Samsung has today officially launched the Galaxy Note 7, the latest in its line of stylus-equipped smartphone.The Note 7 will be available from all four major carriers on August 19th, with preorders starting tomorrow, August 3rd. Samsung says that pricing will be higher than the S7 Edge, which is about $770 to $800, depending on where you purchase it.
For years Samsung has differentiated the power-user Note handsets by juicing up the specs inside of it. This year’s approach is a little different,t o start, the Note 7 is virtually indistinguishable from the S7 or S7 Edge. It has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor same 4GB of RAM, same quick charging and quick wireless charging, and same 12-megapixel camera with f/1.7 lens and optical stabilization as the S7 series.
The Note 7 is water resistant and has support for microSD cards, both of which were not present in last year’s Note 5. The Note 7 has 64GB of internal storage, compared to the S7’s 32GB, and its battery has been increased to 3,500mAh over the Note 5’s 3,000mAh cell.
Since the specs are largely the same between the Note 7 and the S7 series, Samsung is differentiating its larger flagship with features. The Note 7 has a new iris scanner that joins the familiar fingerprint scanner and lets you unlock your phone with your eyes. Samsung says the iris scanner is more secure than a fingerprint scanner. It’s similar to the Windows Hello login features seen on Microsoft’s Lumia 950 and a number of Windows 10 laptops and relies on an infrared camera that works well in low light, but less so in direct sunlight. The iris scanner can also be used to lock apps, photos, notes, and other contents.
