So I have had the note 8 for a few weeks now and i quite like it. 

My first cellphone was a Telecom Harrier so I consider Windows Mobile 2003 is the gold standard when it comes to cellphone operating systems. 

I also draw a lot of network diagrams for storing on customer support notes for our call centre to make sense of the photos of customer installations, hence why I love having a phone and laptop with a stylus. 

Before the note 8 I had a Note 5 which is the equivalant of the Galaxy S6. It is only in the note 7/8 series that the note and S series have been aligned in their numbering. 

Differences in coming from a note 5

- Speaker is noticably worse. Almost all my calls are with speaker and I spent about an hour a day on the phone. Its not as loud as the note 5. 

- Touch isnt as responsive when answering a call. Often when I swipe right to answer a call, it does not detect the swipe. 

- The new caller ID scam system is awesome. I get a lot of scammers trying to sell me financial products. It also seems quite good at doing reverse caller ID lookups. Its even picking up landline numbers I wouldnt have expected.   

- Battery seems to be of a lower capacity.   

- Lack of hard buttons I felt would annoy me, but I have got used to the soft home, app and back buttons. 

- I am a bit OCD when it comes to conserving battery power to extend the usable life of the phone. 

-- The phone has an AMOLED screen so I use a black theme is required to lower the number of lit pixels during screen-on time. High_Contrast_Theme is the theme I use from the samsung theme store. 

-- Of course I disable automatic app updating (another name for feature removal) in the play and samsung app stores

-- Navbar Apps app is installed to change the background color of the soft buttons for further reductions in lit pixels. 

I like the background app energy saving functions - most apps are set to not use data when running in the background so the radio isnt being used to sync stuff like google adwords or advertisments in background apps. 

The camera I find a little bit annoying - the 1x or 2x optical zoom doesnt seem to be very effective. Its doing some sort of seemless transition between the cameras - i would rather see or set the change myself

BATTERY CASE

I have ordered one of these from aliexpress

Interesting note about my note... the usb power bank would switch off when my note 5 fully charged. The note 8 keeps it running all night even when the battery is fully charged. I wonder if that is a quick charge 3.0 feature to always prefer an external battery over the internal battery, or if the idle power draw of the phone is high enough to keep the external powerbank activated. 

THE INCLUDED CASE

It comes with a jewel (clear transparent) case which helps by adding 1mm of thickness but the phone is still too thin. It feels like your trying to hold a playing card in your hands. Its just too thin. I would much prefer a bigger battery and double the thickness. 

WALLET CASE

I am used to having a wallet case but always dreamed of having a wallet+battery case. 

Anyhow there is one coming from I-Blades however its only going to be approx 2200mah

But thats better than nothing because I-Blades are hot swappable battery cartridges that magnetically attach to the back of the case.

The non-wallet smart case with the battery cartridge is avaliable for pre-order now but the wallet case is yet to become avaliable but the announcement is here. 

FAKE PHONES

There are a number of youtube videos which review fake galaxy note 8 phones - the important thing is they also have a working stylus which is good since the note series seems to be the only option for a phone with a stylus. Sad thing is they have to be knock off's where as I would quite happily spend $200 on a non-samsung phone with a proper stylus for my staff.