Samsung Galaxy Note 9 launched, with extra cooling for gamers and power users

The much awaited phone of the year, Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is finally here. The new phone will shed the "niche" image and appeal to a wider range of users looking for a capable device packaged in a premium outfit. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is said to be optimised for graphic intensive games with a unique water carbon cooling technology for managing heat dissipation and allowing users to play games like Fortnite for a longer period of time.

Under the hood is Samsung's premium Exynos 9 series 9810 64-bit processor which is based on 10nm process. The chipset promises upgraded CPU performance, better graphics and faster connectivity along with incremental upgrades from the predecessor 8895 SoC.

The Exynos 9810 SoC also powers the company's flagship Galaxy S9 phones. It is worth noting that Samsung offers Exynos-based flagship phones in India. In other markets, Samsung will sell Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor-powered model.

Apart from a dedicated cooling technology and top-end processor, Samsung is enhancing the performance of the phone through more RAM that comes in two variants — 6GB and 8GB.

Aimed at power users, Samsung is now offering the base model of the phone with 128GB storage, highest for any base model of a premium flagship phone. The top-end model will have 512 GB. Combined with the microSD slot (with a capacity of up to 512GB), Samsung Galaxy Note 9 offers over 1TB storage.

Samsung has also increased the battery capacity of its new Note phone to 4,000mAh battery — highest on a Note phone thus far. In comparison, last year's Samsung Galaxy Note 8 came with 3,300mAh battery.

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will continue to have the edge-to-edge Infinity Display, and is only marginally bigger than the Note 8. The latest Samsung phone has a 6.4-inchQuad HD+ Super AMOLED display. The refinement to the screen comes as part of the company's efforts to woo multimedia enthusiasts as well as those looking for more real-state for productivity.

In the camera department, however, Samsung Galaxy Note 9 doesn't offer any major improvement. It has the same specifications as the Samsung Galaxy S9+, that features a dual-camera setup of 12-megapixel sensors with auto focus, dual optical image stabilisation and dual-aperture. On the front it has an 8-megapixel camera.

There's a bit of software upgrade, though. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 comes with machine learning-based over 20 pre-defined scene detection settings, allowing you to draw the best of the camera without needing to have the know-how of the Pro mode.

There's also a big improvement to the S Pen, which now doubles up as the remote control for t he phone. For instance, you can take selfies through the stylus.