Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review

This now-launching Android phablet is especially anticipated in the UK and Europe – the S Pen upgrade is long overdue there. Samsung made the bizarre decision not to launch the Note 5 outside of the US and a few other countries.

Skipping over the Samsung Galaxy Note 6 name, the Note 7 is meant to bring it into line with the Galaxy S7 series – and steal the thunder of Apple's iPhone 7and iPhone 7 Plus.

It's certainly among the best phones available right now, big or small. Let's take a look to see if the sizable Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is the right fit for you.

Release date and price

• August 19 in the US for about $33 a month
• August 19 in Australia for AU$1,349
• September 2 in the UK for £749

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 release date is August 19 in the US and Australia, and September 2 in the UK. Don't worry, it's coming this time. Pre-orders In the UK launch earlier last week, August 16.

In the US, it costs between $33 and $36.67 a month on device payment plans with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or Sprint. That's basically the full price spread out over 24 months. Without a contract, it's anywhere from $850 (T-Mobile and Sprint) to $880 (AT&T). Sprint is the only one offering old two-year contracts in exchange for $350 upfront. Samsung is likely to wait four months for a SIM-free unlocked Note 7, just like it did with the S7 Edge.

The Note 7 UK price is simpler, but still expensive at £749. In Australia, it's pricey, too, at AU$1,349. But if you pre-ordered in certain stores, you'd receive a bonus: either a Samsung Gear Fit 2 fitness tracker or a Samsung 256GB microSD card, your choice. Shop around to see if that's still available.

Design

• Stylish curved glass design with Gorilla Glass 5
• Hot new Coral Blue shade is one of four colors
• USB Type-C, microSD card slot and IP68 waterproof

You best like futuristic-looking edge-to-edge displays, because this screen wraps around the left and right sides of the handset with space-age curved glass. No, there's no flat Note 7, grandpa.

It's a lot like the equally-stylish S7 Edge, only this phone has a slightly bigger 5.7-inch display. It comes together in a rich-looking, glass-and-metal-fused design that's going to really wow people who are upgrading from those old, plastic-clad Note 4 and Note 3 handsets. Next to the similarly designed Note 5, it's less breakable, too, thanks to an upgrade to Gorilla Glass 5. It's still heavy compared to Samsung's flagship S series, but it's a tad lighter and noticeably slimmer than the Note 5.

What really makes the Note 7 superior is its gentler dual curved sides. Both the front and the back of the phone slope inward toward its frame, meeting at its metal band apex. The curves aren't as pronounced as the S7 Edge's one big curve, which boldly slopes the front glass all the way to its nearly flat back. But with a more dramatic curve comes more drama in the way of more false touches.

Thankfully, falses touches haven't been as much of a problem on the Note 7, despite its larger size. It usually worked the opposite way in the past – bigger phones made our hands creep up on the non-existent bezels and we used to hit all sorts of crazy keyboard interference. If you're still having issues touching the side, we recommend searching for a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 case.

We did still run into the issue of accidentally hitting the very sensitive capacitive buttons that no case can fix. The back and recent buttons flank the physical home button, and pretty much everyone we hand this phone to touches them only to immediately exit the screen we were trying to show off. It's rather annoying, but present on all Samsung Galaxy phones except for the S6 Active and S7 Active, which use physical soft buttons.

There are four Note 7 colors that vary by region: Black Onyx, Titanium Silver, Gold Platinum and the hot new color, Coral Blue. The UK, for example, is only getting Black and Blue initially. Samsung made a point that every phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack, a not-so-subtle jab at Apple, as the iPhone 7 andiPhone 7 Plus might not have the ubiquitous audio port.

Samsung did make one important switch at the bottom of the Note 7, however: it's using the reversible USB Type-C connection instead of the insufferable, non-reversible micro USB port. This makes life easier when plugging in the phone, except you're going to have to carry around a micro USB cable for many gadgets that won't upgrade to the new standard for years. GoPro is the best example, as they only recently made the switch from USB mini in the GoPro Hero4 Session variant. Even Samsung's own fast wireless charging pad sent to us along with the Note 7 uses micro USB. It's going to be a while for USB-C to fully to kick in.

Display

• Spacious 5.7-inch AMOLED screen is the world's best on a phone
• Mobile HDR future-proofs the display with expanded contrast ratio
• Fewer false touches, but sensitive capacitive buttons are annoying

The Note 7 has a larger screen as the S7 Edge to go along with that same color-rich Super AMOLED panel and pixel-dense 2K resolution. It's perfect for the newSamsung Gear VR and also supports Mobile HDR.

Let's be honest, 0.2 inches of additional screen space doesn't make a tremendous difference in a world where the 5.5-inch S7 Edge exists. It's just a hair better for reading a few more words without scrolling, gaming with a smidge more room for on-screen controls without dying, and watching a 12-hour Netflix binge without feeling as badly for not stopping. It's not your fault, it's the immersive screen!

Mobile HDR, on the the hand, allows for darker blacks and brighter whites, and it's more meaningful than any size increase or jumping to a 4K resolution. It'll be up to Netflix, Amazon Prime and other popular services to deliver more content with the expanded contrast ratio. Right now, movies and TV shows with HDR are extremely limited and hard to find (often without proper labels). In the case of Netflix, HDR costs $2 a month on top of your current subscription. So the screen isn't just futuristic-looking, it's future-proof.

S Pen and GIF maker

• Samsung's stylus embeds right in the phone for easy carrying
• Off-screen memos can capture thoughts, even if the display is unlit
• Can create and edit animated GIFs from non-DRM videos

There's another reason the Note 7 edges don't slope so dramatically: this phone is designed to use the tiny Samsung's S Pen stylus, which has always made the Note series business-friendly. On occasion, drawing on the sides did mess up our critical business memos (aka our Snapchat game), but those instances were few and far between. It's a happy medium between fashion and functionality.