Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is worth the $1,000 price tag

The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has almost every feature you could want in an Android phone. With specs like a 6.4-inch super AMOLED display, S Pen, dual-aperture camera, 128GB of storage, 6 GB of RAM and more, the $1,000 price tag is much more justified for the Note 9 than the iPhone X. Business Insider tech reporters Antonio Villas-Boas and Avery Hartmans share their thoughts on Samsung’s latest premium phone. Following is a transcript of the video.

Avery Hartmans: I’ve been really impressed by the Galaxy Note 9 so far. My favorite Android phone is the Google Pixel 2. But I’ve been really impressed with it for a couple different reasons. I think it’s a really powerful phone. If this was your only device, you didn’t have a laptop, you didn’t have a tablet, you just had this, you would be totally fine.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I mean the combination of the large screen and the stylus as well, it just lets me like feel more comfortable doing things on the phone that I would normally save for like a computer or a laptop. So talking about the screen, this is a Samsung screen. Which means it’s the best in the business.

Avery Hartmans: I never really understood the need to have a huge OLED display, I was like, ah, mine’s fine, I don’t need it, until I started to use this. And I was like, wow, this screen is amazing. Watching videos on this thing is unreal. I didn’t really mind the top and bottom bezel, I thought that that was fine. I was glad that Samsung did not include a notch on this phone.

Antonio Villas-Boas: In terms of the size of the phone, it’s a big phone obviously. It’s not for everyone, right? But yeah, it’s not a one-handed phone.

Avery Hartmans: But I thought that it was relatively easy to use. It’s not unmanageable for people with smaller hands, I think.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I’m actually on the Note 9 and its massive screen, I’m actually using the Android multitasking thing and I was like, wow, like I’m watching a YouTube video while talking to people. And I was like, wow, this is working. And I got an S Pen and it’s like, wow, this works really well. It’s doing two things at once. I’m doing two things at once.

Avery Hartmans: Do you find yourself using the Bixby button and do you find yourself using Bixby at all?

Antonio Villas-Boas: I find myself accidentally pressing the Bixby button while I’m watching a YouTube video and being frustrated that the Bixby button is there.

Avery Hartmans: What about the camera?

Antonio Villas-Boas: Yeah, I tried it against the Google Pixel 2. And I was really impressed. I think this phone actually, like, competes with the Pixel 2. It’s actually the closest competitor to the Pixel 2’s camera.

Avery Hartmans: Two of the really standout features of this camera, in my opinion, are the zoom, which I was really impressed by. It’s really nice to have when you do need it. And this is like the best zoom that I’ve seen on a recent smartphone. The other thing that I think is really cool is the dual-aperture. And I notice that when you were taking photos in low light, that it really was, it blew away the competition.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Yeah, right?

Avery Hartmans: Kind of the initial thought that I had about this phone was, it could suit two types of people really well. One of them is, you know, a person who has a really crazy job, is kind of on the road a lot and needs a lot of, a really powerful phone. Needs like, a lot of battery life, you know, a lot of storage space. But it would also be really good for someone who wants this to be like, their whole world. Samsung updated the stylus a little bit this year. And it can now act as a remote. So there’s a button on the stylus, you can press it. And it will take a photo from a distance, it can put you through a PowerPoint presentation. And I think that’s really cool.

Antonio Villas-Boas: I think it’s cool. I don’t know how many people will use it. I don’t think it’s like, oh my God, buy this phone because of this feature, kind of thing, you know?

Avery Hartmans: What about the storage?

Antonio Villas-Boas: The base model comes with, I think there’s 128 gigabytes. And then it can go up to 512 gigabytes inside this phone which is more than my MacBook Pro has. And then if you want, you can add another 512 gigabytes of storage through the microSD slot.

Avery Hartmans: That’s a total of a terabyte of storage.

Antonio Villas-Boas: That’s one terabyte of storage. That’s more than most computers come with.

Avery Hartmans: So one of the really cool features of the Galaxy Note 9 is this thing that Samsung calls DeX, which allows you to use the phone as a computer basically.

Antonio Villas-Boas: DeX does look pretty cool. Samsung presented this little dongle that you connect into the phone’s USB-C plug and then you can connect it to HDMI, to a monitor. And you basically have a desktop operating system. It kind of looks like Windows, maybe a little bit. I haven’t tried it yet. I think it could be cool. As you’d expect, you know, it’s a high-end Android phone. It comes with USB-C. It also comes with a fast charger too. Headphone jack. Headphone jack. Please. It does have some bloatware. But honestly, it’s really not that bad. One thing it came with which I don’t like at all is the Facebook app. And I can’t delete it from this phone. I guess one thing I’m not a fan of, is the price tag. A thousand dollars. I still think a four-figure price tag for a smartphone is a little much. But I think it makes a lot more sense on the Galaxy Note 9 than it does for the iPhone X. It has more functionality. You can do more on it and more with it.

Avery Hartmans: Right. I think spending a thousand dollars on this is much more justified. I think that it makes me feel much more productive. I think I can get a lot more done at once. If I was ready to switch away from an iPhone, I would strongly consider this. Before I was only – Pixel was the only other option that I would consider. Now, this is in the running. I would give it a chance.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Great phone. Fully recommend it. Would buy if I had more money.

Avery Hartmans: Sort of on par with I would say like Siri.

Antonio Villas-Boas: Um hm. Yeah, not better, not worse. Yeah, it’s not like a compliment, but it’s not like an insult either. Or is it, I don’t know.