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Samsung Galaxy Note 9 full review: amazing battery life, best Android camera and finally a speedy user experience

The Note 9’s 4,000mAh battery is the largest in a non-Chinese phone and a Snapdragon 845 processor means Samsung’s UI can finally be described as smooth. The fingerprint scanner still doesn’t feel right though

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The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 with its 6.4-inch curved Super AMOLED display and S Pen stylus which now has Bluetooth functionality. Photo: Ben Sin

The exploding battery fiasco practically killed the Galaxy Note 7 release in 2016, but Samsung has put that firmly behind them.

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The company has given its latest flagship, the Note 9, a 4,000mAh battery, which is 700mAh larger than last year’s Note 8 and 500mAh larger than the company’s latest S Plus counterpart, the S9 Plus. More important, however, is that it is the battery with the largest capacity in a non-Chinese flagship phone.

Other than this major battery bump, the rest of the Note 9’s improvements are subtle, borderline inconsequential. So will the Note 9 be enough to keep Samsung at the top?

Design and hardware

Other than a relocated fingerprint scanner and a display that is 0.1 inches larger, visually there is almost no difference between the Note 9 and Note 8.

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The in-hand feel is mostly the same too, as the screen size difference is minuscule. If you’ve held a Note 8, you’ve held a Note 9. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; both the Note 8 and 9 are very well-built devices, if a bit bulky and blocky.

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