Samsung’s Galaxy Note Fan Edition improves on the original Note 7 in two crucial ways

After Samsung’s global recall of the Galaxy Note 7 when several of the phones caught fire, they were sitting on a massive stockpile of recalled devices and the spare parts to service them over their projected service life. Rumours have been bandied about for the past several months that Samsung will resurrect the Galaxy Note 7. Well, if you’re holding out on that prospect, you’re in luck as Samsung is resurrecting it as the Galaxy Note Fan Edition.

The Galaxy Note Fan Edition has similar hardware as the Note 7 including IP68 water resistance as well as the S Pen stylus and is externally differentiated by a different logo at the rear of the phone. Aesthetics aside, the revamped phone’s biggest difference is a smaller but thoroughly safety-checked 3,200mAh battery. Each of the batteries has undergone Samsung’s 8-point battery safety test to ensure they are safe to use.

The second major difference in the Galaxy Note Fan Edition is that it will sport the Galaxy S8’s Bixby virtual assistant though the phone will not have the S8’s dedicated button to summon Bixby tacked on to it. Not all of Bixby’s features are activated in overseas markets and in Malaysia Bixby functioned mostly as a means of image recognition to point people to relevant products once the phone’s camera was pointed at something though functionality will likely be unlocked later on down the line.

If this floats your boat, the Galaxy Note Fan Edition will be released in South Korea on 7 July and retails for an estimated US$600 which works out to RM2,581 in local Malaysian Ringgit. The clincher is that Samsung will only be making 400,000 of the phones available for now and, alas, the phones will only be sold in South Korea at launch though it was stated that “overseas sales will be decided later”

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