Hardware

The Galaxy Note 8 marks a big, but cautious return for Samsung

Comment

Image Credits:

In the wake of the smoldering, ongoing mess that was the Note 7, there was an open question about whether Samsung would maintain the brand. After two recalls totaling one million phones in the U.S. and an endless parade of bad headlines, it was a PR nightmare from which is seemed it might be impossible to return.

For Samsung, however, it seems there was never any question. The Note would be back, and it would be bigger than ever. Unveiled today at an event in New York City, the Note 8 brings an even bigger screen than its predecessor, at 6.3 inches to the Note 7’s 5.7 inches. That’s a full inch larger than the original Galaxy Note, which seemed impossibly large when it debuted back in 2011.

The phone’s giant surface means, among other things, more room for cameras. With the Note 8, the company has finally embraced the dual rear-facing camera trend. Rather than sporting a secondary black and white lens for improved picture quality (à la the Moto Z and Essential handset), the company has adopted the more tried and true wide angle lens, coupled with a telephoto lens (both 12 megapixels).

Interestingly, the phone actually keeps two copies of each photo by default. That means you get a close-up version and one that shows the entirety of the background. It also means you can continue to futz with the image’s depth of field after the picture is taken, along with preview mode. Of course, saving twice the images effectively doubles the storage space they occupy — though with 64GB of on-board storage expandable up to 256GB, that may be a moot point for many.

None of the additions are radical upgrades from the last Note. In fact, it seems that company has added features as a way of helping distinguish the device from the rest of the Galaxy 8 family. Those lines certainly blurred when the company introduced the S8+, which eclipsed the Note 7 with a 5.8-inch screen and was seen by many as a surrogate while the original Samsung phablet was temporarily off the market.

The lines are further blurred by the unification of design language that really kicked into place with the Galaxy S7. That, coupled with the implementation of the Infinity Display across the line, meant the Note would have to do more to set itself apart and justify more premium pricing. The key differentiators here are screen size, the addition of a second camera and, of course, that iconic staple, the S Pen.

This time out, Samsung’s stylus (don’t call it a stylus), has a thinner tip and increased pressure sensitivity. It’s also learned a couple of neat new tricks, like infinite scrolling for screen memos while the display is off and the ability to create animated GIFs out of handwritten notes. None of this is particularly groundbreaking — if anything, it’s an exercise in caution.

I asked a rep for the company if he could point to any ways in which the battery issues of the past year impacted the design of this model. The answer primarily revolved around the safety checks the company has been detailing for half a year, coupled with added third-party testing from Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the safety checking organization with the ubiquitous seal of approval.

Beyond the safety checks, though, it certainly seems as if Samsung’s practicing an abundance of caution here. The Note 8 doesn’t bombard the user with new features the way its predecessor did, and many of the updates on board were already introduced in the S8/S8+. That list includes Bixby, which once again has its own devoted button on the side of the phone. Though this time out, it has the decided advantage of actually launching with the voice functionality that was sorely missed with the S8 launch.

Samsung tells me that around 30 percent of S8 owners have since enabled that functionality with the update. The company says that’s higher than they anticipated, but that doesn’t actually strike me as a deluge of consumer confidence around Samsung’s proprietary smart assistant. Perhaps shipping with it out of the box will help drive that number up.

In terms of caution, there’s no more obvious example of this than the battery. At 3,300 mAh, it’s a step down from the Note 7 and S8+, both of which sported 3,500 mAh. Samsung says the new processor means users will still be able to get “all day battery life” and that the decision was made in order to keep the phone’s footprint down and make room for the S Pen. But it certainly feels like the company made a concerted effort not to fly too close to the sun this time out.

In spite of all that’s transpired in the past year, Samsung doesn’t appear to have any doubt about consumer willingness to embrace the Note line once again. In a brief ahead of today’s announcement, the company showcased an ad tied to the device intended to reflect that confidence. In it, customers discuss how much they love their Notes, and how bummed they were to surrender them. “They literally had to make me release the Note 7,” one tells the camera.

It’s intended to impart the idea that Note loyalists were less angry or disappointed about the whole exploding battery business than they were the fact that they had to give up their devices. Perhaps there’s enough water under the bridge at this point, but it feels similarly tone-deaf as the “Give the People What They Want” ads the company ran when it announced its new safety check system.

But the company insists that internal surveys have identified a sort of unwavering loyalty toward the brand, and most analysts anticipate that the Note 7 debacle will ultimately prove little more than a blip on the radar for the line. Certainly Samsung’s financials over the past few quarters bolster the image of a company that barely even stumbled, even after the Note 7 became part of pre-boarding announcements on every flight.

That said, the company isn’t offering any specific incentives for Note 7 buyers/surrenderers. Or at least it hasn’t announced them at the time of this writing. Instead, it will be offering the usual incentives for those who get in early, bundling the phone with either the new Gear 360 camera or a combo memory card and charging base for users who order the phone before September 24.

Pre-orders start tomorrow. The phone will start shipping September 15. Pricing is still forthcoming.

More TechCrunch

India’s Oyo, once valued at $10 billion, has withdrawn its IPO application from the market regulator for the second time.

Oyo, once valued at $10 billion, shelves IPO plans for second time

Where Aytac Yilmaz lives in the Netherlands, the sun might not appear for days on end, which can really crimp the output of the country’s solar panels. Wind turbines might…

Ore Energy emerges from stealth to build utility-scale batteries that last days, not hours

Paytm, a leading financial services firm in India, said its net loss widened in the fourth quarter as it grappled with a regulatory clampdown.

Paytm warns of job cuts as losses swell after RBI clampdown

Government officials and AI industry executives agreed on Tuesday to apply elementary safety measures in the fast-moving field and establish an international safety research network. Nearly six months after the…

In Seoul summit, heads of states and companies commit to AI safety

Copilot, Microsoft’s brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.

Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs

Some startups choose to bootstrap from the beginning while others find themselves forced into self funding by a lack of investor interest or a business model that doesn’t fit traditional…

VCs wanted FarmboxRx to become a meal kit, the company bootstrapped instead

Uber and Lyft drivers in Minnesota will see higher pay thanks to a deal between the state and the country’s two largest ride-hailing companies. The upshot: a new law that…

Uber’s and Lyft’s ride-hailing deal with Minnesota comes at a cost

Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism fund has established a new fellowship program aimed at introducing top engineers and technologists to venture investing, a move that could help the firm identify less…

a16z’s American Dynamism team launches program to introduce technical minds to VC

Another fintech startup, and its customers, has been gravely impacted by the implosion of banking-as-a-service startup Synapse. Copper Banking, a digital banking service aimed at teens, notified its customers on…

Teen fintech Copper had to abruptly discontinue its banking, debit products

Autodesk — the 3D tools behemoth — has acquired Wonder Dynamics, a startup that lets creators quickly and easily make complex characters and visual effects using AI-powered image analysis. The…

Autodesk acquires AI-powered VFX startup Wonder Dynamics

Farcaster, a blockchain-based social protocol founded by two Coinbase alumni, announced on Tuesday that it closed a $150 million fundraise. Led by Paradigm, the platform also raised money from a16z…

Farcaster, a crypto-based social network, raised $150M with just 80K daily users

Microsoft announced on Tuesday during its annual Build conference that it’s bringing “Windows Volumetric Apps” to Meta Quest headsets. The partnership will allow Microsoft to bring Windows 365 and local…

Microsoft’s new ‘Volumetric Apps’ for Quest headsets extend Windows apps into the 3D space

The spam reached Bluesky by first crossing over two other decentralized networks: Mastodon and Nostr.

The ‘vote Trump’ spam that hit Bluesky in May came from decentralized rival Nostr

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the continued fallout from Synapse’s bankruptcy, how Layer wants to disrupt SMB accounting, and much more! To get a roundup of…

There’s a real appetite for a fintech alternative to QuickBooks

The company is hoping to produce electricity at $13 per megawatt hour, which would be more than 50% cheaper than traditional onshore wind.

Bill Gates-backed wind startup AirLoom is raising $12M, filings reveal

Generative AI makes stuff up. It can be biased. Sometimes it spits out toxic text. So can it be “safe”? Rick Caccia, the CEO of WitnessAI, believes it can. “Securing…

WitnessAI is building guardrails for generative AI models

It’s not often that you hear about a seed round above $10 million. H, a startup based in Paris and previously known as Holistic AI, has announced a $220 million…

French AI startup H raises $220M seed round

Hey there, Series A to B startups with $35 million or less in funding — we’ve got an exciting opportunity that’s tailor-made for your growth journey! If you’re looking to…

Boost your startup’s growth with a ScaleUp package at TC Disrupt 2024

TikTok is pulling out all the stops to prevent its impending ban in the United States. Aside from initiating legal action against the U.S. government, that means shaping up its…

As a US ban looms, TikTok announces a $1M program for socially driven creators

Microsoft wants to put its Copilot everywhere. It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft renames its annual Build developer conference to Microsoft Copilot. Hopefully, some of those upcoming events…

Microsoft’s Power Automate no-code platform adds AI flows

Build is Microsoft’s largest developer conference and of course, it’s all about AI this year. So it’s no surprise that GitHub’s Copilot, GitHub’s “AI pair programming tool,” is taking center…

GitHub Copilot gets extensions

Microsoft wants to make its brand of generative AI more useful for teams — specifically teams across corporations and large enterprise organizations. This morning at its annual Build dev conference,…

Microsoft intros a Copilot for teams

Microsoft’s big focus at this year’s Build conference is generative AI. And to that end, the tech giant announced a series of updates to its platforms for building generative AI-powered…

Microsoft upgrades its AI app-building platforms

The U.K.’s data protection watchdog has closed an almost year-long investigation of Snap’s AI chatbot, My AI — saying it’s satisfied the social media firm has addressed concerns about risks…

UK data protection watchdog ends privacy probe of Snap’s GenAI chatbot, but warns industry

U.S. cell carrier Patriot Mobile experienced a data breach that included subscribers’ personal information, including full names, email addresses, home ZIP codes and account PINs, TechCrunch has learned. Patriot Mobile,…

Conservative cell carrier Patriot Mobile hit by data breach

It’s been three years since Spotify acquired live audio startup Betty Labs, and yet the music streaming service isn’t leveraging the technology to its fullest potential — at least not…

Spotify’s ‘Listening Party’ feature falls short of expectations

Alchemist Accelerator has a new pile of AI-forward companies demoing their wares today, if you care to watch, and the program itself is making some international moves into Tokyo and…

Alchemist’s latest batch puts AI to work as accelerator expands to Tokyo, Doha

“Late Pledge” allows campaign creators to continue collecting money even after the campaign has closed.

Kickstarter now lets you pledge after a campaign closes

Stack AI’s co-founders, Antoni Rosinol and Bernardo Aceituno, were PhD students at MIT wrapping up their degrees in 2022 just as large language models were becoming more mainstream. ChatGPT would…

Stack AI wants to make it easier to build AI-fueled workflows

Pinecone, the vector database startup founded by Edo Liberty, the former head of Amazon’s AI Labs, has long been at the forefront of helping businesses augment large language models (LLMs)…

Pinecone launches its serverless vector database out of preview