Moleskine Announces New Smart Planner That Will Digitize Appointments Into Apple’s iCalendar Format
After announcing the “Smart Writing Set” earlier in February, Moleskine today unveiled the newest product in this line, called simply the “Smart Planner.” The new planner will allow users to jot down appointments and reminders within a weekly calendar area of the notebook, which will then be automatically digitized and synced to Apple iCalendar or Google Calendar formats (via TechCrunch).
Moleskine’s Smart Writing products work with the help of an invisible grid, made with Ncode technology, that enables the connected Moleskine Pen+ device to recognize where it is on the page and within the notebook. Previous devices in the Smart Writing Set would sync hand-written notes from a paper tablet into the Moleskine Notes app, but the company’s new Smart Planner is one of the first to introduce direct calendar syncing compatibility.
Like other Livescribe systems, the Smart Planner as it’s called uses paper embedded with sensors that can read and sync anything written by the Moleskine Pen+. Meetings and appointments written on the planner part of the paper are synced automatically to the user’s Google or Apple account and placed appropriately on their calendar.
TechCrunch explained that when users write down meetings and appointments within the planner part of the paper, the notebook and Pen+ intelligently recognize the text as a calendar appointment, and convert it into an entry on the correct date in the user’s chosen calendar app. This requires both the planner and Pen+, and Moleskine said it will begin selling a set of the new Smart Planner on September 12 for $199. If users already have a pen, they can buy just the Smart Planner for $29.
Tags: Moleskine, iCalendar
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YouTube for iOS Gains Support for Lower Latency Chat and Live Streaming iPhone’s Display
YouTube for iOS is gaining a new feature that will allow iPhone users to stream video directly from their device screen, reports TechCrunch.
This will allow YouTubers to stream iOS games and apps on their iPhones directly to YouTube without having to use the standalone YouTube gaming app.
The screen-streaming feature has been available on Android for some time, but to implement it on iOS, YouTube needed to add support for the Apple ReplayKit API, which it has now done.
In addition to a feature for live streaming what’s on the iPhone’s screen, YouTube is also gaining lower latency streaming for better creator/watcher chat interactions and improved chat moderation tools.
YouTubers can quickly pause chat with a new keyboard shortcut and they can opt in to an automated chat moderation system that will cause YouTube to flag and hold potentially inappropriate messages until they can be reviewed.
YouTube says its new features are rolling out to users around the world today. The YouTube app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Tag: YouTube
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Apple CEO Tim Cook Pledges Support to Employees Affected by DACA in New Letter
Apple CEO Tim Cook this morning sent out an email to employees following the announcement that United States President Donald Trump will phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program over the course of the next six months. Trump has called on Congress to replace DACA with new legislation by March 5, 2018.
In the email, Cook says Apple will work with members of Congress to advocate for a legislative solution that will continue to protect the children of immigrants, and he says Apple is working with impacted Apple employees to provide support, including access to immigration experts.
Team,
America promises all its people the opportunity to achieve their dreams through hard work and perseverance. At Apple, we’ve dedicated ourselves to creating products that empower those dreams. And at our best, we aspire to be part of the promise that defines America.
Earlier today, the Justice Department announced that President Trump will cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in six months if Congress does not act to make the program permanent.
I am deeply dismayed that 800,000 Americans — including more than 250 of our Apple coworkers — may soon find themselves cast out of the only country they’ve ever called home.
DACA recognizes that people who arrived in the United States as children should not be punished for being here illegally. It lets these Americans, who have successfully completed rigorous background investigations, go to school, earn a living, support their families, pay taxes and work toward achieving their dreams like the rest of us. They are called Dreamers, and regardless of where they were born, they deserve our respect as equals.
I’ve received several notes over the weekend from Dreamers within Apple. Some told me they came to the U.S. as young as two years old, while others recounted they don’t even remember a time they were not in this country.
Dreamers who work at Apple may have been born in Canada or Mexico, Kenya or Mongolia, but America is the only home they’ve ever known. They grew up in our cities and towns, and hold degrees from colleges across the country. They now work for Apple in 28 states.
They help customers in our retail stores. They engineer the products people love and they’re building Apple’s future as part of our R&D teams. They contribute to our company, our economy and our communities just as much as you and I do. Their dreams are our dreams.
I want to assure you that Apple will work with members of Congress from both parties to advocate for a legislative solution that provides permanent protections for all the Dreamers in our country.
We are also working closely with each of our co-workers to provide them and their families the support they need, including the advice of immigration experts.
On behalf of the hundreds of employees at Apple whose futures are at stake; on behalf of their colleagues and on behalf of the millions more across America who believe, as we do, in the power of dreams, we issue an urgent plea for our leaders in Washington to protect the Dreamers so their futures can never be put at risk in this way again.
Despite this setback for our nation, I’m confident that American values will prevail and we will continue our tradition of welcoming immigrants from all nations. I’ll do whatever I can to assure this outcome.
Tim
Over the weekend, Cook tweeted that Apple employs 250 “dreamers,” aka people who came to the United States at a young age when their undocumented parents immigrated to the country. “I stand with them,” said Cook in the tweet. “They deserve our respect as equals and a solution rooted in American values.”
Cook and 300 other business leaders also signed an open letter last week urging President Trump to preserve the program or to pass the bipartisan DREAM act or other legislation for a more permanent solution, but it went unheeded.
With DACA suspended, the government will not accept new applications from undocumented immigrants to defer deportation and offer work permits.
While the current 800,000 DACA enrollees are not expected to be immediately impacted and can renew their two-year permits until October 5, if a new solution isn’t offered by Congress, people who grew up in the United States and have lived in the country since childhood could face deportation to countries that are essentially foreign to them.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
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Apple Seeds Tenth Beta of Upcoming tvOS 11 Update to Developers
Apple today seeded the tenth beta of an upcoming tvOS 11 update designed for the fourth-generation TV, just under a week after seeding the ninth beta and three months after releasing the first beta during the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference.
Registered developers can download the tvOS 11 update by connecting the Apple TV to a computer with a USB-C cable and installing the beta software using iTunes.
tvOS 11 didn’t receive a lot of attention at the Worldwide Developers Conference because it’s a modest update, but according to Apple’s release notes, it does introduce a few new features to the operating system.
tvOS 11 brings automatic switching between light/dark mode based on local time, Home screen syncing options that keep multiple Apple TVs in a household in sync, new background modes and notification support, Focus API improvements, custom sound support, network-based pairing and development support, improvements to Mobile Device Management, and more.
The tenth beta of tvOS 11 most likely focuses primarily on bug fixes and other small refinements, as the first nine betas did. Apple’s new tvOS 11 update is available for both registered developers and public beta testers and will see a public release this fall.
Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 10
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Don’t Buy)
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Samsung Galaxy Note 8 review: Do Bigger Things, at a Bigger Price
This review is brought to you by MNML Case, an ultra-thin case that showcases the beauty of your new phone and fits like a glove! Get 15% OFF your Note 8 MNML Case until the end of September with the promo code: 15N8
After the disaster of last’s year Galaxy Note 7, Samsung is looking to redeem itself and the decision to continue with the Note brand is a rather bold one. Will the Galaxy Note 8 be able to rebuild the Note brand in a positive light and regain the trust of Samsung’s customers? And are there enough improvements to make it a top contender in the second half of 2017’s smartphone onslaught? Find out in our full Samsung Galaxy Note 8 review!
Design
On the exterior, the Galaxy Note 8 delivers a very familiar design that we’ve gotten used to from Samsung over the last couple of years. Glass is the main material of choice filling up the entire front and back and a sturdy metal frame wrapping around the perimeter holds it all together. One thing that you’ll notice that is quite different from last year’s Note 7 or the more current Galaxy S8 is that the body is much more square and angular. Even the dual curved display is less pronounced this time around.
Instead of a completely smooth taper between the glass and metal all the way around, the Note 8 has a much more distinct separation between the glass and metal and the sides are much flatter, giving a phone that’s usually slippery a lot more grip. Of course, the biggest drawback with any phone made predominantly of glass or any shiny materials is how prone it is to fingerprints. Depending on the color, it may be more or less visible but you’ll still want to keep a cleaning cloth handy if you want your phone looking pristine at all times.
The only other major cosmetic design change is that the camera housing on the back is black instead of being color matched with the body of the phone. On the black version it blends in seamlessly but on any other color you’ll get a visor-like appearance which looks pretty cool to my eyes but it’s a design choice that not everyone is going to like.
Display
The infinity display that was first introduced with the Galaxy S8 has made it’s way over to the Note 8. This means super thin bezels on all sides and a screen that takes up almost the entire front. The thinner bezels allows Samsung to fit in the largest screen we’ve ever seen on a Galaxy Note.
Measuring in at 6.3 inches but with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio, the screen is much taller than it is wide and in comparison to last year’s Note 7 or the Fan Edition, the size difference is mostly noticeable in height while the change in width is almost undetectable by feel. The added height does make the phone quite tall but it doesn’t feel any less manageable or harder to operate than any other big screen Android phone currently available.
Despite its height, the Note 8 doesn’t feel any less manageable or harder to operate than any other big screen Android phone.
The screen is the usual Samsung Super AMOLED technology that brings all the typical characteristics that we’ve seen on previous Samsung phones such as vibrant colors, high contrast, and inky dark blacks. With a resolution of 2,960 x 1,440, or 3K QHD+, it’s incredibly sharp but in order to enjoy the display to its fullest potential, you’ll have to change the display resolution in the settings as the phone defaults to 1080p the same way the Galaxy S8 does.
The Note 8’s display overall is absolutely gorgeous and the large size is fantastic for all kinds of use cases such as watching YouTube videos, playing games, casual web browsing, and productivity. It’s also bright enough that viewing the screen comfortably outdoors is a non-issue.
The big bonus with the Note 8’s screen is its mobile HDR certification.
The big bonus with the Note 8’s screen is its mobile HDR certification meaning the phone can play back true HDR content that allows for better color accuracy and contrast.
HDR content is still somewhat scarce but should be a little easier to access (provided you have the right plan) due to the Note 8 recently being added to Netflix’s list of HDR supported devices.
Performance
The increase in RAM is definitely a welcome change and it certainly helps the multitasking experience feel much smoother.
The Galaxy Note 8 checks all the right boxes in terms of 2017 flagship specs. There’s a Snapdragon 835 running the show but this year Samsung has bumped up the RAM to 6 GB. It’s not the first time we’ve seen Samsung put 6 GB of RAM on a phone but it’s the first time that it isn’t on a regional exclusive. The increase in RAM is definitely a welcome change especially for a device that’s meant to be a productivity/multimedia powerhouse and it certainly helps the multitasking experience feel much smoother.
The typical every day experience such as swiping and scrolling through menus, web browsing and jumping in and out of apps are also quite smooth and the Snapdragon 835 does a great job of handling more intense tasks such as playing high end games with very smooth frame rates.
Hardware
Obviously we can’t talk about the Note 8 without mentioning the S Pen, after all, this is the hallmark feature that defines the Galaxy Note line. The actual hardware of the S Pen itself remains practically identical to last year. It features the same clickable top, a 0.7 mm ballpoint-sized tip, and over 4,000 levels of pressure sensitivity. The major changes to the S Pen are really within the accompanying software features which we will dive into in the software portion of the review.
The actual hardware of the S Pen itself remains practically identical to last year.
Other hardware on the Note 8 includes pretty much everything that you would want except for the kitchen sink. There’s a microSD card slot for additional storage should you need more than what the phone offers internally (a 128 GB and 256 GB version were announced, but at launch we’re only getting the 64 GB base model).
Fast wireless charging capabilities, Bluetooth 5 and gigabit LTE support are all on board, and an IP68 certification means it is dust and water resistant and can withstand submersion in up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes.
For all you headphone jack lovers out there, you’ll be very happy to know that the Note 8 still has one.
For all you headphone jack lovers out there, you’ll be very happy to know that the Note 8 still has one as Samsung is one of the few smartphone manufacturers left that is choosing to keep this feature intact. At least for now.
For external audio, the Note 8 doesn’t offer anything special and this has been a weakness of a lot of Samsung smartphones over the years. The Note 8 comes with a single bottom-firing speaker that is easily muffled by the palm of your hand when holding the phone in landscape and the audio quality can sound distorted at max volume. It’s certainly a serviceable speaker but audio is clearly an area that Samsung doesn’t put too much emphasis on improving. For those that expect more out of their smartphone audio, consider the LG V30 or the HTC U11.
Besides external audio, the other unfortunate part of the Note 8’s hardware is the placement of the fingerprint sensor.
The other unfortunate part of the Note 8’s hardware is the placement of the fingerprint sensor. It still sits on the back to the side of the camera which isn’t the most ergonomic location, but at least Samsung did make some improvements to it that makes this one surprisingly better to use than the one found on the S8.
The fingerprint sensor is now slightly more recessed making it easier to find by feel and Samsung repositioned the camera flash and heart rate monitor to sit in between the cameras and fingerprint sensor giving you more room for error when reaching for the fingerprint sensor.
These minor changes definitely make a huge difference as smudging the camera lenses is a much rarer occurrence. But while Samsung’s changes to the fingerprint sensor are appreciated, its location still desperately needs to change to a friendlier position.
If you’re still not a fan of the fingerprint sensor, Samsung’s alternate unlocking methods such as facial recognition and the iris scanner are available. While I personally prefer the fingerprint sensor as my main way of unlocking the Note 8, the iris scanner and facial recognition are just as reliable in terms of accuracy.
My biggest concern and probably a main concern of many during the Note 8’s official announcement was how long this phone would last on a single charge. It has a 3,300 mAh cell which by 2017 standards is by no means small but is smaller than what we would have expected for a phone with such powerful specs and massive 6.3-inch QHD+ display.
Battery life on the Galaxy Note 8 has been far better than anticipated, even at QHD+ resolution.
In my experience, battery life on the Galaxy Note 8 has been far better than anticipated. Screen-on time is typically around the five hour mark with anywhere between 15 to 18 hours off the charger allowing me to comfortably get through a full day.
By no means am I a light user when it comes to smartphones either. Along with the usual social media, emails, and web browsing, I play games and watch YouTube for several hours per day and the Note 8 has managed to satisfactorily meet my needs. This was also all while running the screen at QHD+ resolution which didn’t seem to make as much of an impact on the battery life as I might’ve thought.
Camera
One of the more drastic changes to the Note 8 this year is the addition of dual cameras on the back.
One of the more drastic changes to the Note 8 this year is the addition of dual cameras on the back, a feature that is becoming increasingly more popular on smartphones.
It was only a matter of time before Samsung jumped on the bandwagon and they couldn’t have picked a more perfect phone on which to to do it. The Galaxy Note 8 camera utilizes a wide angle and telephoto lens setup similar to the iPhone 7 Plus or the OnePlus 5 and the secondary telephoto lens allows the Note 8 to achieve 2X optical zoom.
Both sensors are 12 MP with f/1.7 aperture on the main sensor and f/2.4 on the secondary, but Samsung’s super fast dual pixel autofocus is only available on the main camera. Both sensors feature optical image stabilization, which is a first for any smartphone utilizing dual cameras and guarantees that all of your photos and videos are optically stabilized regardless of which lens you decide to use.
Both sensors feature optical image stabilization, which is a first for any smartphone utilizing dual cameras.
While the ability to instantly zoom in by 2X is available on the viewfinder at all times, the caveat is it isn’t always optical. If the camera detects that the lighting situation isn’t optimal, the camera will not switch lenses. This behavior is intentional though, as the camera software decides that sometimes better results can be achieved through the main sensor. Other phones like the iPhone 7 Plus and OnePlus 5 react the same way.
Aside from optical zoom, the secondary sensor is being leveraged to create a depth effect or bokeh that we’ve seen from many smartphones using dual cameras. Samsung is calling their take on it “Live Focus” as it allows you to adjust the background blur before you take the shot and adjustments can also be made after the fact as well.
My favorite part of the Live Focus mode is the ability to dual capture. This means that a photo is simultaneously captured from both the wide and telephoto lens with only a single press of the shutter button, saving you the hassle of switching back and forth between lenses when you want to capture two focal lengths of the same subject.
With the exception of the new 2X zoom button, Samsung’s camera app remains practically identical to the one found in the S8. There’s a handful of shooting modes such as panorama, slow motion, virtual shot, and a pro mode for full manual controls but the experience isn’t overwhelming. The camera app is also packed with a wide variety of image filters and snapchat-esque effects that adds a unique level of creativity and fun to the camera.
General picture quality isn’t much different from what we’ve already seen on the Galaxy S8 but by no means is that a bad thing. It’s usually pretty safe to assume that you’re getting a great camera experience with a Samsung flagship and the Note 8 doesn’t fall short of that expectation. Photos from the Note 8 are packed with detail, vibrant colors, and some of the best dynamic range offered on a smartphone.
Optical image stabilization along with fast dual pixel autofocus, makes it easy to capture photos with tack sharp focus in a reliable fashion.
The optical image stabilization along with the fast dual pixel autofocus makes it easy to capture photos with tack sharp focus in a reliable fashion. This also allows for photos in low light to maintain plenty of detail and the camera’s good dynamic range prevents highlights in night time scenery from being overblown. It’s only in the worst of low light situations that noise starts to be noticeable, but for the most part Samsung’s image processing keeps the images quite clean.
On the front of the Note 8 there’s an 8 MP front-facing shooter that offers Samsung’s smart autofocus for sharper and clearer selfies, but Samsung’s softening at times can be aggressive causing too much detail in the face to be lost.
Software
The Galaxy Note line has always offered a slightly tweaked version of the software found in the Galaxy S flagship and with the Galaxy Note 8, the experience is largely the same as that found on the Galaxy S8 with a few key changes. The ultimate productivity device brings the now-familiar S Pen menu that pops up whenever you detach the pen (or when you click the button while hovering over the screen). With it comes a refinement in the features of Samsung’s stylus.
There’s not a lot new with the S Pen this year, with Samsung instead choosing to listen to user feedback and simply tweak a few features. The useful translate feature just got a lot more useful with the ability to now translate full sentences, whereas you could only translate individual words before. The Galaxy Note 8 also comes with the Pen Up coloring-in app preloaded, which offers access to a community of millions of Galaxy Note users around the world and tons of helpful presets for you to color in and create with.
The biggest new S Pen feature is Live Message, which lets you add a little flair to your everyday communication.
The S Pen also has some handy productivity features and last year’s Screen Off Memo has been improved so you’re now able to write up to 100 pages of notes, edit them and pin them to the Always On Display, which is one of the fastest ways to jot down something when you’re in a hurry.
The biggest new feature is Live Message, which lets you record the pen strokes of writing a short message, turning it into an animated GIF. Added effects like sparkles and neon lighting add more flair and the effect is pleasing GIFs that you can send to friends and anyone else. It’s not exactly productive but it’s fun and practical and lets you add personality to your daily communication.
Samsung is hoping the Galaxy Note 8 is the perfect multitasking tool and the new App Pairing feature definitely lets you take full advantage of the large screen. This lets you pair two apps together and save the shortcut to your Apps Edge or to the home screen; when pressed, both apps open together in Multi Window. Imagine a shortcut to let you open the calendar and Gmail together for increased productivity or Facebook and WhatsApp messenger for constant communication. App Pairing is great if you often find yourself switching between apps and is a subtle but clever addition.
The last notable feature in the Galaxy Note 8 may not be new but it is useful for those that have multiple social accounts. Called Dual Messenger, it lets you create multiple instances of the same single-account app (such as Facebook, SnapChat or WhatsApp) on the one phone, so you no longer need multiple phones to be able to use two numbers with WhatsApp or a personal and professional Facebook profile. It won’t be for everyone and Samsung wasn’t first (we saw it on the Huawei Mate 9 last year), but if this is a problem that affects you, Dual Messenger could be the answer.
With the introduction of the Galaxy S8, Samsung brought their own AI assistant, Bixby, into the fold and that feature has now made its way over to the Note 8. This includes the dedicated quick-access hardware button that sits just below the volume rocker. On the Note 8 you get the full Bixby experience out of the box including Bixby Voice. Bixby has certainly made some great strides since the Galaxy S8 but it still has its issues.
When it works, Bixby is fantastic and Samsung has it going in the right direction, but it still needs some polishing.
Bixby works wonderfully for doing phone-related tasks such as changing the screen brightness or having the phone download an app off the Play Store for you, but for factual or internet-related questions the experience can still be hit or miss. Most times it’s purely due to Bixby struggling to understand your every word to properly formulate a response.
When it works, Bixby is fantastic and Samsung has it going in the right direction, but it still needs some polishing. The bright side is that you have Google Assistant to fill in where Bixby falls short, allowing you to get the best of both worlds.
See also:Google Assistant vs Siri vs Bixby vs Amazon Alexa vs Cortana – Best virtual assistant showdown!
Google Assistant vs Siri vs Bixby vs Amazon Alexa vs Cortana – Best virtual assistant showdown!
7 days ago
The main drawback to the Note 8’s software is that it’s launching with Android Nougat and while Nougat is still very current, with Android 8.0 Oreo being official it does make you wonder when the Note 8 is going to get the update. Hopefully it happens sooner rather than later because it would be a shame for a phone as current as the Note 8 to fall behind in software updates right out of the gate.
With every new Galaxy device, we see a smartphone UI that’s consistently getting better, and growing into one of the best on the market.
These changes and tweaks aside, the rest of Samsung’s UI is all about software refinement. The software on the Galaxy Note 8 looks similar to the Galaxy S8, with very few changes in appearance but that’s not a bad thing. Samsung has improved its interface over the past few iterations and with every new Galaxy device, we see a smartphone UI that’s consistently getting better, and growing into one of the best on the market.
Specifications
| Display | 6.3-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity 2960 x 1440 resolution 521 ppi 18.5:9 aspect ratio |
| Processor | US: 64-bit octa-core (2.35 GHz Quad + 1.9 GHz Quad) Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 10 nm processor
Global: 64-bit octa-core (2.3 GHz Quad + 1.7 GHz Quad) Samsung Exynos 8895, 10 nm processor |
| RAM | 6 GB LPDDR4 |
| Storage | 64/128/256 GB MicroSD expansion up to 256 GB |
| Cameras | Rear camera – Main: 12 MP wide-angle AF Dual Pixel sensor with ƒ/1.7 aperture, OIS – 12 MP telephoto AF sensor with ƒ/2.4 aperture, OIS Front camera |
| Battery | 3,300 mAh Non-removable Fast charging on wired and wireless WPC and PMA wireless charging |
| Water resistance | IP68 dust and water resistance |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz) VHT80 MU-MIMO 1024QAM Bluetooth v5.0 (LE up to 2 Mbps) ANT+ USB Type-C NFC, MST Location: GPS, Galileo, Glonass, BeiDou |
| Sensors | Accelerometer Barometer Fingerprint Sensor Gyro Sensor Geomagnetic Sensor Hall Sensor Heart Rate Sensor Proximity Sensor RGB Light Sensor Iris Sensor Pressure Sensor |
| SIM | Nano SIM |
| Software | Android 7.1.1 Nougat |
| Dimensions and weight | 162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6 mm 195 g |
Gallery
Pricing & Final Thoughts
There isn’t a whole lot fundamentally wrong with the Galaxy Note 8 and save for a few minor issues like the fingerprint sensor placement, the Note 8 offers enough firepower to satisfy Note users old and new. The experience that the Note 8 offers is fantastic, but despite how good the Note 8 is, most people including the most die-hard of Note fans will probably find the price this year to be extremely hard to stomach. It’s the most expensive Galaxy Note we’ve seen to date with a starting price of $930 dollars unlocked for the base model and can run as high as $960 dollars through U.S. carriers and €999 in Europe.
The Note 8 is as exciting a phone as many people, myself included, expected it to be but Samsung might have fizzled out some of that excitement with its hefty price tag.
The Galaxy Note is always one of the most exciting smartphone releases each and every year and even more so this year simply because we were unsure if there would even be another Galaxy Note after last year’s disaster. The Note 8 is as exciting of a phone as many people, including myself, expected it to be but Samsung might have fizzled some of that excitement with its hefty price tag. If you buy one will you regret it? Most likely not, but you might have to think twice about dropping that amount of cash before you do.
Pixelmator Pro is an AI-powered Photoshop alternative for your Mac
Pro image editing tools like Adobe Photoshop are vital in the creative world, but let’s face it: not everyone can justify paying $10 or more per month, every month, just to get more than rudimentary tools. You may not have to in the near future, though. The Pixelmator team is previewing Pixelmator Pro, an upgraded version of its long-serving (and historically more affordable) Mac app geared toward serious creatives. The editor promises many of the features you’d expect in a high-end app, and a little bit beyond — there’s even a dash of AI-like technology involved.
The software is non-destructive (that is, you can always reverse changes), with a heavily revamped interface that merges everything into a single pane. It’s more Mac-like, Pixelmator says, and theoretically reduces clutter by eliminating floating toolbars. There’s a new bunch of layout tools (such as multi-object alignment and spacing guides) and a new, Metal 2-powered painting engine that’s both fast and adds clever tricks like paint blending. Photographers will like the support for RAW processing, including multi-layer edits that preserves all their detail, while Recipes let you save custom effects to apply them
However, the centerpiece may be the inclusion of machine learning-based tools through Apple’s CoreML framework. The AI technology gives you a repair tool that can intelligently remove and replace whole elements of an image with natural-looking results, and snap to only the object you want to remove when selecting it. Adobe has had smart editing tools like this for a long time, but CoreML makes them relatively easy to implement — now, even a smaller developer like Pixelmator can give you those features.
The software is due to ship sometime in the fall, no doubt contingent on the release of macOS High Sierra (needed for Metal 2 and CoreML). Pixelmator has yet to divulge the price, but it tells The Verge that it wants to make Pro “as affordable as possible.” Given that the current version of Pixelmator costs $30, that might not be hard. The studio could charge significantly more and still undercut many pro apps. This probably won’t replace software like Photoshop if certain features are crucial to your workflow, but it might fit the bill if you’re a creative on a budget and aren’t tied to any one app.
Via: 9to5Mac, The Verge
Source: Pixelmator
‘Destiny 2’ gives Bungie’s online shooter the narrative it deserves
Bungie’s shared-world shooter is known for a lot of things. It has a dedicated community and excellent gunplay mechanics — but Destiny has never been known as a game with a great story. In fact, the original title’s story is notoriously vague, to the point that a single quote from the core game is both emblematic of the entire narrative and an in-joke: Destiny doesn’t “have time to explain” what it doesn’t have time to explain. The original game’s storytelling was bad enough that I almost dismissed its sequel without playing it — but Luke Smith promised me that Destiny 2 was being written for players just like me. I gave the game a shot at a recent review event and you know what? He’s right. Bungie has finally figured out how to tell a story.
If you played Destiny 2’s free open beta, you already know how the game begins. A race known as the Cabal have launched a surprise attack on Earth’s last human city, engulfing the first game’s primary social hub in chaos. The player and the Guardians try to defend The Tower and drive off the attack, but ultimately fail. Our heroes are driven out of The City, stripped of their powers and scattered throughout the solar system. The symbolic intent of this first mission is clear: forget the first game, it says — we’re tearing it down and starting fresh.
This isn’t to say that the lore established by the first game no longer counts, it’s just not a prerequisite for understanding or enjoying the narrative of Destiny 2. It’s okay if you don’t know who the Guardians are, how “the light” gives them superhuman powers. You won’t be at a loss if you don’t understand what the moon-like object the heroes call The Traveler is — you’ll learn the pertinent details of each as the game’s opening missions separate you from them. It effectively sweeps the first game’s narrative problems under the rug to make the story easier to understand. It works, too. Stripping the game of its status quo is what gives Destiny 2 the freedom to introduce itself to new and old players alike.
Unfortunately, this also means that Destiny 2 is evoking a hated and tired old gaming trope — a cliche that gives players a taste of power before unceremoniously ripping it away from them. The opening missions cast the player in the role of a seasoned and powerful Guardian, but takes those abilities away after the first two levels. Gamers who earned that power in the original Destiny will undoubtedly find this bait and switch mechanic frustrating, but for new players, the trope serves an important purpose. Bungie actually uses the cliche as a vehicle for revealing the game’s lore to the player in a natural and endearing way.
New players won’t come to understand the importance of The Traveler and the blessings the mysterious orb bestows upon the Guardians through overwrought narration or exposition, but by experiencing the loss of those blessing firsthand. During the game’s first story mission, players will witness the Cabal destroying humanity’s last safe city, watch helplessly as enemy ships ensnare the mysterious Traveler and fall to their knees in front of Dominus Ghaul, the game’s main villain and the warlord who cuts the Guardians off from the Traveler’s light. As the player falls off of Ghaul’s ship to the ruins of the city below, the game embraces the cliche of its power-tease trope to show the player the importance of everything they just lost.
It’s here that the game’s narrative truly begins. Destiny’s iconic spongy gameplay temporarily fades to the background as it forces the player to helplessly trudge through a third-person stealth mission that sets the scene for the rest of the game. Stumbling through rocks and debris with your depowered Guardian imparts the gravity of the situation. Without the blessing of the Traveler’s light, the game’s hero can barely walk.
When the player eventually finds their Ghost, the floating robotic counterpart to their Guardian, it warns them that it can no longer resurrect them — revealing that re-spawning in Destiny 2 isn’t just a game mechanic, but lore. Every time the player dies in-game, their Ghost uses The Light to literally bring them back to life.
What makes all of this work so well isn’t so much the hooks of the story — those are actually fairly formulaic — but the fact that Destiny 2 tells its story by making the player live it. The game didn’t tell me that the Traveler was the source of my character’s powers, it showed me by taking those powers away from me and rendering me helpless without them. The game didn’t tell me the Cabal was a threat the likes of which I’d never seen before, it showed me by making me live through the loss of the Guardian’s Tower and the last city.
The theme of learning the game’s lore through loss doesn’t last long. Eventually, the player stumbles across The Farm — Destiny 2’s new social zone — and regains their lost “light” and basic superhuman abilities — but by the time the game’s introductory story arc close, the stage is well set. The player knows that the Guardians are now an underdog, rebels who need to fight to regain what they’ve lost. They understand what their character is without the blessing of the Traveler — a theme underlined by a cast of new human characters that drive the point home that most Guardians are no longer any more special than the average person.
Most importantly, we have a clear understanding of who the villain is by the time the first chapter closes — and not only are his motivations threatening, but relatable. Destiny 2 is a game that has the strong start its predecessor never did.
Better still? The narrative doesn’t let up. As the campaign proceeds, it keeps the player hooked on a personal level, telling the story through action rather than exposition. It’s not always detailed, but it doesn’t embody the infamously vague storytelling that plagued the original. It’s a stark, but wonderful contrast.
From a story perspective, the actual game that was the original Destiny felt like a waste of the universe built around it — the franchise’s Grimorie had countless pages of lore and story, but most of it wasn’t part of the game experience, making it hard to really understand the story by merely playing the game. There’s undoubtedly more to the world of Destiny 2 than what the game reveals, but players who don’t want extracurricular reading won’t be lost this time around. For players like me, that’s an enormous step forward.
Okay, okay, the narrative is better. You probably get it by now — but how does the game actually play? For fans of the original Destiny, it’ll feel like a familiar experience, but as I said in our preview of the European Dead Zone area, the structure around the game is vastly improved.
Destiny 2’s missions are now offered out in a more accessible open-world environment. It’s all about presentation — the core mechanics aren’t too different, but it feels more like a massively multiplayer sandbox than the original game. It’s less formulaic, too. Sure, there are still plenty of campaign missions that amount to fighting through waves of enemies, but there are also some surprises, including large set-piece missions with tanks and vehicle combat.
Unfortunately, I can’t speak too much to the quality of Destiny 2’s multiplayer and end-game content. Strikes, Daily Challenges, Patrols and Raids don’t unlock until well into or after the end of the game’s campaign. The game shares enough fundamentals with the original that if you liked those events in the first Destiny, it’s likely you’ll find them satisfying in the sequel as well — but we won’t know for sure until the community dives into the next chapter of the franchise.
I spent two years trying Destiny off and on, trying to understand the appeal that had hooked so many of my friends. I never found it — but my aversion was never because of bad game mechanics or a frustration with PVP balance, I just couldn’t get invested in a game that clearly had such a wealth of lore yet failed to effectively tell a story until The Taken King expansion was released. Destiny 2 doesn’t have that problem. This is a space opera that makes full use of the interactive medium of gaming. It’s not perfect, but if an engaging narrative is what you felt the first game lacked, the sequel may be what you were looking for.
Teamosa brews tea using ultrasound
We’ve seen a handful of tea-brewing gadgets over the years, but none have managed to break into the mainstream. The latest to step into the ring is Teamosa, a startup that’s planning to launch its first product on September 13th. Teamosa itself is a small, Keurig-style device that uses ultrasonic extraction technology to brew your tea much more gently than traditional methods.
The project is the brainchild of Dr Catherine and Irven Liu, a brother-and-sister team whose parents have grown tea in Taiwan since the early ’80s. Mindful of the family business they stand to one day inherit, the pair wanted to try and modernize the way that tea is brewed.
The end-result of the project is the squat, black kettle on a bamboo plate that uses either loose leaf tea or sustainably-made tea pods. Users will simply either pour tea onto the plate, or subscribe to buy the company’s compostable paper capsules.
Then, the system will use a reservoir of water (in the base of the device) to pour through the tea before the liquid is somehow treated ultrasonically. The company claims that you’ll have a perfect cup of tea within three minutes, and can tweak the system to your particular taste using the companion app.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to test the device for ourselves, and so can’t say if Teamosa produces as tasty a blend as promised. But we’re planning to source one in the future in the hope of seeing if it can replace our humble teapot and kettle combination.
That said, if you already want to get your hands on this device yourself, you can do so on Kickstarter from September 13th. Early birds will be able to grab the hardware for just $239, while latecomers will need to spend $299, or wait until it makes its retail debut at some point next year for $399.
Follow all the latest news from IFA 2017 here!
Source: Teamosa
Lilium secures $90 million to develop its electric VTOL plane
Like a few other startups, Lilium wants to make our flying car dreams come true with an electric VTOL craft you can summon with an app. Thanks to $90 million worth of new investment from China’s Tencent and others, the startup may now have a leg up on its rivals. It will use the funds to drastically expand hiring in order to take the electric jet into the next stages of development.
Lilium differs from Ehang’s passenger drone and other like concepts. Rather than using multi-rotors to both lift and propel it, the craft uses flaps with electric “jets” that rotate from a vertical to horizontal position. By tilting them into a vertical position, it can take off like a helicopter, than rotate them horizontally to transition into conventional flight. That’s similar to how Boeing’s V-22 Osprey works, for instance, but with many more engines. It also works the same way as NASA’s smaller-scale “Greased Lightning” VTOL craft.
Lilium is backed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and has actually flown a full-sized, two-seat prototype, albeit with nobody in it (below). It recently hired engineers and employees from Gett (an Uber and Lyft ride-sharing rival), Airbus and Tesla. The company plans to build a five-seat “air taxi” that could ferry passengers 186 miles at around 186 mph. It has ambitiously planned its first manned tests by 2019, and passenger flights by 2025.
It’s going to be tough for the the company to get aircraft approved in the US, however. FAA certification is notoriously difficult, for one thing, especially for an all-new type of aircraft. There’s also no current battery technology that can give Lilium the range it wants, and VTOL requires much more energy than regular airplanes. Elon Musk — who has designed his own electric plane, of course — said the battery density threshold is about 400 Wh/kg, compared to around 250-300 Wh/kg available in current Tesla models.
However, Ilium seems confident it can overcome those problems via its efficient “electric jet” engines, lack of a tail and other technological innovations. If it can pull it off, it would be a grand feat, and the smog-free craft could definitely revolutionize urban transport. Hopefully, it’s painting a realistic picture for investors, because 2025 is just eight years away, barely an eyeblink in the world of aircraft development.
Via: Bloomberg
Source: Lilium (PDF)
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 review: Excellent, but still a tough sell
Last year’s Galaxy Note 7 was a big step forward for the Note line, pairing an impeccably built body with an updated S Pen and excellent performance. Then they started blowing up. The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus did well to rehabilitate Samsung’s image as a top-notch phone maker, and now the company is trying to make up for past mistakes with the brand-new Galaxy Note 8.
Samsung had a lot to prove, and it mostly succeeded. There’s no doubting that the Note 8 ($929) is a great smartphone — it packs all the usual flagship amenities, not to mention a dual camera that works very, very well. The problem is, the Note 8 feels a little… by-the-book. Samsung, frankly, got so much right with its other huge phone, the Galaxy S8 Plus, that the Note 8 doesn’t feel as triumphant an improvement as the Note 7 did in comparison with the S7 line. Don’t get me wrong: The Note 8 is still Samsung’s best smartphone, and one could even argue it’s the best big phone out there. Just know that it’s a pretty conservative update, and that it’s going to cost you.
Hardware
As always, this year’s Note takes major inspiration from the Galaxy S8s that launched earlier in the year. What’s interesting is how subtly different they feel despite all those similarities. The physical differences between the Galaxy Note 8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are minute; the former is just a hair larger than the latter in every dimension. Still, Samsung’s new Note feels denser, and a little more… masculine. It’s slightly heavier, and the Note 8’s curved glass front and back come together in a way that makes the metal frame separating them feel more prominent. They’re subtle changes, to be sure, but they’re enough to make the Note 8 feel a little sturdier. These tweaks won’t mean much for some of you, though. While the Note 8 is surprisingly narrow and manageable for its size, it’s still a big phone that some smaller-handed people will struggle with.
Also noteworthy is just how uncluttered the Note’s face is. There’s just enough room above the screen for an earpiece, an 8-megapixel front-facing camera and an iris scanner. Below the screen, there’s nothing at all, since the Note 8 uses a virtual home button, but beneath that is the now standard USB-C port, a speaker, a headphone jack (!) and the S Pen’s hidey-hole. Despite that glut of ports, the Note 8 is rated IP68 for water and dust resistance, allowing doofuses like to me to use the phone as a cold brew coffee stirrer. (Pro tip: It makes coffee taste terrible.) Meanwhile, the power button lives on the Note’s right edge, and on the left you’ll find the volume rocker and the love-it-or-hate-it Bixby key. (In case you were wondering, no, there’s still no way to remap this button to do anything else.)
The back is where things start to get interesting. The Note 8 is the first major Samsung smartphone to pack a dual camera, which includes a pair of 12-megapixel sensors. I’ll dig into that more later, but suffice to say, Samsung knows how to craft a camera (or two). Next to that is the LED flash and the pulse oximeter, for measuring how much oxygen is in your blood (in case you’d ever want to do that), and next to that is the fingerprint sensor. No, it hasn’t moved, and yes, it’s still annoying, since people are likely to smudge their camera lenses trying to reach for it. (Some might scoff, but I think LG has the right idea when it comes to rear-fingerprint-sensor placement.) Aside from that misstep, there’s little to fault here. I wish the tray for the nano-SIM and microSD cards was a little sturdier, but the Note 8’s fit and finish is otherwise top-notch.
Display and sound
Chris Velazco/Engadget
The 6.3-inch Super AMOLED screen here is the biggest Samsung has ever squeezed into a Note. That the phone isn’t crazy uncomfortable to use is a testament to Samsung’s fastidious tweaking. As with the S8 line, this display runs at 18.5:9, meaning the screen is a little over twice as long as it is wide. Combine that narrower screen with an almost complete lack of side bezels and voilà: We’re left with a big phone that’s smaller than you’d expect. In any case, the screen itself is just lovely — colors are bright and punchy right out of the box, and if they’re not exactly what you were looking for, fiddling with Samsung’s various display modes will certainly help. Viewing angles are great, brightness is among the best I’ve seen and text and photos look crisp at the default resolution.
Unless you’re paying very close attention, you probably won’t even notice at first that the screen isn’t running at its maximum resolution. By default, the Note 8’s display runs at Full HD+ (2,220 x 1,080) rather than the maximum WQHD+ (2,960 x 1,440). Blurred edges really become noticeable only when you drop the screen’s resolution down to the Infinity Display’s version of 720p, but you’ll probably never see that unless you drop the phone into its most stringent power-saving mode. These options are nice to have, though most people will probably never know that they’re there.
It’s also worth noting that, like the S8s, the Note is one of a handful of Mobile HDR Premium–certified phones on the market. Thanks to services like Amazon and Netflix, it’s surprisingly easy to get HDR content running on the Note 8, and it’s absolutely worth it. I swear I’m trying not to gush, but screens are the one thing you could always count on Samsung to get right, and the tradition continues.
Now, if only the company spent just a little more time on the Note 8’s single speaker. It gets points for being able to pump up the jams to respectable volume levels, but that doesn’t count for much when the audio comes through sounding hollow and unsatisfying. Good thing there’s a solid pair of AKG earbuds tucked inside the box.
Software
Chris Velazco/Engadget
The Galaxy Note 8 runs a highly tweaked version of Android 7.1.1, but that’s no surprise. Aside from a handful of new add-ons, the software here is a dead ringer for what we got on the Galaxy S8 line. I’d argue that’s a good thing: Samsung polished up its custom interface dramatically this year, and it finally feels mature and well thought out. It will still be way, way too much for Android purists, but I’ve surprised myself by sometimes missing Samsung’s tweaks when I test other devices. (File that under: “Sentences I never thought I’d write.”)
I won’t call out every feature carried over from the S8 family, but it’s worth going over the highlights. Since there’s just no room for it, Samsung ditched the physical home button for a virtual one that you press on the screen; you’ll get a little jolt of haptic feedback to let you know you’ve done it right. Right of the box, the virtual home key takes just a little too much pressure to actuate, but it’s easy to fix this in settings. The old-school launcher button is gone too, so you’ll have to swipe up or down on a home screen to see all of your installed apps. More important, actually managing those apps is a lot easier. Long-pressing an app brings up a menu with options to quickly clear its notification badges, disable it or uninstall it entirely. It’s a minor touch, sure, but it makes wrangling ornery apps radically simpler.
The Note 8 also packs a few relatively new interface tricks that S8 owners got in a software update over the summer. See that little dot near the on-screen navigation keys? A quick double tap on that forces the navigation bar to hide off-screen; it takes a swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring it back. It’s been handy for moments when I really wanted my apps to use every pixel of this enormous screen, but in general, I like my nav keys where I can see them. And since some apps don’t natively play nice with this long screen, the Note 8 will sometimes display a button you can “tap to fill the entire screen” to force things to fit.
Samsung’s Edge UX is back too, and as usual, it offers access to app shortcuts, favorite contacts, device maintenance tools and more. This is where you’ll find one of the few new additions to the mix: App Pair. The concept is simple: You can create a shortcut to two apps, and with a tap they’ll both launch in split-screen windows. There’s a little fun to be had in finding neat combinations of apps that work well together — I’m a fan of Spotify and Genius for lyrics running side by side — but it’s a moot point for people who never do any multi-window multitasking. Nice try, though.
Bixby isn’t going anywhere either, and, for better or worse, it essentially works as well here as it does on the S8 and S8 Plus. The Bixby Home experience, which lives in a panel to the left of your main home screen, did a fine job highlighting how many steps I had taken and what was up next on my calendar. Bixby Vision, which attempts to interpret whatever the camera is pointed at, remains hit-or-miss: it’ll identify bottles of wine and clearly marked products without trouble, but anything other than that feels like a crapshoot. In my experience, Bixby is also a reliable listener when you hold down its dedicated button to offer voice commands.
Here’s the problem, though: You can also activate the assistant with a friendly “Hi, Bixby,” but the Note 8 has been more prone to false positives than either of its predecessors was. In fact, as I write this sentence, Bixby came to life in a quiet office no less than four times, and I have no idea why. That was with the microphone sensitivity set to low, mind you; it’s seriously obnoxious and it shouldn’t be happening.
Life with the S Pen
Chris Velazco/Engadget
Whether the Note 8 makes sense for you depends largely on how you feel about the tiny pen stuck inside of it. If you’ve never been a stylus person, well, I’m surprised you even read this far. For people at least open to the idea, know that the S Pen offers the best writing experience you’ll find on a phone… not that there’s much competition.
A few words on the S Pen’s design: It’s mostly unchanged from the Note 7’s version, meaning it’s still IP68 water-resistant and supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. The nib is the same 0.7 mm as it was before, but that seems to be the sweet spot — writing on the Note 8’s massive screen is smooth and snappy, though it still lacks the pleasant tactility of using a pen on paper. I was never much of an artist, but the level of precision was more than adequate for dashing off quick sketches of — what else? — robots and anime faces. I’m an adult, I swear.
While the S Pen hasn’t changed much physically, a handful of software tweaks and additions make it more capable. One of my favorite features, Screen Off Memo, now lets you jot down up to 100 pages of notes on the phone’s screen without having to unlock the device. Whether anyone will actually ever use all 100 allotted pages is another story, but it’s nice to have the option. So far, I’ve jotted down daily to-do lists that were several pages long; not having to unlock the phone to continue writing has been helpful. Translating text with the S Pen is much improved too, since you can now translate whole sentences and passages instead of just single words. Why the feature didn’t work this way to start with escapes me, but it still works a lot better than Bixby Vision’s translations.
The most notable new S Pen feature is also the most fun. Samsung has gone a little insane with GIF creation on its recent phones, and Live Message is the logical next step in that insanity. Long story short, you can use the S Pen to write animated messages that can be shared far and wide as GIFs. The concept is simple, but that simplicity belies its addictiveness: I’ve been sending out handwritten messages and marked-up photos that sparkle for a week, and I’m starting to think I have a problem. The only issue I’ve noticed is that resulting GIFs can get pretty big (think: between 10MB and 20MB), so people with tightly metered data plans might want to steer clear.
Cameras
Chris Velazco/Engadget
Samsung is late to the dual-camera game, but the extra time has paid off: The company’s first attempt is among the best I’ve ever used. The Note 8 combines a 12-megapixel telephoto sensor with another 12-megapixel sensor for wide-angle shooting, and most of the time you probably won’t know which camera you’re actually using. Unlike the newly announced LG V30, which has a toggle to switch between wide-angle and telephoto shooting, the Note 8 quietly switches between the two cameras depending on how closely you’re zoomed into your subject. In that way, it’s more like the iPhone 7 Plus’s camera — good news for people who don’t want to think much before shooting, but bad news for people who crave flexibility (that would be me).
In any case, both cameras produced great-looking photos, with consistently lively colors and impressive levels of detail. They’re right up there with the photos produced by the Galaxy S8s, though shots captured with the wide-angle sensor benefit from that camera’s f/1.7 aperture; the telephoto lens has a respectable but unimpressive f/2.4 aperture. Thankfully, both of those sensors pack optical image stabilization, which helps the Note 8 tremendously in low light. You’ll still find the occasional soft edge, but these sensors excel at sucking up whatever light is available so even shots taken in dim, dingy bars came out brighter and more vivid than I expected. Devices with a single dedicated camera, like the HTC U11, sometimes produced photos with better dynamic range, but the sheer number of options available to the Note 8’s camera make it a more capable all-around shooter.
Having two cameras also means we can add bokeh to photos in the new Live Focus mode. It’s not as finicky as similar features on other phones either: The camera recommends you stay about four feet away from the subject, but a couple steps closer won’t screw things up. More important, you can easily control the amount of blur in each shot before and after you’ve taken it. It sometimes has trouble picking up every edge of the subject in front of it, but in general it’s been very good at separating the foreground from the background.
Honestly, my biggest gripes have more to do with the camera interface than the cameras themselves. Let’s say you’re trying to zoom in on a subject. By default, you can tap a button to switch between 1x and 2x zoom modes, but it disappears for a while after you tap on the screen to lock focus and exposure. You can still pinch to zoom in and out, but it would’ve been nice if the shortcut button showed up again sooner. Shooting in Live Focus mode also offers close-up and wide-angle views of your photo, and you can switch between them in your gallery. Strangely, there doesn’t seem to be a way to save the view you didn’t select as a separate photo, even though earlier demo units did it just fine. There’s definitely a little software strangeness going on here, and while it’s never outright frustrating, Samsung could have stood to polish these apps further.
Performance and battery life
Chris Velazco/Engadget
The Galaxy Note 8 is the latest in a long time of high-end smartphones with a Snapdragon 835 chipset, but this time Samsung paired it with 6GB of RAM rather than the 4GB we got in the S8 line. My workdays involve plenty of running around and multitasking, and I was really hoping that extra 2GB of memory would make for a noticeable difference in speed. It hasn’t. If you’ve used a Galaxy S8 or S8 Plus this year, you know exactly what to expect when it comes to how well the Note 8 runs. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though: Barring some minor software strangeness, the Note 8’s performance was effortlessly solid throughout my week of testing. Launching apps and jumping between them all willy-nilly proved to be no issue, and neither did visually sumptuous games like Afterpulse and Hearthstone.
I’ve said basically the same thing about most other flagships this year, and that’s a testament to just how good this year’s crop of high-end phones is. Still, the other side of that argument is that, since performance is starting to feel almost equal across the board, the Galaxy Note 8’s doesn’t feel like a huge improvement over the competition. It runs like a champ, but so does everything else.
| AndEBench Pro | 15,568 | 16,064 | 10,322 | 17,456 | 21,425 |
| 3DMark IS Unlimited | 38,960 | 35,626 | 30,346 | 40,081 | 33,385 |
| GFXBench 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (fps) | 55 | 55 | 42 | 60 | 59 |
| CF-Bench | 67,415 | 64,441 | 29,748 | 78,935 | 67,193 |
Fun fact about the Note 8’s battery: With a capacity of 3,300mAh, it’s actually a little smaller than the one in the S8 Plus. While the Note 7 also had a smaller battery than the S7 Edge, I don’t think anyone could blame Samsung for keeping the conservative streak going here. Smaller doesn’t necessarily mean safer, so Samsung subjected its batteries to an eight-point safety check and worked with UL for additional independent testing. That’s reason to be cautiously optimistic.
Anyway, even though this smaller cell has to power a slightly larger screen, the Note 8’s battery life was largely in line with the Galaxy S8 Plus. In our standard video rundown test, wherein we loop an HD video at 50 percent screen brightness with the phone connected to WiFi, the Note 8 lasted 15 hours and four minutes — that’s just four minutes less than on the S8 Plus. Of course, you’re not always going to be sitting around watching the same video over and over. During the week, when I turn into a phone-obsessed workaholic, the Note has consistently run for full days and still had a little juice in the tank the next morning. On weekends, when I didn’t need to pick up the phone too often, the Note 8 would stick around for a day and a half to two days.
The competition
Chris Velazco/Engadget
I’ve been talking about it a lot in this review, but I can’t help it. The Galaxy S8 Plus offers almost everything the Note 8 does, and it’s not hard to find some great deals — a recent one had the S8 Plus for under $700. That’s more than $200 less than the Note 8 will cost at launch. Remember, the S8 Plus uses the same chipset (with a little less RAM), runs almost exactly the same software, has a slightly bigger battery and has an excellent single camera. For anyone who doesn’t care about writing on a screen or doesn’t mind about adding bokeh to their photos, the S8 Plus is an absolutely first-rate device that won’t break the bank the way the Note 8 will.
It’s not out yet, but LG’s V30 deserves a nod here, because it’s by far the best smartphone Samsung’s rival has made in a long, long time. More than that, it squeezes a handsome screen and a Snapdragon 835 into a slim, sleek body that’s almost shockingly light. The V30 also packs a dual camera, but this one is heavily geared toward shooting excellent video. We haven’t reviewed a final unit yet, but the sheer flexibility and nuance afforded to smartphone shooters is astonishing.
And, of course, you should be mindful of the flagships launching soon. Apple is holding a press event next week at its spaceship in Cupertino to show off a new iPhone (or three of them, if the rumors are correct), and Google won’t be far behind with its new line of Pixel phones. If you’re really on the fence about what your next smartphone will be, this is the perfect time to wait and see what happens.
Wrap-up
Chris Velazco/Engadget
The Galaxy Notes were always pretty niche devices, and that hasn’t really changed. If you’re intrigued by the idea of doodling on a phone with a pen, you simply will not do any better than the Galaxy Note 8. That’s just a fact. For the vast majority of people who probably don’t care about that, the Note 8 remains a tough sell. It’s an undeniably powerful, well-made smartphone with surprisingly thoughtful features and a great dual camera. Does that mean it’s worth its sky-high asking price when the Galaxy S8 Plus — which, remember, does almost all of the same things — can be had for between $100 and $200 less? That’s up to you. While the Note 8 might be Samsung’s best big phone, it’s not dramatically better than the S8 Plus and probably won’t be worth the extra cash for most people.
AIVAnet 