Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) Specifications, Tests and Review

The Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) has dimensions 163 mm × 74.7 mm × 8.64 mm. Its weight is 194 g. A feature worth highlighting is definitely the water resistance of the phone.

The screen size reaches 6.3" inches. With a large display, phone offers a great experience for watching videos, playing games and reading. The best phones today are 6.5'' or more. They have the advantage of a large display area that allows you to see more content than with conventional display sizes. Owing to OLED technology, the display offers a true representation of colours, especially black. The resulting contrast is significantly higher and colours appear more vivid. OLED technology is now part of most smartphones, while LCD displays are becoming a thing of the past in mobile phones. OLED displays also have lower power consumption compared to LCD technology.

Display Resolution of Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) is 2960 x 1440 pixels. A higher display resolution is a prerequisite for a sharper image. The standard for mid-range phones today is a Full HD resolution of 1920 × 1080 px. Cheaper phones, which usually have a smaller diagonal, have an HD resolution of 1280 × 720 px. Smaller resolutions can only be found in older models. Best phones, on the other hand, have a 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160 px. Another important factor having impact on the final image is display´s pixel density. In case of this model, the value reaches 521 ppi. With pixel density, the higher the value, the sharper the image will be. On average today, the image fineness value is around 350-400 ppi. This will guarantee a sufficiently fine and sharp image for normal use. However, the best phones on the market today are equipped with pixel density of 450 ppi or higher.

Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) is supplied with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835. The number of processor cores is 8. It is a number of cores that plays an important role in evaluating the performance of phone as it is responsible for computing operations. Smartphones already commonly have a core count of around 4 to 8. Multi-core processors can perform better and reduce the processing time of a request to a minimum, which is reflected in the responsiveness of the phone, e.g. in the speed of opening applications. Another important parameter is the processor frequency, which indicates how many instructions the phone can process in one second. Similar to refresh rate, the higher the number, the faster the phone responds. Processor frequency of phone Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) is 2.35 GHz. As standard today, you'll find this value between 1.8 GHz and 2.8 GHz.

One of the most important parameters for user´s decision is often internal memory capacity. The larger it is, the more apps, photos, movies and other files your phone can store. This phone has 64 GB storage. It is currently the most common storage size among today´s smartphones. The capacity is perfectly adequate for the average user. It will allow you to store thousands of photos, high-resolution videos, dozens of apps and several games on your phone. But if you're one of those really demanding users and you use your phone to shoot 4K videos etc., then you should rather pay extra to have a larger storage of 256 GB or more. Nowadays, you can usually find one phone model on the market with several different memory sizes. This allows each user to choose what suits them best.

For this model it is possible to increase the storage size by inserting a memory card.

Size of the RAM memory tells us how powerful the phone is. Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) is equipped with LPDDR4 SDRAM - 6 GB. Commonly today you will find phones with 6 to 8 GB of RAM. This means that the phone can easily handle normal operation and more demanding applications or games. Higher RAM of 12 GB can be found in best phones on market and are ideal especially for avid gamers. On the other hand, operating memory below 4 GB is more of an issue with lower-end phones and older models. However, even they will find their fans among less demanding users, who don´t want to spend much on buying new phone.

The rear camera of the phone Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) has 2 lenses. Today's modern phones usually have several rear lenses. The most common are macro lens, telephoto lens and wide-angle lens. Each is used to capture the perfect photo - macro lens is designed for close-up photography, telephoto lens, often equipped with an optical zoom, is for photos of objects in distance, and wide-angle lens captures larger areas where you need a wider field of view. The main lens is designed as Wide-angle lens. The resolution of main lens is 12 Megapixel. Nonetheless, resolution alone does not necessarily mean a good photo. Therefore, you should look at other parameters such as lens aperture or pixel size.

The size of the camera's sensor also influences the final quality of the photos. Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835)´s main lens is designed with a sensor size of 1/2.55". The higher the value after the slash, the higher the resulting photo quality. Another important factor is the aperture, which in this case is F/1.7 and determines how much light passes through the sensor. Best phones have an aperture of up to F/1.5. But the most common lenses today are F/1.8 to F/2.2. In this case, the lower the number after the slash, the higher the photo quality.

Digital zoom in this case offers zooming up to 10x. Of course, the higher the lens value, the more distant object can be zoomed in. Nonetheless, the disadvantage of digital zoom is that the quality and sharpness of photo deteriorates when using it. You should also pay attention to optical zoom, as it is far more important than the digital zoom. Its main advantage is that image does not lose quality or sharpness as you zoom in. Optical zoom in this case is 2x. An undeniable advantage is the optical image stabilisation, which makes image significantly more stable without any loss in quality. Cheaper phone models are equipped with electronic stabilisation, which has a negative effect on the resulting image quality. Many people will also benefit from the facial recognition feature. In translation it means the camera can recognise face of person in the frame and automatically focus on it.

Second camera
The second lens of rear camera is designed as Telephoto lens. The resolution reaches size of 12 Megapixel. In addition, this lens also features lens aperture of F/2.4.

Front camera
The front camera of phone Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) has one lens. This number of lenses is standard on most smartphones nowadays. The main front lens is designed as a Wide-angle lens. The lens is equipped with 8 Megapixel. However, do not forget there are other factors than resolution having impact on the final quality of front camera photos. The main front lens also achieves F/1.7.

The battery size of Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) is 3300 mAh. Nevertheless, battery capacity is not the only factor that affects the phone's battery life. For example - the size of the display, the performance of the processor, the use of data functions and, of course, the intensity of use of phone in general all have a significant impact on battery life. Standard for most smartphones today is a battery capacity of around 4500 to 5000 mAH. Phones with this battery size usually guarantee a phone life of at least 1 day. Older or cheaper smartphone models can then reach battery capacities typically around 2500 mAH and below. With this capacity, you may find that if you use your phone heavily, you may need to recharge your phone during the day. Many users will also welcome the wireless charging feature. Wireless charging keeps your phone from overheating and also protects the connector from wear and tear. On the other hand, it does cause some power loss.

Standard 4G connectivity is currently being replaced by 5G, but is still the preserve of the latest phones. Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835) supports 4G. 3G connectivity is now only found in the oldest phones. The operating system in the case of this model is Android 7.1.1 Nougat. Among other benefits It also includes payment technology Samsung Pay.

Contactless payments are not a problem with this phone, thanks to NFC function. It can also be used, for example, to unlock doors or load menus in a restaurant using an NFC tag. Bluetooth 5.0 LE must not be missing from the basic package. It makes it easy to connect wireless headphones to your phone, connect your phone to your TV, tablet, speaker and more.