The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was, by all accounts, a brilliant smartphone. It offered significant hardware and software benefits over the competition as well as a roomy Super AMOLED display and S-Pen functionality. Sadly, a few exploding units forced Samsung to issue a recall and halt production altogether and the Note 7 became a footnote in mobile phone history; a hiccup which cost the South Korean company millions. Samsung has bounced back with the impressive Galaxy S8, but the Note 8 was always going to be a hard sell given the intense publicity which surrounded the fiery fate of its forerunner.
Even without the exploding battery debacle, Samsung has its work cut out trying to promote the Note 8 this year, as the S8 Plus arguably offers many of the same features; a massive, market-leading display, a powerful processor and almost identical Samsung-skinned Android software. With the S8 Plus already available and costing less (the Note 8 retails for a whopping £869 SIM-free and direct from Samsung), is there any genuine reason to give it a second glance? The answer is perhaps down to personal preference, but we'd argue that the S-Pen just about makes the difference.
Capable of sensing 4,096 levels of pressure, the revised S-Pen also sports IP68 certification for water and dust resistance. It allows you to write notes on your phone's display even when it's asleep, and share these notes with other apps or simply store them on the lock screen for future use. Pulling the S-Pen out of its slot on the bottom edge of the Note 8 automatically opens a dedicated menu from which you can doodle images, select and crop parts of the display, create animated GIFs based on moving images (such as YouTube videos), translate text (full sentences this time, not just individual words) and compose "live" messages. Many of these elements are accessible without using the pen, but interacting with a stylus-like tool is often a more accurate way of doing things. Like the Apple Pencil, the S-Pen allows for some stunning artistic endeavours, if you have the talent and patience.
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