Samsung’s upcoming flagship, the Galaxy Note 9, is nearing its launch date of August and much like most smartphones these days, most of its specifications and design details have already been leaked.
Now, most of the rumors have been confirmed by a noted industry veteran, known as Eldar Murtazin, who managed to get his hands on a pre-production unit. He did not take any pictures, but has confirmed several things we already knew about the Note 9’s design, hardware, and functionality.
Design & Display
According to him, the Note 9 actually does look a lot like the Note 8, except some minor changes such as the rear fingerprint sensor’s placement, which has been pushed below the horizontal camera array. In addition, a similar glass finish on a metal frame will be used.
This checks out with the rumored CAD renders of the Note 9:
He also says that the Note 9 is noticeably heavier than its predecessor because of its larger battery. This also confirms early rumors, so its safe to say that it will indeed run a 4,000 mAh battery. The new battery, according to the reporter, promises 23-25 hours of video playback on maximum brightness. This is a significant improvement over the Note 8, which had a 3,300 mAh battery instead.
For the display, it’s going to be an improved 6.44-inch Super AMOLED panel, which is more bright this time for improved sunlight visibility. The pre-production unit also had Always-on display, but the feature is not fully ready yet so it might get pushed to the S10 instead.
Specifications
The reviewer also revealed that the Note 9 will have “exceptionally fast” operations, and even the pre-production unit was able to outperform most devices that were launched recently. Probably because Samsung improved the Samsung Experience UI, with some optimized animations and other changes.
This may be a surprise as historically Samsung’s TouchWiz/Experience UI has been sluggish and laggy. If true, this could be a major improvement by Samsung.
It will be powered by Samsung’s latest Exynos chipset (9810), but is likely to get a Qualcomm Snapdragon (845) version for some regions. RAM size is going to be 6 GB paired with 128 GB internal storage, but an 8 GB variant will also be available that comes with either 256 or 512 GB internal storage.
Samsung is also bringing some new features to the S Pen, Murtazin says it might have Bluetooth support and the ability to remotely unlock the Note 9. The latest stylus will have some new work modes, and some exclusive ones too for business users.
Still, these are merely leaks, and Samsung might change several things in the coming days. The Note 9 is launching on 9th of August, we’ll know for sure only then.
Via Mobile-Review (in Russian)
