If you didn’t hear, Samsung officially unveiled their newest flagship today, the Galaxy Note7. While it retains many of the same design cues of the previous iteration, there’s a lot of stuff that’s been improved with the newest version. Today we’ll be taking a quick look at these changes, and what it means for prospective buyers when the phone goes on sale on August 20.
Overall width has gone down, making it easier to hold one handed
The Galaxy Note series of phones have always emphasized the big screen experience over everything else. But phones with big screens aren’t easy to hold. The 5.7-inch Note7 is no exception but since it’s shed a few mm in its overall girth (73.9 vs. 76.1 over the Note5) it doesn’t feel as awkward to hold one handed compared to the Note 5.
Curved edge-to-edge display
That overall smaller width is possible thanks to the edge-to-edge curved display that’s similar to the Galaxy S7 Edge. And just like the S7 Edge, the Note7 also has edge display capabilities, allowing you quick access to your most used apps, as well as being able to quickly access your favorite contacts with a swipe of the screen.
Fast, accurate iris scanner
Probably the headline feature of the Galaxy Note7 is the iris scanner. Samsung’s put a secondary camera on the front of the Note7 along with the 5-megapixel front camera that reads the iris of your eyes, adding another layer of biometric security to an already pretty ironclad phone. We were blown away by how incredibly fast the scanner detected our eyes and unlocked the phone, which beats out the fingerprint tech embedded on the home button of the phone.
Redesigned S-Pen is more sensitive than ever before
The S-Pen has also been improved by Samsung from the previous iteration. Aside from a slight redesign that moved the physical button on the pen down a few mm, Samsung’s also made the tip of the pen smaller – it’s now just 0.7mm, a size that approximates the heads of regular pens. Latency has also been reduced to just 50ms, and the display is more sensitive to pressure than ever before.
IP68 rating means it can get wet without any problems
Samsung brought water resistance to its Galaxy S7 series of smartphones so it was only logical for the Korean company to put the same feature in their new flagship phablet. The Note7 can be submerged in water up to 1 meter deep for up to 30 minutes without any problems, though we’d keep it away from pools and oceans. The new S-Pen incidentally also works even when the screen is wet.
See Also:
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Initial Hands On Review
Samsung Officially Announces the Galaxy Note 7