Samsung Galaxy Note 7
Top-of-the-range phone, but you pay for inessential gimmicks
PHONE ❘ £700 from Argos www.snipca.com/21568
This could be the best smartphone ever made, if Samsung can stop it exploding. At the time of writing, many of the 2.5 million units initially sold were being recalled because of a battery fault that could make them catch fire. This kind of issue crops up from time to time with lithium ion cells, but anyone thinking of buying a Note 7 will be looking for some serious reassurance from the company before going ahead.
When it’s not on fire, this is a beautiful phone. Samsung’s wraparound ‘Edge’ screen feels uniquely futuristic even while it’s inactive. And when you turn it on the vibrant colour (covering the full SRGB range) impresses as much as the incredibly sharp resolution. The auto-brightness mode that compensates for the AMOLED technology’s limited illumination is more powerful than on previous Galaxy devices, and the Always On facility keeps the time, date and notifications visible even while the phone is ‘off’.
What makes this a ‘Note’ is Samsung’s S Pen stylus, which pops out of a slot at the bottom when needed. Partly because of this, the whole phone is relatively bulky, but the rounded shape makes it comfortable to hold, although both the screen and the glass rear pick up fingerprints easly. The S Pen works beautifully, complemented by apps and gestures that let you annotate pages, make handwritten notes, and even highlight text in a foreign language too get an instant translation. Pressure sensitivity makes it feel more like a real pen, and palm-rejection technology avoids unintended marks.
A fingerprint sensor below the screen can unlock the phone or activate Android Pay, Google’s contactless payment system. Unusually, the Note 7 also has an iris scanner, an alternative security option which we found reliable with uncovered eyes, mostly fine with contact lenses, but tricky with glasses. In other respects the Note 7 is similar to Samsung’s S7 (see our review, Issue 473) or S7 Edge, with the same excellent 12- megapixel rear camera and very capable eight--core Exynos processor. It’s not as fast as Apple’s A9 chip, or the Snapdragon 820 in some rival Android phones, but everything ran very smoothly and the battery lasted a remarkable 22 hours of video playback. That’s the most we’ve ever got from a phone.
What’s not to like? The price. As we wrote this, the Note 7 was officially on pre-order at £739 with a free Samsung VR headset, but this deal had already sold out. A few retailers were still taking orders for the phone, at prices ranging from £700 to a frankly exploitative £920. We think this is ridiculous.
At £700, the Note 7 is priced comparably to the iphone 6s Plus (£699 from www.snipca.com/21571), which has a lower-resolution display, isn’t compatible with Apple’s Pencil stylus, lacks the iris scanner and lasts little more than half as long on a charge, but has a more powerful processor and optical image stabilisation. We could live without the Note 7’s iris scanning, or the Edge Screen icon displays that try to make the curved sides useful.
But all of these devices are too expensive. We’d like to see more affordable good-quality phones, not more extras shovelled into the top models to sustain profit margins. The Note 7 is a decent smartphone and a wonderful toy. If you have £700 to spend, go for it. Otherwise, pay half as much for a great phone like the Oneplus 3 (£329 from www.snipca.com/21572), Motorola Moto X Force (£380 from www.snipca.com/21573) or Samsung’s own Galaxy A5 (£300 from Carphone Warehouse www.snipca.com/21456) and save your money.
When it’s not on fire, it’s a decent smartphone and a wonderful toy