Samsung Galaxy Note 8 goes on sale in the UK: See its price, specs and how it compares with iPhone X

At an event in New York last month, Samsung took the covers off its Galaxy Note 8. 

It has a bezel-less design cribbed from the Galaxy S8, so the huge 6.3in screen dominates the entire front of the handset while its super AMOLED display offers deep blacks and vibrant colours. On the day of launch, Samsung said it sold the handset in record numbers, making it the company’s “most successful Note device launch to date”, but didn’t reveal exact numbers. 

The Samsung Note 8 didn’t dominate the headlines for long though following the unveiling of Apple’s iPhone X. With a similar edge-to-edge display, the Note 8 may have some serious competition when the anniversary iPhone X goes on sale in November. 

READ NEXT: Samsung Galaxy Note 8 vs iPhone X

 Below we have listed the key things you need to know about Samsung’s new phone, and you can read our first impressions in our Samsung Galaxy Note 8 review. 

At launch, Samsung’s Mobile Business Communications president DJ Koh, said: ‘Today we are here to do more than celebrate a device. We’re here to celebrate everyone who helped make the Galaxy Note.” He continued: “Of course none of us will ever forget what happened last year – I know I won’t” – said in reference to the exploding Galaxy Note 7s – “But I’ll never forget how many millions of loyals stayed with us. Let me express my gratitude to the incredible Note community around the world.”

READ NEXT: Samsung Galaxy Note 8 review

To reassure customers, Koh said Samsung has subjected the new phones to multiple inspections, including X-rays and stress tests at extreme temperatures.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 release date

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 went on general sale on 15 September. Preorders for the Galaxy Note 8 began on 28 August. 

READ NEXT: Samsung Galaxy Note 8 vs iPhone 8 (Plus)

Galaxy Note 8 price

The Note 7 launched for a whopping £699. True, it came with the S Pen and 64GB of storage as standard, but that was still a pricey handset. By comparison, the Galaxy S8 launched at £689. 

The Galaxy Note 8 price in the UK has been set at £869 for an unlocked device. More expensive than the £799 iPhone 8 Plus but cheaper than the £999 iPhone X.

The handset will also be available from UK network operators including O2, EE, Sky Mobile, Vodafone and Carphone Warehouse. There are also rumours that Samsung is planning to release a cheaper model, with lower specs. Spotted by ITHome on TENAA, the cheaper Note 8 is shown with 4GB of RAM, down from 6GB although the majority of other features remain. This is likely to be around £90 cheaper – not a huge saving but could be significant. 

Preorder the Galaxy Note 8

Galaxy Note 8 on O2

O2 was one of the first operators to open preorders for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. It is available in Midnight Black and Maple Gold on O2’s Refresh tariffs, and on O2’s Yearly Upgrade Programme for selected tariffs. The latter lets customers trade in their phone after 12 months and upgrade on O2 Refresh to clear the balance on their current O2 Device Plan.

READ NEXT: Samsung Galaxy Note 8 vs Galaxy S8 (Plus)

O2’s highlighted pay-monthly tariff is offering the phone for £49.99 upfront at a monthly cost £66. Anyone who preordered the Note 8 by 14 September was able to claim a Samsung DeX. The full list of tariffs can be found here.

Galaxy Note 8 on EE

The Galaxy Note 8 is available to order from EE in Midnight Black and Maple Gold via the EE online shop, over the phone and in EE stores.

For an upfront cost of £49.99, the Galaxy Note 8 costs £62.99 per month for two years on the 4GEE Max plan, with 15GB of data. Customers can also get the Note 8 for £67.99 a month with an upfront cost of £29.99 over 24 months with 25GB of data. For 40GB of data the upfront cost is £9.99 with a monthly cost of £72.99.

EE offers a similar scheme to O2 with its Annual Upgrade that lets customers upgrade their handset after 12 months with no early upgrade fees or charges. 

Galaxy Note 8 on Sky Mobile

Sky Mobile claims its orders offer the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 at the “UK’s lowest monthly price with no upfront cost compared to all other UK mobile providers.”

Prices start from at £38 a month on a Sky Mobile Swap24 plan, including 500MB of data and free Unlimited Calls and Texts for Sky TV customers. For £12 more a month, customers can swap their phone after 12 months with Swap12.

	Swap24	Swap12
Upfront costs	£0	£99
Monthly cost for your phone, data, calls and texts	£38 (£33 for phone + £5)	£50 (£45 for phone + £5)
What you get	500MB data Free Unlimited Calls and Texts for Sky TV customers	500MB data Free Unlimited Calls and Texts for Sky TV customers
Swap after	24 months	12 months
Delivery charges	Free	Free
Monthly cost after initial Swap window (12 or 24 months) if you choose not to Swap	£32.50 for 6 months	£23 for 12 months

Galaxy Note 8 at Carphone Warehouse

Carphone Warehouse compares tariffs from the above providers, plus more, to show you additional options when buying the Galaxy Note 8.

The company has highlighted its pick of the best on offer including £59.99 upfront at £56 per month for 20GB on O2. For the same upfront cost but £49 per month, O2 is offering 5GB of data. Vodafone has a deal in which you get 16GB of data for £56 per month (and £50 upfront), and the same amount of data is available from EE for £59 per month and £29.99 upfront. 

Galaxy Note 8 on Vodafone

You can order the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 from Vodafone on a £66-per-month contract, and a £10 upfront fee. Alternatively, you can pay £50 upfront and £60 per month. Alternatively, customers can buy the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 for £44 per month (£300 upfront cost), which includes 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data.

Customers who choose a Red Entertainment 8GB plan, which includes unlimited texts unlimited minutes, 8GB of data and either Sky Sports Mobile TV, Spotify Premium or NOW TV for 24 months, can get the Note 8 for £60 per month (£100 upfront cost).  

All preorders made before 14 September included the Samsung DeX docking station. The full list of tariffs is here. 

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 features and specifications

Samsung DeX and the Galaxy Note 8

In the UK, the Samsung DeX is available with preorders of the Galaxy Note 8 from O2, Vodafone, Argos, Carphone Warehouse, Currys PC World, EE, Eir, John Lewis, Littlewoods, Samsung.com, Samsung Experience Stores, Sky Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile and Very – depending on stock levels and if ordered before 14 September. This is a day before the phone goes on general release. Anyone who pre-orders from these retailers before midnight on 14 September will receive the handset on the day of release.

Alternatively, you can get a Samsung DeX on Amazon from £86.85 (a £43 or 33% saving on the £129.99 RRP) when ordered with Amazon Prime. 

Bixby on the Galaxy Note 8

Samsung recently announced its Bixby voice digital assistant is now available across 200 countries  – including the UK. Bixby was previously available in the US, and debuted in South Korea prior to this alongside the launch of the Galaxy S8 and it is will feature on the Note 8. 

If you’re unfamiliar with Bixby, it is a voice-controlled digital assistant that can help with basic tasks like setting up an alarm, making notes or finding out what the local weather forecast is. There were previous reports that Samsung was working on a Bixby-controlled home speaker, similar to the Amazon Echo, but these have reportedly been shelved for the time being. 

The rollout was obviously timed for tonight’s reveal of the Galaxy Note 8, with Samsung throwing every tool in its kit to stave off bad memories of the device’s flammable predecessor. 

Galaxy Note 8’s new S Pen

Then there’s the S Pen – Samsung’s stylus that separates the Note from other big phones. On the Galaxy Note 8 a feature known as Live Message will let you share animated texts or drawings using the S Pen. The Screen off memo tool lets you make up to 100 pages of notes as soon as you remove the S Pen, pin notes to the Always On Display and make edits directly from the Always On Display.

The new S Pen Translate feature additionally lets you hover over text to translate passages in up to 71 languages. The S Pen will also instantly convert units and foreign currencies.

The full list of Galaxy Note 8 specs is at the bottom of this article. Historically, thanks to the later-in-the-year release date, the Note series gets a little boost over the S handset. The Note 8 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 64-bit octa-core processor in the US, and a 64-bit octa-core Samsung Exynos 8895 in the rest of the world. 

It has a 6.3-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED Infinity screen, up from the Note 7’s 5.7in, two camera lenses on the rear – a main 12 MP wide-angle AF Dual Pixel sensor and a 12 MP telephoto AF sensor – and an 8MP on the front with ƒ/1.7 aperture.

Elsewhere, the Note 8 has a 3,300mAh battery, 6GB RAM, up to 256GB of storage and will run on Android 7.1.1. The Galaxy Note 8 is likely to be among the first third-party phones to get the upgrade to Android Oreo too. The phone is also water resistant to IP68. 

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 accessories

Griffin was among the first to release its range of protective cases for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 called Survivor Strong, Survivor Clear, Reveal, Survivor Clear Wallet, and Survivor Curved Glass screen protection. All are available to preorder directly from GriffinTechnology.

The Survivor Strong costs £29.00 and Griffin says it has been built based on Military Standard 810-G standards. The company also claims it can protect the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 from 7ft (2.1 metres) drops onto concrete. The £19 Survivor Clear, as the name suggests, is see-through and protects against 4ft (1.2 metre) drops. 

The Reveal case costs £14.99 and is made of polycarbonate with rubber edges, while the £24 Survivor Clear Wallet adds slots for credit cards and ID, and the £34 Survivor Glass adds a “tough edge-to-edge” screen protector. 

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 full specifications

	Galaxy Note8
Display	6.3-inch Quad HD+ Super AMOLED, 2960×1440 (521ppi) *Screen measured diagonally as a full rectangle without accounting for the rounded corners *Default resolution is Full HD+ and can be changed to Quad HD+ (WQHD+) in Settings
Camera	Rear: Dual Camera with Dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) – Wide-angle: 12MP Dual Pixel AF, F1.7, OIS – Telephoto: 12MP AF, F2.4, OIS – 2X optical zoom, up to 10X digital zoomFront: 8MP AF, F1.7
Body	162.5 x 74.8 x 8.6mm, 195g, IP68 (S Pen: 5.8 x 4.2 x 108.3mm, 2.8g, IP68) *Carrying an IP68 dust and water resistance rating. Based on test conditions of submersion in up to 1.5 meters of fresh water for up to 30 minutes
AP	Octa core (2.3GHz Quad + 1.7GHz Quad), 64bit, 10nm processor Octa core (2.35GHz Quad + 1.9GHz Quad), 64bit, 10nm processor *May differ by market and mobile operator
Memory	6GB RAM (LPDDR4), 64GB/128GB/256GB *May differ by market and mobile operator*User memory is less than the total memory due to storage of the operating system and software used to operate the device features. Actual user memory will vary depending on the operator and may change after software upgrades are performed.
SIM Card	Single: one Nano SIM and one MicroSD slot (up to 256GB) Hybrid: one Nano SIM and one Nano SIM or one MicroSD slot (up to 256GB) *May differ by market and mobile operator
Battery	3,300mAh Wireless Charging compatible with WPC and PMAFast Charging compatible with QC 2.0
OS	Android 7.1.1
Network	LTE Cat. 16 *May differ by market and mobile operator
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5GHz), VHT80 MU-MIMO, 1024QAM, Bluetooth® v 5.0 (LE up to 2Mbps), ANT+, USB Type-C, NFC, Location (GPS, Galileo*, Glonass, BeiDou*)  *Galileo and BeiDou coverage may be limited.
Payment	NFC, MST
Sensors	Accelerometer, Barometer, Fingerprint Sensor, Gyro Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Hall Sensor, Heart Rate Sensor, Proximity Sensor, RGB Light Sensor, Iris Sensor, Pressure Sensor
Authentication	Lock Type: Pattern, Pin, Password Biometric Lock Types: Iris Scanner, Fingerprint Scanner, Facial Recognition
Audio	MP3, M4A, 3GA, AAC, OGG, OGA, WAV, WMA, AMR, AWB, FLAC, MID, MIDI, XMF, MXMF, IMY, RTTTL, RTX, OTA, DSF, DFF, APE
Video	MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, WEBM