CGTN America
This Aug. 16, 2017, photo, shows a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and accompanying stylus on display, in New York. Samsung is trying to move past last year’s explosive Galaxy Note 7 launch with a successor sporting a dual-lens camera, animated messages, expanded note-taking and lower battery capacity. The Galaxy Note 8 will go on sale Sept. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Samsung’s unveiled its latest large screen device, the Galaxy Note 8 – less than a year after its predecessor was recalled when a number of the batteries exploded.
The world’s largest cellphone maker is hoping it’ll draw a line under the debacle, which cost it billions of dollars in lost sales.
CGTN’s Phil Lavelle reports.
It’s been one of the biggest tech stories of the last year. For Samsung, it’s been a tech giant’s worst nightmare.
The Galaxy Note 7 – unveiled in 2016- was a sight to behold: unifying tech reviewers who pretty much universally gave it five stars. That was, until it started exploding.
This device, touted as the phone that would change everything, had a battery that started malfunctioning, And users started getting nervous.
A partial recall didn’t fix the problem – it took a full recall and for airlines to ban the device before people really started to give them up. Even then, Samsung and the various operators it was teamed with had to push out a software update which effectively crippled the device from working to make sure people really did get them off their hands.
The whole incident is reported to have cost Samsung billions of dollars. So for Note loyalistsm August 2017 could not come soon enough.
Samsung has solved its battery problems – and now is set to release the Note 8 in the coming weeks. Building on the design of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+. the Note 8 goes for Samsung’s Infinity Display – where the glass seamlessly blends around the side of the screen to give the device even more real estate, while fitting comfortably in the hand.
Other innovations include a dual camera setup – similar to what Apple’s iPhone Plus models have – and advancements to the S-Pen, which has always been the Note’s selling point. The S-Pen is a digitizer that allows users to scribble on screen, draw and annotate. Samsung says the Note 8 will go on sale in September, though Samsung didn’t say for how much. That’s significant because early reports have suggested it will retail at more than $1000 in the United States.
The competition will be fierce, too – because rival Apple will almost certainly be announcing its new flagships at the same time, with a reportedly brand new design.
The battle for pocket smartphone supremacy set to get even more intense.
