarter than the companys S Voice software, but the execution isnt as smooth as Apples Siri or Googles Assistant just yet. It would be better than its rivals if it could just understand us.

When it did finally nail “Download the Uber app”, it fulfilled Samsungs promise of “Anything you can do with touch, you can do with Bixby.” How? It navigated to Googles app store, downloaded the Uber app and I was ready to go. Siri and Assistant both were a stop short by comparison, requiring you to hit buttons to install the app.

Samsung is so invested in Bixby that its included a Bixby button on the left side of Note 8, below the volume rocker. It cant be remapped and, oddly, you have to press and hold this button in while talking to Bixby, as if this was the worlds most expensive walkie talkie. Worrying about holding in this button is a difficult ask when youre on foot or in a car. By comparison, the Google Pixel 2 XL and Pixel 2 launch Google Assistant by squeezing the sides of the phone, resulting in far fewer accidental presses, or squeezes.

Bixby doesnt have trouble hearing just hearing things correctly. While running our battery life test, it constantly interrupted (forcing a do-over), thinking the news channel I was watching was talking about Bixby every minute. Sorry, Bixby, youre not that popular or newsworthy just yet.

Thankfully, Samsung announced Bixby 2.0 during the Samsung Developers Conference in October, and we await Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant-rivaling improvements and expansion.

Camera

• Two 12MP cameras with optical image stabilization best iPhone 7 Plus
• We loved its 2x optical zoom for telephoto pictures, portrait photos
• Its 4K video quality and OIS are great, but LG offers more controls

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 camera is the best on any phone weve tested for three reasons: it captures clear, colorful photos, has a brilliant new bokeh (background blur) effect, and it sets you up with an easy-to-use, yet full-featured camera app.

Having two rear cameras makes a world of difference for bokeh-rich Live Focus photos. This is Samsungs answer to the iPhone 7 Plus portrait mode. It too blurs photo backgrounds, which reduces photobombing distractions and lets your important subject stand out. Dont worry though, it saves both the zoomed-in Live Focus photo and the wider original photo by default, which is a unique and welcome touch.

Whats different is that Samsung lets you adjust the depth of field blur. A bokeh slider bar is displayed when youre taking the photo, and it doesnt go away after youve snapped the picture. Having more control over this background blur effect further highlights the power of two cameras.

Samsungs telephoto lens is also better. Its second rear cameras 2x optical zoom benefits from optical image stabilization (OIS). OIS means the internal lens actually moves to compensate for your shaky hands, and its something the iPhones telephoto camera lacks. The Note 8 makes great strides in reducing photographers remorse.

Samsungs quick camera launch feature (previously double-tap the home button on the Note series) has moved to the power button, and its nearly as convenient. We also appreciate the ability to quickly flip between the rear and selfie cameras by simply flicking the screen up or down. No more hunting for that pesky camera flip button.

The Note 8 has no shortage of photo modes: Auto, Pro, Panorama and Food, while missing favorites can be downloaded from the Galaxy App Store. Theres also a new Full View camera option, which caters to the dimensions of Snapchat and Instagram Stories.

The only thing we dislike? The fact that the timer is now hidden in the settings menu. You can activate the camera timer with a hand gesture, but it doesnt always work immediately, and often makes you look like an idiot in public.

Video options include recording in 4K with smooth OIS, but while the Note 8 crisply captures everything directly in front of you, the LG V30 outclasses it with more manual and cinematic video controls. LGs new Point Zoom ability lets you choose where to zoom in, while on the Note 8, you can just zoom into the center of the screen. Samsungs video options include the more usual modes, like Slow Motion and Hyperlapse.

Battery life

• Smaller 3,300mAh battery has Samsung going conservative
• All-day battery life, but depletes faster and charges slower

The Note 8 battery doesnt explode or at least it hasnt after about two weeks of extensive testing. We even tried to overclock it by cycling through many power-hungry apps. No dice.

Everything is safer, according to Samsung. Its eight-point battery safety check, introduced in the wake of the Note 7 debacle, set strict rules for the S8, S8 Plus and Note 8 battery review process.

Whats more obvious is that Samsung isnt pushing the battery life boundaries of the sizable Note 8. It has a 3,300mAh battery, while the Note 7 and S8 Plus have a 3,500mAh power pack.

Youll still get all-day battery life, and Samsungs power-saving software tricks can can extend that to slightly over 24 hours. However, our on-screen tests showed a noticeable drop in the Note 8s ability to hold onto power, partly due to its intense brightness and wider 18.5:9 screen.

For once, Samsung isnt pushing the envelope on battery life with the Note 8. Instead, the Asus Zenfone 3 Zoom is the one touting a 5,000mAh battery behind a 5.5-inch screen. Thats a shame but in Samsungs embattled eyes its a case of better safe than sorry.

The Note 8 also dials back on rapid charging. Its still a Fast Charging device, but during our tests it took longer (115 mins) to charge with the included USB-C cable. And, remember, it has a smaller battery so it technically should be faster than S8 Plus (101 mins) and Note 7 (98 mins) charge times. Clearly Samsung doesnt want to make the same mistake twice. 

Fact: wireless charging is great but its never fast. Testing Samsungs newest Fast Charge Wireless Convertible pad, it brought the Note 8 to 100% after two hours and 35 minutes (155 minutes). You should know this before buying a wireless charging pad if you want it for anything other than convenience.

Big battery sizes used to be a defining Note phone feature until the Note 7 became defined by its disastrous battery. All-day battery life is good enough, but the Note does feels like its missing a hallmark feature. Were paying here for the sins of the 7.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is the best big phone you can buy. For once, its more than just the size of the screen and the power of the S Pen that count. It also captures superior telephoto and bokeh-rich photos with its new dual-lens array, and it clocks in faster with 6GB of RAM.

There a price to pay, however. Its a taller phone with a steeper price tag. It takes a lot of finger-stretching to reach the outer edges of the screen, and costs more money than any previous Note phone. Youre also only getting all-day battery life thats lower than expected, probably thanks to last years recall. Its less, shall we say, Note-worthy.

The Note 8 is Samsungs big phone homecoming, its dual-lens camera debut and its 6GB of RAM premier wrapped into one. It makes quite an entrance. Lets just hope it doesnt make another quick exit.

Whos it for?

Can you handle the Note 8 size and price? Yes? Then this phone is for you. Theres more screen than ever, it has the best camera on a phone and you cant slow it down. Its Samsungs best but it cant be recommended to everyone.

Upgrading from an old Note? Its a big jump from 2015s Note 5, the last Note with more than a two-month lifespan. And for those in the UK, its the first Note since the plastic-clad Note 4. Its going to be like upgrading to the future and sorry, futuristic inflation rates apply.

Competition

Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus

We liked the S8 Plus six months ago and still do, but were in favor of you buying the Note 8. Why? Because if youre going to spend this much money on a Samsung phone, you might as well get the very best. They both have sizable all-screen displays, fast chipsets and stunning cameras, but only the Note 8 has the dual-lens camera, 6GB of RAM and the S Pen. For the extra $105, youre more futureproofed.

iPhone 7 Plus

Apple is about to retire the iPhone 7 Plus as its flagship, but it features a dual-lens camera with a similar telephoto lens and bokeh-rich portrait photos. Theres no optical image stabilization on the telephoto lens, and we just plain like the Samsung camera more these days. But Apples phone is and this is shocking a lot cheaper at $769, and current iPhone 7 Plus deals make it even less expensive. Plus, once iMessages and Apples streamlined ecosystem get a hold of you, its hard to leave.

LG V30

Hear me out. This LG smartphone is worth looking into for one reason, even if youre a lifelong camp Samsung supporter: the V30 has more robust video features. It may not take better photos in the end, but we dig its wide dual-lens camera, and LG finally put an OLED display inside second all-screen phone. It doesnt have a stylus, but will launch with a lower price tag than the Note 8 at the end of this month.

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