Galaxy Note 7 Introduction: Is Refinement as Important as Innovation?

During the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, the company's speakers were clear to talk about the amount of progress they have made on the phone. DJ Koh, President of the mobile communications business for Samsung Electronics (pictured above holding the device), talked about turning the company's "vision for meaningful progress into innovation." While there is a good amount of innovation in the Note 7—it may well be the top-end phone yet produced—what struck me most while looking at the actual device is how it has taken concepts from previous phones and refined them to make the device not only do more, but to do things in a simpler way.

Note 7 hardware with edge display

The hardware itself looks like a cross between the Galaxy S7 and last year's Galaxy Note 5. Like the S7 edge, it has a 5.7-inch AMOLED display with curved edges that wrap to the side of the phone, and a slightly rounded back, giving it a surprisingly good feel. As with the S7, the edge display can be used for quick contacts and to tell you at a glance who has called. But as with the Note 5, it has space within the phone for the distinctive S Pen stylus. The device has a metallic look, with black, silver, gold, and a new "blue coral," for color choices.

The Note 7 has the same basic processors as the S7 family, along with the same dual-pixel camera and image sensor, which I have found to be the best of any current phone. The base amount of built-in flash memory has been increased to 64GB, plus an optional microSD slot that can add up to 256GB. It now uses USB-C for charging (along with optional fast wireless charging), but comes with an adapter so it still works with many earlier accessories. Note 7 is designed to be water resistant to the IP68 spec.

S Pen menu

One of the big changes on Note 7 should make the S Pen more precise, with a tip that has shrunk from 1.6 mm to 0.7 mm, the result being that you can draw thinner lines on screen and select things more exactly. You hold down a button on the side of the pen to turn it into an eraser. Samsung said this was designed in partnership with Wacom, who makes the pen and related components.

The software for using the S Pen is now both simpler and more powerful. When you pull the pen out of the base, you immediately see options for creating notes, selecting part of the screen, writing on the screen, magnifying, or translating text. In some ways, this is simpler, as there's only one way of creating a note, so everything ends up in the same application. Of the newer features, most intriguing is that you can now write a note on the screen, and it will appear on the "always on" lock screen of the phone, which is visible in low-power mode even when the phone is off—good for reminding yourself to do something. I was probably most impressed by the translate command, which lets you select some text to have automatically translated. I wasn't able to really see how good the translations were, but selecting text is much easier with the stylus than with your fingers.

Another new feature around the pen is an "oil" brush, making it easier to mix and match colors, "as if it was a real canvas." You can also use the pen to select part of an image or video to turn into a GIF.

When the Note was first introduced five years ago, the large-size was its biggest differentiator; now large-screen phones are widely available and quite popular, with models including the S7 Edge, so the S Pen is really what sets the Note 7 apart. On previous generations, I've found it a useful feature, but not something I used every day; then again, I'm no artist. We'll see whether the new features change how people use the phone.

Iris Scanning

Beyond the S Pen improvements, the most notable change from earlier phones is the addition of iris scanning. This can be used in place of fingerprint scanning to unlock your phone, and eventually with a password manager and online banking applications (though the apps don't seem to be ready quite yet). I tried this in the demo area, and it seemed to work pretty well, though I would want to try it again in more typical situations. The Note 7 still has a fingerprint reader, which appears to be the same as the reader on the S7.

Like all of the recent Galaxy phones, the Note 7 comes with the Knox security module at chip level. This can work with iris scanning to create a secure folder to keep things you don't want to become public if you lend your phone to someone else.

Quick Settings

In some ways, perhaps the most useful change is to the user interface software. The icons are now softer and more rounded, and a lot of the settings seem easier to access. For instance, you can now pick which options appear when you swipe down from the top. Unfortunately, I didn't notice any real changes to the mail or calendar apps, but in general, the UI looked slightly easier to use at first glance; I'd have to spend more time to be sure.

VR hardware

Of course, Samsung continues to tout the use of the S7 series with virtual reality and 360-degree photos and videos. There's a new version of the Gear VR headset to fit the Note 7 (as well as the other S7 phones), which has larger lenses, and it seems to have increased the field of vision a bit, though the basic resolution hasn't changed. Indeed, during the introduction, the audience was asked to view a number of videos using the headset—some of which I thought were fun, some of which I thought were a bit too jumpy.

360-degree image

The Note 7 also works with the Gear 360-degree camera, and the camera software within the phone now makes it easier to use that external camera to capture and view images.

The bottom line is that though the Note 7 pushes the bar forward for large, state of the art phones, the hardware differences don't seem to be a big step forward from the Galaxy S7 (though to be fair, it's only been about 3 months). In many ways, the Note 7 feels a bit more refined—a little easier to use here, a little more powerful there, a little more secure. These updates may not be so flashy, but they may be all we can expect, given how much progress the hardware has seen over the past five years. I look forward to giving it a real try.