The Note 7 is now official, yes as many as thought of 6 will be the next generation of Galaxy Note the Korean giant decided to go straight to 7 for better marketing and branding of the device.
Why Note7 you may ask? They said that Galaxy Note7 was needed as they want people to remember everything wonderful about the Galaxy S7 and add new features. Given with the dual-edged screen, same blazing fast processor and IP68 waterproofing.
Note : We used the Galaxy Note7 itself in all photos shown in this article.
In a nutshell, the Galaxy Note7 is like the Galaxy S7 complete with waterproof IP68 version, snappy dual pixel camera, 4GB RAM and the same snappy Exynos 8890 Octa-Core processor with better enhancements more features as this is a Note version. Samsung focused a lot more of better customer experience with better functionality rather than adding “wow-gimiky” features.
Here are the features of the Galaxy Note7
As with any smartphone every year, all are getting thinner and more compact. With the Note7, it inherited the sleek body of the S7’s dual edge screen giving a more curved body both front and back. This eliminated the need of the diamond cut edges from the previous generation Note 5, making the edges a more round and giving a better grip with a snug fit hold all around.
While the sides are curved giving the edge functionality, we love the top and bottom sides are also curved with a 2.5D glass finish. This gives a better feel when using the earpiece or simply holding the phone against your phone.
Compared to the Note 5, you can see that the edges are now more rounded and less protruding. The overall feel is a smoother side with smaller footprint as it doesn’t require a bigger frame to protect the glass.
The back camera is now also minimized, with better bezels that protects the camera it doesn’t bulge out and doesn’t shout out as compared to before.
Top and bottom are now cleaner as well as the glass is now curved to match the shape of the sides. Positioning of ports are completely the same as the Note 5, though the S pen is now more secure this time avoiding the issue of the S pen being stuck when inserted backwards.
As fingerprint scanners now becoming a norm for all smartphones, Samsung takes up a notch with their new Iris Scanner security feature. Featuring a dedicated camera that can scan Irises of your eyes, it takes a negative photo to accurately detect the eyes. You can use this feature to create secret folders, new log-in method or even passwords in websites.
We are very impressed with the Iris scanner as it is very fast in verification and it works flawlessly even with Glasses, in very bright lighting or even pitch dark conditions. As you can see, besides the camera there is an infrared light to assist for the scanning to make it more accurate.
As with all Galaxy Note, its capabilities to “create” is amplified using the S pen. Now on the Note7, everything is more optimized rather than overhauled. New functions and better options are now present with the S pen to give a more detailed creative art.
For starters, the new S Pen is now using electromagnetic technology for better sensitivity and this is also to prepare the phone for the waterproof feature. Meaning you can even use the S Pen even when wet!
Sensitivity of the S Pen is now doubled for more pressure strokes. We appreciate this feature the most as we are a fan of light to dark strokes when using the brush.
Air Command gesture can now be more customized with apps and addition of Glance and Magnify feature for quick access of information. Magnify is a simple magnification of up to 200% resolution for better view. Plus, all note based apps are note consolidated to one app called Samsung Notes.
Glance on the other hand makes a small widget / note of your creation to easily open and close when doing other tasks. Quite useful when you are looking into multiple apps and need to look as some notes at the side. 
Off screen memo is now also more friendly with multiple pages is now possible. Most of all, the erase button is now possible when pressing the button. No more juggling through the top menu bar for the brush and erase button when simply erasing a brush stroke.
Benchmark performance of the unit shows the Exynos 8890 processor same with the Galaxy S7, paired with the 4GB RAM for multi-tasking the result is a butterish experience.
Until today even with dual camera setups and the iPhone 6S giving the camera smartphone a battle. The S7 is still one of the fastest and most preferred cameras on a smartphone. Here are snap photos we got during our rounds in BGC, unfortunately the weather condition is Gloomy making the condition for photos a bit cool and not really much light.
The major addition for the camera is the capability to do HDR video, this enables video to have better contrast in live results. Unfortunately during our test, the conditions aren’t good enough for an HDR video so we will try to bring one when possible.
Finally as the Note5 before was plagued by the lack of MicroSD and limiting 32GB storage, the Galaxy Note7 is now improved with a hybrid sim card slot for either two LTE sims or one sim & up to 200GB MicroSD card storage. Not to mention that the internal storage is now generously bumped into 64GB as default, making your quest for storage less stressful.
With all the features mentioned, good thing is that the Note7 won’t burn your urge to have one. You can pre-order for the phone starting August 6, 2016 until August 15, 2016 with the SRP of the phone of Php39,990.
Considering the new features such as waterproofing, Iris Scanner and sleeker body, the Note7 is definitely a worthy upgrade of its predecessor. With an SRP of Php39,990 it’s around 5k more expensive than last year’s Note5, but we are confident that this price bump is worthy as far as what we have seen.
