[Exclusive] Samsung Galaxy Note7 – Unboxing and First Look

Galaxy Note7: First Impressions
The main draw of the show, the Galaxy Note7 is a thing of beauty indeed. Wrought of glass and metal, the phone is easily one of, if currently not the best looking phablet ever made. It’s also the first Note series phone to be rated IP68, rendering it water resistant in up to a meter of water for up to 30 minutes should you be possessed by a whim to use it underwater. The previous Note5 wasn’t rated to be water resistant.

The initial look and feel is exceptionally classy in every aspect of the Note7 from its exterior design all the way to its initial boot-up sequence. Both the front and the rear of the phone are designed to be symmetrical as opposed to the radically curved, daring edges of the Galaxy S7 Edge, lending it a delightful tacticility. Despite the massive screen, the symmetrical front and rear along with the gently curved edges of the Note7 makes it a delight to grasp and use.

The base of the phone comes with a USB Type-C port, the first Samsung phone to do so. Fortunately, if you still have your legacy microUSB charger cables, you simply use the bundled micro USB to USB Type C adaptor to keep one of your legacy chargers in use. The phone comes with a non-removable 3,500mAh battery that has wireless charging as well as fast charging support so you can keep it topped up in the field whenever you encounter a power point.

The right side comes with a power button while the left comes with a volume rocker, all of which are hewn of cool-to-the-touch metal. The only other aspect of buttonry on the phone is the customary square-shaped home button on the base of the front bezel that also acts as a fingerprint reader to unlock the phone and as a means for the Note7 to  interact with the Samsung Pay payment gateway that will be released later this year.  

The back end of the phone is a lustrously smooth slab of glass that also comes with a rear 12-MP camera that has optical image stabilisation, an F/1.7 lens and Samsung’s Dual Pixel tech perched on the upper corner of the phone. Essentially, the camera is the same powerful one seen on the Galaxy S7 Edge and S7 so you’re able to take brill snaps under most conditions and 4K video too. To date, it’s currently the most powerful camera crammed into a smartphone. It’s also a significant upgrade over last year’s 16-MP model on the Note5 despite the reduction in megapixels.

The top of the phone hides a SIM tray. Our unboxing unit is an European variant with a single SIM card slot and a microSD card slot though in terms of the rest of the hardware it is identical. Malaysian variants will have the Duos logo emblazoned on the backplate of the phone and will have a hybrid SIM so you have a choice of either popping in two SIM cards or one SIM and one microSD card though the onboard 64GB of storage is already plenty to begin with.

Up front, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 comes with a large 5.7-inch Super Amoled 518 ppi display with edge screens on either side. Perched just atop the display is an iris sensor to unlock the phone and a front-facing 5-MP camera with an F/1.7 lens for selfies. An initial run through of the iris sensor saw it effectively reading peepers at about 20cm distant and was able to do so without glasses or contacts on. In lieu of that, you can still opt for the traditional fingerprint reader, a pattern unlock or a password to unlock your phone.

In terms of processor, it is similar to the Galaxy S7 Edge – it has an identical Exynos 8890 processor, 4GB RAM along with double the storage as it has 64GB over the S7 Edge’s 32GB and also runs Android Marshmallow overlaid with Samsung’s latest take on TouchWiz with refinements to accommodate the Galaxy Note7’s S Pen stylus.

The new S Pen stylus has been revamped from the one appearing on the Note 5 and is more responsive than ever before. It has the same clicky top and has been upgraded to be water resistant too on top of the ability to write underwater should you ever have the need to do so.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”#ff0000″ class=”” size=”16″]Essentially, the camera is the same powerful one seen on the Galaxy S7 Edge and S7 so you’re able to take brill snaps under most conditions and 4K video too.[/perfectpullquote]

The stylus tip is slimmer as well, allowing for more precision when in use while the phone lets you doodle, add notes and even translate lines of text to another language. If you need to jot down a note, the Note7 comes with an Screen-Off Memo function that allows you to write a quick note on the display even when it’s not on. This has come in handy for short reminders such as ‘Buy Milk’ or ‘Get Veggies at Supermarket’, ‘Take Pet to Vet’ and the like.

On first impressions alone, the Note7 knocks our expectations out of the ballpark. From its exquisite polished finish to the powerful hardware it packs beneath it, it’s cementing its reputation as the de facto gold standard phablet to beat in the market. Currently, the Galaxy Note7 retails for RM3,199 and comes in either gold or silver for the Malaysia market come September. Stay tuned for the review as we put this gorgeous phone through its paces.