I am sure there are people undecided whether the Samsung Note 8 it’s worth a shot & the money; and of course, if there are people having problems with this device.

I will tell you about my experience using the Samsung Note 8 over the course of one year and two months:

Before I had decided to buy this phone I was watching lots of videos about the phone, I was reading articles and reviews about it to make sure I am making the right choice.

I remember the day I unboxed it I had a lot of work to do on the computer and I just took it out of the box, put the SIM card in and turned it on. I’ve put it on my desk and started working while keeping an eye on the phone.

The very first feeling that the phone gave me was that it’s a premium and a quality product; a glass and metal sandwich very thin, packing a lot of technology.
Then my first questions appeared:
How do I protect it? What if I drop it and the whole glass surface will shatter in billions of pieces on the floor?

So I bought a silicone case the next day, and three, or four more later. I was changing the cases from time to time but I realised that any case I was using, was making the phone less elegant and thicker.

I only dropped it once from about 1.5 meters, but I was having a case on it so nothing happened; well, other than my heart skipping a beat

Besides the aesthetics, the phone is doing just fine, I haven’t experienced any lag, crash or things like that until January 2019 when I made the last update and Instagram started to freeze. I tried clearing the application cache, reinstalling the app, but nothing helped. I’ve got used to that now, so when it freezes, I just restart it.

The phone received a lot of updates during 2018 and upgraded from Android Nougat to Android Oreo and it also had a lot of security updates.

Keeping in mind that it’s a phone from the Note series, let’s talk about the stylus. Well, the stylus is more like a stylish accessory for me, even if I’m a graphic designer, I am not using it very often, but it’s nice to have it around. Be careful not to lose it, because it sometimes clicks out by itself from its gap.

The cameras of the phone perform well in good light, but if the light is dimmed, the noise image appears and the quality of the images decreases substantially.
The same for the front facing camera for the selfies.

Using the “Pro” mode on the camera can be useful in low light if you have a still surface or holder for the phone. In the “Pro” mode, you can decrease the ISO value and increase the exposure.

What the dual camera can do isn’t too great, because the depth of field is artificially created into the phone, it sometimes has errors and glitches. It is better not to use it.

Regarding the filming, the camera performs better even in low light and it stabilises the video pretty well. Do not expect it to perform as well as gimbal when walking or running, but it’s pretty smooth.

This phone surprised me with the quality build and performance. I am still happy to own it and I don’t think I would make an upgrade very soon for the newer versions, even now when Samsung S10 is launched.

To conclude, in my opinion this phone is still doing a good job in 2019 and if you aren’t that kind of person that has to own the latest model on the market, you should buy it.