Even in 2018, the Galaxy Note 8 remains the biggest reimagining of Samsung’s best smartphones for productivity, and more than enough to right the major wrongs of the recalled Note 7. This is a mega-sized mea culpa.
We've tested the new Note 8 for seven months and it's even more interesting today thanks to the new Deep Sea Blue color came out post-launch in the US and UK, and the big Android Oreo update currently rolling out. This catches it up to the Samsung Galaxy S9 and similarly sized Galaxy S9 Plus that just launched.
After all of our hands on time with the Note 8 has has us convinced: this is a true redesign of not just the Note series, but of the average smartphone from top-to-bottom, edge-to-edge, and rear camera to, well, rear camera. There are now two cameras on the back, a first for a Samsung flagship smartphone (the new S9 Plus has it too). It takes brilliant portrait photos, and you can even edit the depth of field post-capture.
What makes the Note 8 different is the handy S Pen stylus and larger 6.3-inch ‘Infinity Display’ to work with – but one that doesn’t increase the dimensions of the actual phone too much. The phone acts like a big, borderless glass canvas for your important handwritten notes and masterpiece doodles. Watch our video review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 below.
Why buy this instead of the new 6.2-inch Galaxy S9 Plus? The extra tenth of an inch of screen is insignificant and doesn’t matter, but Note fans adore the S Pen stylus functionality and its more square shape. Over the S8 Plus, the Note 8 also benefits power users with 6GB or RAM a superior dual-lens camera, both features passed on to the S9 Plus.
This is the most powerful Samsung phone with a stylus yet. It does, however, cost you in three ways. First, it’s too big for some – it’s technically one of Samsung’s best, but not the best for everyone. You’re going to need a Note 8 case to confidently hold this unwieldy glass beast, and two hands to operate it.
Second, the big screen also comes at the cost of the Note’s usual oval-shaped fingerprint sensor home button. It’s gone. The on-screen button that replaces it works fine, but the fingerprint sensor is now located on the back of the device and off-center – it’s a textbook flawed design, and the alternative iris scanner doesn’t always work when you want to unlock the phone. We're hoping the Galaxy Note 9 fixes this in a couple of months.
Then there’s the Note 8 price. If you want top-of-the-line specs, the one of the most advanced cameras, a stunning display, and streamlined multitasking on a phone, you’re really going to pay for them. The Note 8 costs more than the S8 Plus, although if you’re going to sink a lot of money into a device that you use everyday, you may as well go all the way.
Can your wallet, and the extent of your grip, handle the Note 8? That’s pretty much all that you – if you have faith in Samsung again – need to ask yourself before buying this phone.
The new Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are the biggest Samsung Galaxy Note 8 rivals. They already run Android Oreo and Google's camera is slightly better but its screen colors are worse, in our opinion. The Google Pixel 2 XL is having a few screen burn-in problems, too. Apple has the all-new iPhone X with a borderless display, facial recognition and an equally sizable price tag, but that requires switching over from Android to iOS 11. That's a tough sell.
The Note 8 rules supreme in the big-screen, big-power, big-price arena, as we'll demonstrate in our full review.
Price and release date
At $929 (£869, AU$1,499), it's the most expensive (non-Apple) phone you'll buy
Released on September 15 in US and UK, September 22 in Australia
The Galaxy Note 8 release date was Friday, September 15 in the US and UK, while Australia got the new phone on September 22. It's readily
available.
Note 8 on the right
The official Note 8 price is $929 (£869, AU$1,499), and US carriers have it for as much as $40 a month for 24 months, though we’d suggest getting the unlocked, carrier-agnostic version. You can find it cheaper via Amazon US or eBay.
Either way, it’s going to be the most expensive smartphone you’ve ever bought. The Galaxy S8 Plus, for comparison, cost $829 (£779, AU$1,349) at launch, but you can now get Plus for around $699 in the US, while Galaxy S8 deals make the smaller version almost half the price of the Note 8.
Good news, though: you can already find Galaxy Note 8 deals in the US and also in the UK. At launch in the US, it came with either a free Gear 360 camera or a 128GB memory card and fast wireless charger. We expect similar repeat deals.
In the UK the freebie was a DeX docking station, and there’s a dual-SIM version available. T-Mobile offers a $200 rebate.
Design and display
6.3-inch 'Infinity Display' redefines the Note look and feel
But it's 9mm taller than any Note phone – it's the new big
Water-resistant up to 1.5m (5ft) for 30 minutes
The best color, Deep Sea Blue, only just launched in the US
The Note 8 maximizes Samsung’s dual curved edge and nearly bezel-less Infinity Display to the point where this phone feels like a mini tablet from the future. It’s impressive-looking, but also big and heavy – 9mm taller than any previous Note phone, and 195g.
Stretching your fingers is well worth if you can physically manage it. Its expansive 6.3-inch display – now without a physical home button – has an unheard-of 83% screen-to-body ratio. The iPhones have a 67% screen-to-body ratio for comparison. That's a lot less screen for such big phones, at least until iPhone 8 arrives to change everything.
Samsung keeps topping itself, launching phones with the world’s best display every six months. Its maximum brightness, 3K resolution with Mobile HDR Premium, and wider color gamut are hard for anyone else to compete with. It's Always-On Display continues to be an appealing feature in a smartphone.
Lit up, the all-screen Note 8 feels like we’re carrying around a piece of light when we’re out and about. It's much better than the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL display, Google's biggest weakness.
The entire front glows with unimpeded information – as long as you don’t drop and crack it, and you’ll need to be extra careful as the entire phone is enveloped in glass wrapped around an aluminum frame. Combined with its size, this makes for one slippery smartphone.
While we spent most of the time using this phone naked (that’s without a case), we did test several Note 8 cases and instantly felt more confident carrying it around. Why? The added grip (and peace of mind) let us operate it with one hand, whereas we struggled with the pure glass body at such tall and wide dimensions. Sorry – you’re going to need a case with this phone.
There were very few Note 8 colors at launch. It came in muted tones of Midnight Black and Orchid Gray and we only recently saw the Deep Sea Blue color launch in the US. This vibrant blue and tempting Maple Gold colors were first launched in other regions. Samsung, annoyingly, refreshes its phones with new colors after a few months, much to the chagrin of loyal early adopters.
You also won’t get the best sound from the Note 8. It's a multimedia powerhouse visually, but its bottom-firing speaker still had us cupping the bottom of the phone to get better audio. Samsung has yet to deliver dual front-facing speakers like the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, or customizable Hi-Fi audio like the LG V30. Maybe next year.
The Note 8 is IP68 water-resistant, so it can survive up to 1.5m (5ft) underwater for 30 minutes, and it uses the reversible USB-C standard. Both are new perks for most Note fans. There’s also no camera bump, and that gaudy Samsung logo has been moved to the rear, no longer staring you in the face. Unfortunately, the fingerprint sensor has moved there, too.
The fingerprint sensor has marginally improved
No physical home button means a rear fingerprint sensor
It's further away from the camera vs the S8 and S8 Plus sensor
Iris scanner and face unlock are poor substitutes
We hate the fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy Note 8, just as we did on the S8 and S8 Plus. Maybe a tiny bit less, but we still don’t like its off-center rear location for the same reason: we keep blindly smudging the far-too-close dual-lens camera. It’s really difficult to unlock the phone.
Still awkward
What’s improved – slightly? The offset fingerprint sensor and center-aligned camera are a few milimeters further away from each other. Samsung wisely moved the flash and heart rate monitor in between the sensor (which requires your fingerprints) and the camera (which always gets fingerprint smudges all over it). That built-in heart rate monitor you forget still existed on Samsung phones now serves a purpose again.
Samsung’s unlocking alternatives don’t work as advertised. Face unlock has proven to be less secure, so much so that we don’t even suggest using it. And while you won’t fool the iris scanner, it won’t recognize you wearing sunglasses, or walking and holding the phone at the improper distance.
It’s ironic that we have a phone that looks like it comes from the future, yet it’s been designed with a fingerprint sensor that’s become a textbook design misfire on smartphones. Samsung could fix this issue with an in-glass front fingerprint sensor, but the technology isn’t ready yet. Expect this to be a grand announcement for the Galaxy S9 or Note 9 – please act surprised.
The S Pen is full of new and old tricks
Easy to sign documents and write directly on screenshots
Note-taking expands with convenient off-screen memos
Live Messages, GIF Capture add fun to this productivity tool
There are two types of people in the world – those who will use the Note 8’s S Pen, and those who think they’re going to use it, but will stop taking it out of its holster after about a week. It’s like everyone’s desire to own a Fitbit – you had good intentions when you set out to buy it.
Anyone who sticks with the S Pen, however, will get their money’s worth from the Note 8. We signed a PDF contract last week without having to print or scan it – in fact, we didn’t even have to leave the email app. We also jotted down handwritten notes and took screenshots that we were instantly able to mark up.
Plus the S Pen is also great for sketching with over 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity.
These features – usually reserved for pro-level tablets or 2-in-1 computers – are even handier on a phone. After all, the best note-taking device is the one you have with you all the time.
Frequent note-takers will love the off-screen memo feature, which lets you jot down white-ink notes on the turned-off black screen as soon as you eject the S Pen. Off-screen memos, introduced with the doomed Note 7, enable you to capture your thoughts without having to unlock the phone first.
The Note 7 also debuted S Pen features like GIF Capture and Translate, but these will be new to most Note 8 users. And new to the Note 8 is the ability to write out ‘Live Messages’, creating sparkly animations that you can send to anyone in GIF form.
If the S Pen lets you skip a few archaic steps – like printing, finding a working pen, and scanning a document – the Note 8 may be worth the extra $105 over the similarly sized S8 Plus if you can't find a good deal.
The Nintendo Switch is finally in shops - or more likely, out of stock in shops - adding a new contestant to the ongoing home console war.
Except, the Nintendo Switch isn't really a home console, is it? It's a handheld with a glorious facility to hook up to your TV for widescreen play.
Indeed, we'd argue that the Switch has got far more in common with the PS Vita than it does with the PS4. What better place to start our series of Switch versus pieces, then?
Nintendo Switch vs PS Vita - Design
The Nintendo Switch and the PS Vita take a similar approach to the basic look and operation. Both are relatively wide machines with a full set of controls stacked either side of a large display.
The PS Vita remains the more sleek, cohesive design. It's an outright handheld, after all, and one that's been honed with a subsequent redesign.
It's also a fair bit smaller (if a little thicker) at 184 x 85 x 15mm versus the Switch's 239 x 102 x 14mm dimensions. At 219g, meanwhile, the PS Vita is almost 80g lighter than the Switch.
Nintendo Switch vs PS Vita - Controls
The Switch uses its greater size to fit in an extra pair of shoulder buttons, which brings it more in line with current home console standards than the PS Vita. It also arranges its analogue sticks in an asymmetrical formation, with the left one nice and high for easy access.
Conversely, the PS Vita has a proper D-pad, which arguably makes its better suited to fighting games and other classic 2D game genres.
Both devices have capacitive touchscreens, but the PS Vita also has a touch-sensitive rear panel. Having said that, it's never been all that useful except in a few limited situations.
Nintendo Switch vs PS Vita - Screen
The PS Vita's 5-inch 960 × 544 (qHD) 16:9 display has always been one of its most beloved features - particularly the original model, which featured a vibrant OLED panel. The current model uses a more efficient but less impressive LCD equivalent, but it's still attractive.
However, the Nintendo Switch 6.2-inch 1280 × 720 (720p) 16:9 LCD display blows it out of the water. It's bigger, sharper, and just all-round better.
Of course, you'd hope so. The original Vita is five years old now, while even the revised model is three years old. That's progress for you.
Nintendo Switch vs PS Vita - Power
Here's another area where age has really caught up with the Vita. When it launched it was a cutting edge handheld, promising console-standard games in your pocket.
However, that intangible console standard turned out to be somewhere in between the PS2 and PS3. The Nintendo Switch sweeps in offering a similar 'console gaming in your pocket' promise, but we're talking about a standard that sits somewhere in between the PS3 and PS4, and ahead of the Wii U.
In terms of components, the PS Vita uses a Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU, while the Nintendo Switch uses a Custom Nvidia Tegra chip based on the Tegra X1.
We won't got into the technical nitty-gritty here - that's not really our bag - suffice to say that the Vita's GPU is roughly equivalent to that used in the iPad 3, while the Switch's is more in the ballpark (and technically ahead) of the Xbox 360. That's an obsolete tablet compared to a last-gen home console.
Nintendo Switch vs PS Vita - Special features
Both of these handhelds have a clever trick up their sleeves. In the PS Vita's case, it's Remote Play of PS4 games.
This involves streaming PS4 games, over a Wi-Fi connection, to your PS Vita's screen. It's far from a flawless provision, with slight delays and compromises on visual fidelity and control set-ups, but it certainly works.
The Nintendo Switch's clever trick is that it can plug into a dock and output the very same games to your TV. What's more, thanks to that dock's mains power and extra cooling, the Switch's CPU can be clocked higher for a proper 1080p Full HD (or thereabouts) output and slightly smoother performance.
Indeed, the Switch doesn't stop there with the special tricks. You can also remove the Joy-Con controllers, turn them on their side and use them as two separate controllers for multiplayer games. Thanks to a kickstand on the console itself, you can do this pretty much anywhere.
Nintendo Switch vs PS Vita - Battery
The PS Vita has a 2200 mAh battery which, in its latest Slim guise, can power approximately four to six hours of gaming.
As for the Switch, it has a much larger 4310 mAh battery, but the length of gaming time this lasts varies a little more widely between three and six hours.
Nintendo Switch vs PS Vita - Price
Here's where the one area in which the PS Vita wins out - and by quite some margin. Whereas the Nintendo Switch costs £280 for the console alone, the PS Vita Slim has an RRP of £180.
Maths geniuses will notice that this is a £100 difference - and you can get a good condition boxed second-hand unit with a guarantee from a reputable retailers for around £130.
There's also the matter of games. A quick scan of new PS Vita games on Amazon shows a general price range of between £15 and £25. Switch games will cost you £40 to £60 - and there are far fewer of them.
Conclusion We still love our Vitas here at PG, but there's no denying it's a highly mature platform that's come to the end of its life. It already has the feel of a retro platform, and for a lot of gamers it's more of an indie game player, emulation machine, or PS4 accessory than a fully fledged stand-alone console.
The Switch by contrast is just beginning, with lots of new games - including some guaranteed mega hits from Nintendo itself - on the horizon. But of course, the future is uncertain, and there's no guarantee the Switch will be a success.
What is certain is that the Switch is an improvement on the PS Vita in most of the key ways. It's not as pretty, elegant, or cheap. But it's way more powerful with a much improved screen and (generally speaking) set of controls, and it can be enjoyed in a far broader range of situations.
It's tough to say which machine is flat out better, because they're not competing on a level playing field. They represent two completely different generations of devices, launched into very different markets with very different capabilities.
And that really is the main thing to take away: the Vita is the handheld of the past, while the Switch is the handheld of the future.
Microsoft claims the Xbox One X to be the most powerful gaming console on Earth, and from a technical standpoint they are absolutely right. But is it enough to win the hearts and minds of Asian gamers this Christmas and beyond?
I spent 30 days with the console to find out. It is a powerful little black box
The Xbox One X is a substantial upgrade to the original Xbox One, which was released in 2013, and comes almost exactly a year after Sony delivered a somewhat similar performance boost with its PlayStation 4 Pro. It contains 6 TFLOPS of power from an AMD Radeon GPU, features 12 GB of GDDR5 RAM and is using a 2.3GHz 8-core AMD Jaguar processor. That’s nearly two teraflops more than the PS4 Pro, a faster CPU, and 3GB more of overall RAM. The Xbox One X comfortably outperforms the PS4 Pro. On hardware alone, it’s smaller, more powerful, and even includes a 4K Blu-ray player over its PS4 Pro rival.
The Xbox 360 and Xbox One had its fair share of catastrophic (the former) and terrible (the latter) designs, but the Xbox One X looks like a fitting redemption for Microsoft’s design and engineering teams. When compared to the PS4 Pro’s design, the Xbox One X with all the power inside is quite mind blowing to be honest (Ed’s Note: It’s also worth noting that Microsoft have been building solid PC hardware over the past couple of years too).
That external storage drive will come in handy. Read on.
The PS4 Pro brought along with it 4K (sort of) and HDR gaming, but the real promise of the Xbox One X is “true 4K” gaming and HDR. The icing on the cake? Microsoft has also claimed that the One X can run true 4K at 60fps, something which is only possible in the realm of high-end PC gaming. The Sony console simply does not have the horsepower to render native 4K at 60fps, and display something closer to 1440p or 1800p depending on the game developers. That’s quite a lot less
detail than 2160p or true 4K. So the Xbox One X is quite possibly the most powerful, and ch
But here comes the complicating part about existing Xbox One games. Most of them are designed for 1080p resolution and not true 4K, so the benefits that come with the Xbox One X’s power depend on what game you are playing. Microsoft has promised more than 150 “enhanced” games for the Xbox One X (you can find the list of games here), but that doesn’t always mean they will support true 4K. Similar to how Sony let game developers decide on how they could best make use of the additional power available on the PS4 Pro, some of these “enhancements” on the Xbox One X could simply be better frame rates instead of 4K resolution, or HDR capability. Other enhancements might include a combination of 4K, HDR and improved frame rates. There isn’t a hard rule imposed on game developers to add true 4K textures to their Xbox One games.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing however, as some older Xbox One games look absolutely gorgeous with their new 4K Ultra HD coatings – such as Far Cry 5, Fallout 4, and Dishonored 2 – and are worth revisiting them. Then some games like Gears of War 4 and Rise of the Tomb Raider (yes still old games) also allow players to choose between a 60fps performance-focused mode or 4K with HDR mode. These games look great at 4K fidelity, but running them at 60fps on a console was a refreshing experience for me. Everything just seems more ‘buttery’ smooth, and for someone like me who plays games on PC frequently, this is remarkable. When game developers start allowing gamers to choose between resolution or frame rates enhancements for their console games, truly the line between PC and console games will get even more blur.
Then there are first-party titles like Forza Motorsport 7, that offers the best of all three worlds with true 4K, HDR and running at 60fps. Activision’s Call of Duty: WWII, another “Enhanced for Xbox One X” title, comes very close to looking like it does on my PC (running at 4K with 2x GeForce GTX 1080 cards in SLI mode) thanks to the textures improvements and 60fps support too. These two games are the pinnacle of the Xbox One X’s prowess, and both look stunning on my LG OLED C7 with HDR enabled.
I’ve also come to realized that while true 4K delivery was remarkable, of equal importance was playing games on consoles at 60fps. Once you have tried a game in 60fps, it’s hard to go back to 30fps, regardless of resolutions and textures. I have also tried Destiny 2 on the Xbox One X and experienced noticeable frame rate improvements too, even though the game is locked at 30fps. I get the feeling that developer Bungie is keeping 60fps exclusively for the PC version of the game for the time being. Lack of killer first-party 4K Ultra HD games
But these games that I have played, and kindly provided by Microsoft, also exposed a glaring weakness of the console; there just isn’t enough killer first-party 4K Ultra HD games for it. Call of Duty: WWII and Destiny 2 aren’t exclusive to the Xbox One X, and even first-party games such as Gears of War 4 and Forza Motorsport 7 are not exactly the type of marquee console launch titles most of us want. You can even argue that the last two games can also be played on a Windows 10 computer, anyway. There’s no blockbuster game that I can play on the Xbox One X, and I can’t think of one that I look forward to playing in the near future either.
Let’s look at it this way. The PS4 Pro may not be the most powerful console on Earth, but it will have exclusive games like the new God of War, Spider-Man, The Last of Us 2, and even Metal Gear maestro Kojima’s new and weird Death Stranding all coming for it. Make no mistake, these are the type of heavyweights that excite gamers and make them hang on to their PS4, or better still, buy a new PS4 Pro. These games sell consoles.
What’s Microsoft’s first-party lineup like for 2018? Quite paltry to be honest. Crackdown 3 is delayed, and the much hyped Scalebound and Fable Legends were canned. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is only a timed exclusive and is not a matter of if but when it comes to the PS4. There is no new Halo game, and the franchise has also taken a beating from fans with its last outing. Simply put, there isn’t that one game I can imagine anyone will buy an Xbox One X to play on, in the same way Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did for the Nintendo Switch, or how Horizon: Zero Dawn spurred some PS4 gamers to upgrade to the more powerful PS4 Pro.
Games ‘enhanced’ for Xbox One X requires a lot more space. Gears of War 4, for example, requires 100GB.
Speaking of “enhanced” games. The Xbox One X comes with 1TB of storage space, but I highly recommend buying an external drive for it. This is because Xbox One X games enhanced for it are significantly bigger, easily doubling than the standard Xbox One titles, which are usually between 40-50GB. After installing games like Call of Duty: WWII, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Gears of War 4, Forza Motorsport 7, all of which come with larger 4K texture files, and I’m left with just less than 300GB of storage space. Downloading these games off the Xbox Store also meant you’d need a fast Internet connection, or you’ll be faced with a rather long waiting time. Yet it is an excellent good media center
But games aside, the Xbox One X is also a media center, and an excellent one at that. It supports native 4K Blu-ray playback with Dolby Atmos and HDR 10 (strangely, no Dolby Vision) supported, and it’s something that the PS4 Pro completely lacks. This also makes the Xbox One X a remarkably value-for-money high-end Blu-ray player. Microsoft also sent a copy of Planet Earth II for my Xbox One X review, and watching it on the LG OLED C7 TV was jaw-dropping. I can appreciate how gamers who are also 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray collectors will be happy with not having to purchase an additional standalone native 4K Blu-ray player.
Streaming media apps such as Netflix on the console also worked wonders and it was nice to see episodes of The Punisher and Stranger Things 2 looking amazing and play with ease. My only small jibe is that the LG OLED C7 has a built-in Netflix app, which is seemingly superior, as it also supports Dolby Vision. So, while it makes more sense for me to play Netflix and even Hulu straight from my LG TV, it might not be so for you if you own another brand of Smart TV that only supports the standard HDR 10. A powerful console that needs more from Microsoft
Microsoft set out to build the most powerful gaming console and they succeeded; the One X does offer the best graphics currently available on a console. But you do need a 4K TV, and preferably one that supports HDR, to tap into these powers. And at S$699, native 4K gaming is finally a reality for the common gamers, which used to be only possible with expensive high-end PC gaming hardware. Consider this, the bare minimum to play PC games at 3840 x 2160 (native 4K aka 4K Ultra HD) requires an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card, which already cost more than the price of the One X. Factor in all other necessary components, and a good 4K-capable gaming PC will set you back by S$3,000 at least.
The only problem that with the Xbox One X is games, games and games. Microsoft’s first-party library has a long way to catch up to Sony’s in this regard. We can only hope for some surprises from Microsoft Game Studios at this year’s E3, but it will be a missed opportunity nonetheless, by the company to continue the launch momentum in this part of the world.
But if you don’t care about Sony’s exclusives, then the Xbox One X is the best console to play all the third-party games today and in the coming months. If your primary console is the original Xbox One or One S and have a 4K TV, this is going to be a nice upgrade as well. Microsoft did an excellent job with the Xbox One X, but it now needs to deliver on the games. And quickly.eapest
The original PlayStation Vita is a remarkable gaming handheld. It's powerful, with an amazing 5-inch OLED display, and features a wide range of inputs, including two analog sticks and a pair of touchscreens. As great as it is, Sony thinks it could be better, and it's beginning to rapidly phase out the original Vita in favor of a slimmer model with a few notable improvements. Apart from being refined in a number of ways, the new Vita Slim is also more consumer friendly than the barebones Vita of old; for the time being, every new Vita Slim is bundled with a free memory card (8GB) and a free voucher for Borderlands 2 and its 6 DLC packs. With the Slim redesign, the Vita has never been sleeker, or a better value, but its stunning OLED screen has been replaced by a standard LCD panel, and it's possible that people with an eye for detail may find the downgrade too noticeable to overlook.
Though the original Vita is a strong piece of hardware, it has its share of issues that needed to be addressed. The battery life is great in standby mode, but during gameplay, it typically taps out around the four-hour mark. The lackluster battery performance was compounded by the system's proprietary charging port. It negates the viability of common USB cables and requires a USB port with a data connection in order to accept a charge; common USB cables and wall chargers won't cut it.
Thankfully, Sony replaced the Vita's proprietary USB port with the now-common micro-USB standard. You no longer need a special Vita-only cable, you don't need to rely on finicky port restrictions, and common USB wall chargers are now your Vita's best friend. Plus, the battery in the new Vita is reported to last at least an hour longer than the old model, despite having the same capacity.
While it's good to see that the Vita's new screen doesn't hamper its battery life, it does have a negative impact on the overall Vita experience. Sure, LCD panels are cheaper to produce, which allows Sony to shave a few dollars off of the Vita price tag, but with a persistent backlight, colors look washed out on the LCD panel. If you've used the original Vita in any capacity, you know how impressive the OLED display can be, and the moment you look at the new model in action, you instantly recognize that it fails to produce images that are as crisp or vibrant as those of the original. If you've never used the old model, the shift in screen technology won't stand out as much, but you still won't find the display on the new Vita particularly impressive.
...you still won't find the display on the new Vita particularly impressive.
Still, you can find improvements in other areas that make the new Vita an attractive proposition. The new USB port is one, but if you look around, you find that the buttons have also been improved--in particular the start, select, and PlayStation home buttons. These three buttons were previously ovoid and sat flush with the surface, making them unusually difficult to press. Now, they are represented like any other button: they're circular and raised up, making them far easier to use, especially when you're trying to take screenshots by pressing the start and home buttons at the same time.
The new Vita also comes with 1GB of built-in memory, which means that you don't need to have a memory card in order to link a PSN account and play games, but oddly, you can't use the internal storage and the included 8GB memory card at the same time.
Vita Slim (front) and the original Vita (rear)
Finally, the new Vita is 20 percent slimmer and 15 percent lighter than the old model. The original Vita was comfortable as is, but the Vita Slim is even more welcoming now that it's less bulky, and because it incorporates softer materials throughout the chassis.
There's no getting around the fact that the new Vita has an inferior screen compared to its predecessor, but it's easy to appreciate the reduction in size, weight, and price. Plus, the changes made to the USB port and the buttons make it a much friendlier system to use overall. Even though they won't look as good, the same games that worked on the old Vita work on the new model, so at the end of the day, the new Vita is worth considering for all of its advantages if you aren't bothered by the new screen.
nePlus has been so incredibly consistent in its phone releases, particularly since the OnePlus 2, that you kind of get tired of the storyline. It's a flagship-level phone, without the flagship-level price. (The "flagship killer" moniker has all but died, thankfully.) We get it now, that base premise in itself no longer makes OnePlus phones interesting. So it has to actually make a phone that stands alone as something good and exciting, not just one that does most of what the competition does at a lower price.
I've been using the OnePlus 6 for a few weeks now, well after our complete OnePlus 6 review — because on the face of it this looked like yet another OnePlus phone, and I wanted to see whether there was more to it. In many ways, it's more of the same — the tried-and-true OnePlus system is at play here. But with some strategic upgrades and a little more attention to detail, OnePlus has a winner on its hands
OnePlus 6 What I like
The OnePlus 6 is the first phone from the company since the OnePlus X that isn't woefully boring looking. The improved design and materials alone are worth the added cost of the OnePlus 6 compared to the 5T, and that's important — because now that we've crested the $500 barrier, people put real weight behind these non-essential aspects of the phone experience.
Hold the OnePlus 6 next to any $700+ phone and you won't find a difference in quality.
Nobody would hold the OnePlus 6 next to any $700+ phone and point out hardware shortcomings. I sure can't find any issues — and better yet, I think it's really nice. The glass feels modern and expensive, the glossy sides match perfectly, and the whole thing just has a classy ambiance to it. There's still a whole lot of room for OnePlus to go further and really put its own touch on this, but the "Designed by OnePlus" inscription on the back certainly shows that the company is taking this part more seriously.
Even with the fresh look, the OnePlus 6 retained one of my favorite parts of its predecessors: simplicity. OnePlus has stayed away from the hardware gimmicks. It has regular buttons in regular places, and they have great tactile response. There's a headphone jack. The always-great Alert Slider is right where you want it. No curved screen or unnecessary hardware buttons or squeeze functionality or "features" to get acquainted with.
The OnePlus 6's software, too, is extremely simple. It also happens to offer a fantastic level of performance I can always count on. OxygenOS flies on the OnePlus 6 — but then again, it did on the OnePlus 5. This has just become a tent pole of OnePlus phones, but it doesn't get old because this isn't a given even on modern phones with comparable specs to the OnePlus 6. Everything is simple, fast and consistent — it's all I ask for from a phone. I don't want extra features and apps and settings, I just want the phone to be a tool for accessing everything I want in my apps and services. The OnePlus 6 delivers, even weeks into my review period, I haven't had a single hiccup, slowdown or crash.
Exceptional software and consistent performance are tent poles of OnePlus phones.
I wish OnePlus would've made another step up in battery size just on principle, but the OnePlus 6 just doesn't need more capacity. I never struggled to make it through a day on a charge, and the only thing that ever got me close was a day that included over two hours of GPS- and data-intensive mapping and listening to podcasts in Android Auto. Through weeks of use, I never felt like I needed to curtail my usage of the OnePlus 6 for fear of battery repercussions later on in the day. And that's all I can really ask for: confidence in the battery.
Ahead of the OnePlus 6 announcement, I made it clear that I wasn't going to give the company a pass on camera performance this time around. With a price bump and even more importance being placed on smartphone cameras, there's no more room for OnePlus to have a good camera "for the money" — it needed to just have a good camera. And it delivered. I'm still disappointed that OnePlus still isn't doing anything particularly interesting with its secondary camera, but it got the main camera right this time around. Moving to a larger sensor, adding OIS and running it all through a better ISP in the Snapdragon 845 elevated the OnePlus 6's camera considerably.
The OnePlus 6's camera is good, really good. In daylight, the shots could pass for those from any top-end phone released in the last year. If you want to nitpick, you can point out it isn't quite as sharp as some, or that the dynamic range when using HDR isn't totally amazing. But it's great, you don't have anything to worry about in daylight. At night, OnePlus made considerable advancement from the generally weak OnePlus 5 camera. This is up to "above average" level in low-light shots, which places it a rung below the cream of the crop — but that's an acceptable shortcoming at this point. Things aren't amazingly sharp in low light, and the white balance can sometimes be off, but these are small problems — most of the time, I liked what I got from the OnePlus 6 in tough shooting conditions.
Is the OnePlus 6's camera is good as the Pixel 2 XL, Galaxy S9+ or Huawei P20? No. But it's getting close, and that's more than good enough for this phone. It feels like the only thing separating OnePlus from the aforementioned group is the thousands of hours and dozens of engineers required to get the computational photography part of the recipe just right. That takes time and money (and often patents) that aren't always easy to come by. But as it stands, the camera is no longer the weak point of the OnePlus phone, and that's an important step. If the next full generation (OnePlus 7, not 6T) makes the same sort of leap in camera performance, OnePlus will be excruciatingly close to the top competition in cameras.
A few complaints
OnePlus 6 What's not as good
Now this isn't all just a love-fest. There are still corners that have to be cut (or at least rounded off) at a $529 price, and other areas where OnePlus just hasn't executed properly.
For all of the great components, a few corners had to be cut.
Internally, OnePlus spent money on the components it knows will sell phones to its core customers: processor, memory, storage, and battery. I covered the battery part above, but having the big numbers in the other three categories is important — OnePlus can say it has the same, or better, core specs than the more-expensive competition. But that means that it didn't get to include the "extras" like a fantastic display, advanced speaker system or a full waterproofing rating.
The OnePlus 6's display is good. It's even above average. But it's not up to speed with super-bright daylight conditions, nor does it get quite dark enough at night for my eyes. Colors and viewing angles are good, and there isn't much to complain about here in daily use, but it's these fringe cases that separate "good" from "great" displays. The speaker is as basic as it gets — no attempt at dual speakers, special audio chambers or specific tuning ... and that, too, is disappointing. Every other phone I've used in the last year has a better audio system than the OnePlus 6. And finally yes, I know the OnePlus 6 is pretty much waterproof. But unless OnePlus is willing to do the proper testing and certification to give it an IPX7 rating on the box, I'm not going to trust it — and that's something I have to think about on a regular basis.
The vibration and haptics are just downright bad — there's no way around it.
I've railed on this before, and (thankfully) I know I'm not alone: the vibration and haptics on the OnePlus 6 are just downright bad. Haptic response is one of those things where you aren't supposed to notice it — when done well, it just feels right. When it's done like the OnePlus 6, it's noticeable and completely detracts from the otherwise fantastic experience of using this phone. Every time the phone vibrates, it's rattling, loud and shallow-feeling. There are $250 Motorola phones that have a better grasp of vibration motors. An adjustable vibration setting would at least mitigate the issue — but that wouldn't be able to fix this entirely, it's a hardware problem. I know it seems pedantic, but I really wish OnePlus would've put more thought and development time into the haptics — like the design mentioned above, these are the things people start to care about when the price of the phone goes north of $500.
The matter has been settled
OnePlus 6 Second opinion review
If you're willing to spend up to $550 on a phone, but not a penny more, the OnePlus 6 is where your search starts and ends. For this kind of money, you just can't find a better combination of specs, hardware, features, camera, software and performance. It's a great phone that absolutely nails the basics, but also goes beyond your expectations in many other ways.
If your budget caps out at $550, the OnePlus 6 is where your search starts and ends.
OnePlus was likely going to keep holding that "best phone for the money" moniker if it simply refreshed the OnePlus 5 again. But with this improved design, better camera and a bit more attention to detail it has also managed to wiggle its way up into being a credible direct competitor to the more expensive competition. Aside from a few minimal issues, the OnePlus 6 faithfully competes with top-end phones from other companies — and at the same time, its software experience and performance matches or outdoes every other phone out there.
There are better phones if money is no option. And there are better "values" to be had in less expensive phones that still do much of what the OnePlus 6 does. But in this pricing sweet spot, I see no other competition — this phone is the winner.
With the monstrous Predator 21 X and sleek Predator Triton 700, Acer staked a compelling claim on the high-end market, loading its notebooks with extravagant features and the most powerful portable gaming hardware available. The Acer Predator Helios 300 doesn’t concern itself with fanciful bells and whistles. It’s a straightforward, no-nonsense gaming laptop that delivers a refreshing amount of bang for your buck, starting at $1,100 on Amazon with a Core i7-7700HQ processor and a GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card.
The Acer Predator Helios 300 isn’t quite perfect. The display runs dimmer than its rivals, and the storage is cramped. But beyond those minor grumbles, this machine checks all the boxes you could ask for in an affordable gaming laptop. It’s even easy to repair!
Acer Predator Helios 300 specs, features, and price
Acer offers the Predator Helios 300 in several configurations spanning both 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch display sizes. We’re reviewing the entry-level 15-inch version. Here’s what’s inside:
CPU: Core i7-7700HQ
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
RAM: 16GB DDR4/2400
Storage: 256GB M.2 SSD
Wireless: 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Display: 15.6-inch 1920x1080 60Hz IPS
Ports: 2x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C, HDMI, SD card reader, ethernet, headphone jack, lock slot
Weight: 5 pounds, 7.9 ounces, or 7 pounds with power brick
Dimensions: 15.4 x 10.5 x 1.1 inches
Webcam: 720p
Price: $1,100
Around this price range, you’ll normally find gaming laptops equipped with a lesser-powered GeForce GTX 1050 or GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, or a middling Core i5 CPU. Not here: The Predator packs the same quad-core Core i7-7700HQ processor found in laptops that cost two or three times more, along with a full-fat 6GB GeForce GTX 1060—no dialed-back Max-Q version here. Despite the affordable price, Acer didn’t skimp on the memory, stocking the Helios 300 with 16GB of DDR4 RAM
The only ho-hum hardware? Storage. This entry-level configuration includes an SSD with a scant 256GB capacity that’ll fill up fast in this era of plus-sized games. It’s nice and fast in practice, though. Acer offers another configuration that supplements the SSD with a 1TB mechanical hard drive, but at a steep $300 premium. Given how easy it is to crack open the Predator Helios 300—the empty hard drive bay is secured shut by a single Phillips screw—I’d recommend going the DIY route to add more storage to the laptop.
The laptop chassis includes plenty of plastic, as you’d expect in a gaming notebook in this price range, but Acer augments it with a sleek, brushed-metal lid and keyboard deck. Two angled red stripes flank the Predator logo on the lid, ensuring everyone in the coffee shop knows you’re using an Acer. It’s a fingerprint magnet, though. With 5 pounds, 7.9 ounces of heft and a 1.1-inch thickness, the Helios 300 is fairly compact for a gaming rig. You’ll feel it in your backpack but won’t break your spine lugging it around.
The inputs feel comfortable and responsive, too. The chiclet-style keys have plenty of travel and aren’t overly loud in use. Fetching red backlights augment the keyboard and look nice against the black keys. They can be turned on or off manually, but not dimmed or customized on a per-key basis. The clickpad-style touchpad handles very smoothly and accurately. I’d have preferred dedicated left- and right-click buttons, but hey, I’m a purist. The Helios 300’s keyboard and touchpad excel overall.
I wish I could say the same for the 1920x1080 IPS display. It’s nice and sharp with wide viewing angles, but far too dim. In fact, at 230 nits maximum, it doesn’t even hit the minimum brightness level we use for our battery run-down tests, which run at a standardized 250 to 260 nits to simulate comfortable indoor viewing. Some colors lack pop and feel washed-out as a result, especially vibrant hues. Don’t get me wrong: The Predator Helios 300’s display is serviceable overall. It’s just lackluster compared to rival screens.
Here's a look at the laptop's port selection. The USB 3.1 Type-C port is a nice touch that you normally don't see in this price bracket.
Acer Predator Helios 300 performance
The Acer Predator Helios 300 packs an awful lot of punch for its price. We’ll be comparing it against several similar systems in our tests, including the $950, GTX 1060 Max-Q-equipped Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming, the thin-and-light, $2,200 Gigabyte Aero 15X with a GTX 1070 Max-Q, and the $1,250 Microcenter PowerSpec 1510 with a full-fat GTX 1070.
Maxon’s Cinebench R15 measures raw CPU performance, and will happily use as many threads as you can throw at it. All of the gaming laptops being compared today use the quad-core Intel Core i7-7700HQ except the Dell Inspiron, which uses a Core i5 chip instead. Because the chip lacks hyper-threading support, Dell’s laptop brings up the rear in Cinebench’s multi-threaded benchmark by a large margin. The others deliver virtually identical performance results.
But Cinebench’s benchmark runs in a short duration. The file we encode in our CPU-intensive HandBrake test (which uses an older version of the software) takes around 45 minutes on a quad-core processor. The extended duration reveals how a laptop’s temperature throttling affects performance over time. Once again, the Core i7-7700HQ laptops turn in similar results, with the Core i5-equipped Dell Inspiron lagging far behind.
Gaming laptops need strong graphics capabilities, of course. We test their visual chops using the Graphics sub-score in 3DMark’s Fire Strike Extreme benchmark, a synthetic benchmark that focuses on pure GPU performance. This test illustrates how Nvidia’s efficient Max-Q GPUs achieve their energy savings in part by dialing back performance. Again: The Inspiron has a GTX 1060 Max-Q, the Predator Helios 300 being reviewed packs a full GTX 1060, the Gigabyte Aero 15X holds a GTX 1070 Max-Q, and the chunky PowerSpec laptop keeps the pedal to the medal with a full-fat GTX 1070.
But enough synthetic benchmarks. Let’s get to the games! We compare laptop gaming performance at 1080p resolution to standardize results across the board, using the in-game benchmarks included with each title.
The GTX 1060 inside the Predator Helios 300 excels at this resolution, with frame rates surpassing display’s 60Hz speed across the board. These gaming results once again show the difference with Max-Q versions of Nvidia’s GPUs. The full-blown GTX 1060 is solidly ahead of the Max-Q variant in the Dell Inspiron. Moving up to a GTX 1070 provides a big jump in performance as you’d expect, with the GTX 1070 Max-Q splitting the difference.
We also ran the Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark continuously for an hour, and the only performance drop-off observed fell within the margin of error—around a frame per second. The Acer Predator Helios 300’s cooling does its job, and it does so without being overly loud. This is a gaming laptop, though. Expect to still hear the fans when you fire up games or otherwise put the Predator under load.
Acer’s notebook offers strong endurance for a gaming laptop, clocking in at nearly 7 hours in PCWorld’s battery run-down test, which consists of looping a 4K video in the Windows 10 Movies and TV player with audio at 50 percent until the machine gives up the ghost. That’s comparable with the Gigabyte Aero 15X, a laptop we praised for its battery life.
Two factors play strongly into the result. First, the Helios 300 does not include a G-Sync display, so it’s able to switch to the integrated graphics in the Intel CPU to save energy when you’re not gaming. The screen’s dim compared to its rivals, too. We standardize our battery life results by setting laptop brightness to 250 nits, a comfortable level for indoor viewing. Acer’s laptop maxes out at 230 nits. That skews the results in this benchmark—though it also means that the Predator genuinely lasts longer out in the real world.
Should you buy the Helios 300?
The screen isn’t dark enough to dissuade, though, and it’s the only semi-issue of note in the Acer Predator Helios 300. This is a great notebook.
You don’t see gaming laptops this well-rounded going at such a competitive price very often. Acer loaded the Helios 300 with more potent hardware than usual for this cost tier, paired it with a comfortable keyboard and touchpad combo, then pulled it all together into a fairly portable package that won’t break your back. [ Further reading: Best gaming laptops: Know what to look for and which models rate highest ]
As far as alternatives go, the PowerSpec 15 moves up to a full-fat GTX 1070, a G-Sync display, and a supplementary 1TB hard drive for only $200 more. That’s a hell of a deal too, but it makes some compromises to hit that price. It’s a big, heavy, ugly laptop that’s only available in-store at Micro Center, plus you need to jump through arcane hoops to activate G-Sync (which nukes the laptop’s battery life). The $900 Dell Inspiron 15 7000 is another option, but it uses a lesser-powered CPU and GPU to hit its sub-$1,000 price point. The GTX 1050 Ti inside will run most games at 1080p, but not at maxed-out graphics options, and it's not very future-proof.
This comfy-to-carry notebook delivers a superb 1080p gaming experience and absolutely oozes value. If I needed to buy a gaming laptop today, the Acer Predator Helios 300 would get my money (though I’d augment its paltry 256GB of storage with another SSD or external drive). Highly recommended.
Then there’s the Note 8 price. If you want top-of-the-line specs, the one of the most advanced cameras, a stunning display, and streamlined multitasking on a phone, you’re really going to pay for them. The Note 8 costs more than the S8 Plus, although if you’re going to sink a lot of money into a device that you use everyday, you may as well go all the way.
lable.
Stretching your fingers is well worth if you can physically manage it. Its expansive 6.3-inch display – now without a physical home button – has an unheard-of 83% screen-to-body ratio. The iPhones have a 67% screen-to-body ratio for comparison. That's a lot less screen for such big phones, at least until iPhone 8 arrives to change everything.
There were very few Note 8 colors at launch. It came in muted tones of Midnight Black and Orchid Gray and we only recently saw the Deep Sea Blue color launch in the US. This vibrant blue and tempting Maple Gold colors were first launched in other regions. Samsung, annoyingly, refreshes its phones with new colors after a few months, much to the chagrin of loyal early adopters.
Anyone who sticks with the S Pen, however, will get their money’s worth from the Note 8. We signed a PDF contract last week without having to print or scan it – in fact, we didn’t even have to leave the email app. We also jotted down handwritten notes and took screenshots that we were instantly able to mark up.
The Note 7 also debuted S Pen features like GIF Capture and Translate, but these will be new to most Note 8 users. And new to the Note 8 is the ability to write out ‘Live Messages’, creating sparkly animations that you can send to anyone in GIF form.
