Samsung Galaxy Note8 debuts in India

Samsung has launched its flagship Galaxy Note8 smartphone in India. The phone is priced at INR 67,990($1,060) and is available for pre-order starting today. Actual sales commence September 21.

The Note8 is the latest in the long line of Samsung’s flagship Note smartphones that come with the characteristic S Pen stylus that packs in even more features this year like being able to highlight and translate entire sentences anywhere on the phone, write long memos right on the lockscreen and send animated live messages.

The Galaxy Note8 is also the first Samsung phone to have a dual camera system on the back. It employs two 12 megapixel sensor with a wide angle and a telephoto lens, respectively. For the first time, both lenses are optically stabilized so you get shake-free photos and videos even from the telephoto lens while using 2x zoom. The camera also lets you take portrait images with a blurred background, similar to the iPhone 7 Plus.

Apart from that the Note8 is mostly like a bigger Galaxy S8+, with a larger 6.3-inch, 2960x1440 Super AMOLED display with curved edges and corners, Exynos 9 Octa processor, 6GB of RAM, and 64GB of expandable storage. The phone is also IP68 dust and water resistance certified. Powering it is a 3300mAh battery, which is smaller than the 3500mAh battery on the smaller S8+.

Last year, Samsung suffered a major setback when the Note7 had to be recalled worldwide due to battery issue, which caused units to spontaneously combust under certain conditions. In India, there was no instance of recall since the device hadn’t actually gone on sale yet and Samsung later had to offer those who pre-order a chance to get a refund or get a Galaxy S7 edge instead. This year, Samsung has a chance to redeem itself in the eyes of the consumer with the Note8. It remains to be seen how the market reacts, especially with the iPhone 8 and iPhone X right around the corner.