The "I Got Mine!" and First Impressions Thread

[12PKWILLUS]

It's here!!! Just got done charging, time to start transferring!!!

 

[The_Chief]

Here's a picture of the whole back....

 

[TrueFangz]

Finally got mine, smart switching it now. In general, I like the feel of it better. Same height, a tad wider, a tad thicker and a tad heavier. Feels very nice to hold. Blue is nice, pen is well... yellow. Oh well. Nothing I can't live with.

 

[mikedt]

Here's a picture of the whole back....

@The_Chief I know it's an image but you might want to obfuscate your IMEI, MEID, etc. that are visible in your image. I'm thinking in case some nefarious person is looking to clone them into another device, or causes a privacy issue, etc.


BTW congratulations on your new shiny device

 

[12PKWILLUS]

Got everything transferred over. Samsung Switch is awesome, did the job quite well. There were a few things that I had to reinstall, such as Nova launcher, and a few Apps. The feel is better to me, Just like TrueFangz said. Heavier, and wider. The Display is sharper, but seems darker. I had to adjust the brightness a little higher then the Note 8. The flashlight is dim to me. Wish it was a little brighter. But boys and Girls, IT IS FAST!!!! Apps are quick to open and scroll, flipping between screens is awesome. I charged the phone to 100% yesterday about 5 PM, and the battery is down to 49% right now. Normal settings and use. I think I like it!

 

[The_Chief]

@The_Chief Did it come with a USB-C to HDMI cable?

No, it doesn't.

I FINALLY got it set up (for the most part). There are a few frustrating things about it - Smart Switch did a great job of moving apps, settings, home screens, etc. But I still had to log into every app, and I had to authenticate half of them. HUGE pain.

For those of you who, like me, want to rename your device... let me save you a little time and a lot of language. The 'rename device' option has been in the Bluetooth settings since at least the Note 3. Guess what? It moved! I came upon it by dumb luck, in the 'about phone' settings. There it is, Galaxy Note9, and the option to edit the name.

Of course Wear OS watches can't just disconnect from one phone and pair with another.... no way! They have to be factory reset, which means we get to set them up all over again. I had hoped to not do that, as I was expecting the Galaxy Watch tomorrow. Guess what's not showing up for awhile? I called Samsung and they said that not only were the watches on pre-order, they're on backorder, too! Apparently they underestimated the demand for the watch. I wanted to eliminate the 'express shipping' option, but to do that I'd have to cancel it and reorder... since they are going to ship by pre-order date/time, I didn't want to go to the end of the line.

Good news is that the AKG headphones are STUNNING. I have a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 35s, and I think I prefer these! The bottom isn't as muddy (typical of Bose) and the soundstage is remarkable.

I got the update patch about 6 hours after activation - so if you don't get it immediately, don't panic - it will find you eventually.

I've been busy setting everything up and really haven't explored the new stuff yet... but Jeanine looks good and she feels good! Bixby 2.0 promises to be a massive improvement, so I'll play around.

 

[artbytes]

Ours just arrived last night. Just setting it all up. Beautiful screen! We did the preorder through T-Mobile and it came way before they said it would!

 

[The_Chief]

I agree with the screen and display quality. I upped the display resolution to WQHD+ and watched the opening sequence of Star Wars III - say what you will about the prequels, but the first 20 minutes of that movie will put a display to the test. It looks GORGEOUS, even on a 6.4' screen!

EDIT: My first experiment with Bixby 2.0 was a success... I asked her what the weather was going to be on Saturday. She told me. I then asked 'how about Sunday?' And she told me! I didn't have to ask her about the weather again, because she knew that's what we were talking about.

 

[TrueFangz]

Overall, I'm very impressed. Haven't really played with any of the new S-Pen features yet. Unfortunately, I had plans last night, and more tonight, so I might not get to do much more until after work tomorrow. Anyway, as mentioned before, phone feels great to the touch. No HDMI cable included, which is a bummer, but I'll pick one up eventually. Only other complaint I have, which is not limited to this phone, but to Android Oreo:

You can now only keep fingerprints if you keep a secure lock screen. Back in Nougat, you set up a secure lock screen, register your fingerprints, then you can remove the secure lock screen, it asked if you wanted to remove bio-metric data, or keep data. I kept the data, therefore was able to keep the fingerprint option for individual apps such as my bank, password manager, and garage doors, etc. Well, setting that up in Nougat, and upgrading to Oreo on my Note8 was fine. Didn't have any issues. but when you start from Oreo from scratch, if you try to get rid of the lock screen, it forces you to remove your fingerprints. No way to keep them.

So the work around for this, is to set up smart lock. You can set up your phone to not require a secure unlock if the phone detects its on you, or in your pocket. If you put it down for a while, it will eventually lock. You can also set up trusted locations, so it will remain unlocked when in certain locations, and lastly, you can also set up trusted devices, so if your phone is near another device, such as your smart watch, the phone will remain unlocked. (You can still use your fingerprint to open the phone if you want, otherwise, the lock screen will open with just a swipe and not require your pin or pattern, etc.)

This morning when I woke up, it said it automatically locked after a 4 hours (I think) of inactivity. So at least I don't always need to use a pattern or fingerprint to get into my phone.

In other news, as @The_Chief said in another post, migrating to this phone using Samsung Smart Switch was pretty easy and painless, however, yes, you still need to sign in to each of your apps. (I can understand that, for security reasons.) This is where having a nice password manager comes in very handy!

Some older games I play don't actually connect to Google Play Games, so unfortunately, I lost quite a bit of progress on them. I manually copy files from the Android/Data and Android/Obb folders, but that doesn't always work. One Marble Shooter game I play only has the option to connect via Facebook. I've never had a Facebook account, and never will. I emailed the devs of the game a year ago when I had this problem, and they basically said "Too bad, you need Facebook" And they still do not participate in Google Play Games, so I just lost like 900+ levels of progress. This makes me glad I've never spent any money on their app. I even told them that. If they were better able to support requests and not poo on people, I'd pay to support them.

Back to the phone, it is very fast and snappy! On the Note8, I remember changing animations, and a few other tricks to speed the phone up. I have not done that on the 9 yet, and don't think I'll need to. The true test will be to see how this phone performs after a few months. All phones seem extremely fast the first few days, but often diminish after wear and tear. YouTuber's are saying that won't be the case with this phone, so we'll see.

So far, the battery seems much better, and again, I hope that will remain the case throughout my life-cycle with this phone. The 8 wasn't bad, but I noticed battery as of late hasn't been as great as it was when I first got it last September.

If anyone's on the fence whether to get this phone or not, here's my 2 cents~ If you have a Note8, you don't "need" this phone, but it's nice if you're able to upgrade financially. If you have an older phone than the Note8, yes, it's very much worth the upgrade in my opinion. If I was still stuck with the S7 I was forced to use after the Note7 recall, I would be 100x more happy to now have the Note9 if I wasn't able to get an 8 last year.

Those who do have the 9 now, enjoy, and let's hear your thoughts!

 

[The_Chief]

AR emoji is pretty uncanny, really... and the unlocked version gave me Samsung Cloud back! WOO HOO!

 

[12PKWILLUS]

Those who do have the 9 now, enjoy, and let's hear your thoughts!

I am enjoying the speed of the Note 9. To me, it is noticeably faster then the Note 8. Haven't tried the pen yet, but did get to play with one when I ran into a Samsung Rep at Best Buy a week ago. Neat taking pictures by clicking the pen button. One personal disappointment is the lack of screen transitions. I wish Samsung would include some, but Nova Launcher is doing a good job. I have been seeing some reports on FM Radio support, need to dig further and see if we have that in the US. I love the fingerprint reader location, and how it reads the fingerprint no matter how you position it. Haven't tried the headphones yet, not much of a headphone user. Overall, very pleased with it.

 

[TrueFangz]

Very nice! I use Nova as well, and even wish they had more transitions. Back in the day I used Go Launcher before it went to crap, and bloat happy. That launcher had a ton of transitions. Speaking of that topic, I guess another one of my disappointments is the new Infinity wallpapers from Samsung. Lock screens are decent, but home screens are just blah.

The more I look at the phone, the more I'm falling in love with the Ocean Blue! It's really nice. Though I prefer black for virtually everything I own, the blue actually makes my black Note8 look boring, so this is a nice change. If only the pen were the same shade of blue.

I've been unplugged today for a little over 3 hours. only have 16 minutes of SOT so far, but checked some emails, browsed Reddit for a few minutes and made a 5 minute phone call. I'm currently showing 92% battery. That's pretty awesome so far! Today's going to be the first test to see how long I can go without charging. Last night when I went to bed I was at 46% remaining, and that's after a full day of light to normal usage for me. No plans after work tonight, so I'll put it to the test for sure.

 

[The_Chief]

I love that the S Pen can be set up to control pretty much ANYTHING! long press, click and double click... you can do just about anything with any app!

I found out that Bixby is - AGAIN - not at 100% capability at launch. Remember the Unpacked Event where he booked a hotel room with Bixby? Ain't happenin'... I asked her for a cabin in Cades Cove for October 2019... and Bixby said 'I can't help with hotels yet, but I'm leaning new things all the time'... DOH!

So far, though, I'm very impressed with this phone. Remember the excitement and sheer wonder we felt with the Note 7? I feel like that.

EDIT: I'm encountering my first real issue.

My Huawei Watch, running Wear OS 2.1 on Bluetooth Low Energy, just doesn't want to stay connected with the Note9. It has disconnected twice today - and I haven't worn it all day! A search of available devices on the watch doesn't show my phone. Anyone else here have a problem with their Android smartwatch not staying connected?

 

[TrueFangz]

Anyone else here have a problem with their Android smartwatch not staying connected?

FWIW, I have the Gear S3, and it's paired and stayed connected beautifully. The main PITA was that I had to reset the watch to pair it to the new phone, so even though it restored my settings backups, I need to reinstall all my watch faces. I've made about 2 dozen myself, and now have to transfer those all over one by one. Ugg.

If I recall correctly, didn't you order a new Galaxy Watch? Hopefully you'll have better luck with that. (I'm not familiar with Wear OS, so hopefully Samsung devices will work better with each other for you?)

 

[The_Chief]

I ordered the Galaxy Watch, but it's on pre-order AND back-order. Apparently Samsung grossly underestimated the demand for it and didn't make enough. So no one knows when it will be shipped.

EDIT:

I read an article this morning that reported the estimated shipping date for the Galaxy Watch is September 14th.. I recall the Unpacked Event leading us to believe that release was imminent back then...

 

[The_Chief]

Hold the presses!

I saw that Amazon has the Galaxy Watch in stock! I had it in my cart, ready to buy... I went back to check my order on Samsung and noticed that the 'cancel' option was gone. Hmmmmm...

I had received a mystery FedEx notification that I wasn't sure what it was, as it's coming from Ingraham Micro, a distribution center for numerous companies. Upon closer inspection, though, the details said 'Department: SM-R810NZ'... which is the model number of the Galaxy Watch! And the order number matched - it shipped Friday and will be here TOMORROW!

One happy Chief!

 

[The_Chief]

Is anyone else having a problem with the Note9 turning itself on in your pocket or holster and just randomly doing things as the screen is touched... even though it was in standby, AOD was on? I went to Settings --> Display and made sure that "Block Accidental Touches" is selected. Still, I will put the phone in standby by tapping the power button, put it in my pocket or holster... and for some reason, it is turning BACK ON and responding to whatever touches the screen receives. I've had it entering gibberish in a text field; it was several layers deep in an app I wasn't even using; and about 30 minutes ago it literally placed a phone call to someone, out of the blue! The only reason I knew it was making the call in my pocket was because I had my Bluetooth headset on, listening to music. Suddenly it's calling someone! I whipped out the phone to see who it was calling and... WTH?

I immediately called Samsung tech support and spoke with someone who, apparently (I hope) was at their first day of work in tech support. She recommended everything from exchanging the Note9 for another one; to factory reset; to waiting for a future update to fix the problem; to wanting remote access to see what's happening on my phone. I wasn't about to let that puddin' head in my phone - so I told her that I was working on sensitive information and could not allow anyone access to the phone. I FORCED her to generate a ticket number for me (a process that took upwards of 20 minutes) so I could call back and talk with someone who has a clue.

Meanwhile, is anyone else here experiencing this?

EDIT: By the end of the call, 20 minutes after I wrote all this, she had also suggested a wipe cache/safe mode and going to Best Buy so the Samsung Experience rep could reflash the firmware. This poor gal was all over the map, she was clueless, and I could hear in her voice that she was almost in tears! I was very nice, very respectful, but she was just way out of her environment... whatever that is...

 

[The_Chief]

Is anyone else having a problem with the Note9 turning itself on in your pocket or holster and just randomly doing things as the screen is touched... even though it was in standby, AOD was on? I went to Settings --> Display and made sure that 'Block Accidental Touches' is selected. Still, I will put the phone in standby by tapping the power button, put it in my pocket or holster... and for some reason, it is turning BACK ON and responding to whatever touches the screen receives. I've had it entering gibberish in a text field; it was several layers deep in an app I wasn't even using; and about 30 minutes ago it literally placed a phone call to someone, out of the blue! The only reason I knew it was making the call in my pocket was because I had my Bluetooth headset on, listening to music. Suddenly it's calling someone! I whipped out the phone to see who it was calling and... WTH?

I immediately called Samsung tech support and spoke with someone who, apparently (I hope) was at their first day of work in tech support. She recommended everything from exchanging the Note9 for another one; to factory reset; to waiting for a future update to fix the problem; to wanting remote access to see what's happening on my phone. I wasn't about to let that puddin' head in my phone - so I told her that I was working on sensitive information and could not allow anyone access to the phone. I FORCED her to generate a ticket number for me (a process that took upwards of 20 minutes) so I could call back and talk with someone who has a clue.

Meanwhile, is anyone else here experiencing this?

EDIT: By the end of the call, 20 minutes after I wrote all this, she had also suggested a wipe cache/safe mode and going to Best Buy so the Samsung Experience rep could reflash the firmware. This poor gal was all over the map, she was clueless, and I could hear in her voice that she was almost in tears! I was very nice, very respectful, but she was just way out of her environment... whatever that is...

EDIT 2: I had to enable 'lock instantly with power button' just to keep it from doing random things on its own. I turned off AOD and the screen is black in standby. If I wave my hand over the proximity sensor, though, it comes back on. So the inside of my pocket or holster has been waking it up again with the proximity sensor. I don't know of any setting to stop that, but at least it wakes up on the lock screen now. I'll wipe system cache and try safe mode later.

EDIT 3: I think I found the problem. Buried in the Accessibility settings, under 'Dexterity and Interaction', is a setting for Easy Screen Turn On - it was apparently turned ON by default and that's exactly what it's designed to do. I turned it off and restored my other settings. No more random calls!

 

[The_Chief]

Nice of Samsung to send me an email, thanking me for solving a problem with a setting that their tech rep had no clue existed...

We are glad that you've found a resolution for the phone screen getting turned on while in pocket. We appreciate your efforts in finding this option from the Accessibility settings. Alternatively, you may ensure that the option “Block accidental touches” is turned on from the Apps > Settings > Display. This option also helps by preventing the screen from turning on while the device is in a dark place, such as a pocket or a bag.

I wanna free Note10 for that, dammit!

 

[veggie59]

EDIT 2: I had to enable 'lock instantly with power button' just to keep it from doing random things on its own. I turned off AOD and the screen is black in standby. If I wave my hand over the proximity sensor, though, it comes back on. So the inside of my pocket or holster has been waking it up again with the proximity sensor. I don't know of any setting to stop that, but at least it wakes up on the lock screen now. I'll wipe system cache and try safe mode later.

EDIT 3: I think I found the problem. Buried in the Accessibility settings, under 'Dexterity and Interaction', is a setting for Easy Screen Turn On - it was apparently turned ON by default and that's exactly what it's designed to do. I turned it off and restored my other settings. No more random calls!

Just checked mine...it is off.

 

[The_Chief]

Huh... I have the unlocked version, if that makes a difference...

EDIT:

Speaking of unlocked, THANK YOU @kokiangel for the suggestion to buy unlocked and not a carrier branded version! Jeanine just told me that my backup to Samsung Cloud is complete... something that Verizon made Samsung remove from their version!

 

[PrinceOfDorne]

I've been using mine as my daily driver for 8 days now. Never been so impressed by a smartphone.

 

[The_Chief]

It's ironic that all the tech sources that were whining, just 6 weeks ago, that the Note9 is a boring repeat of the Note8 with a couple of upgrades... are the same ones that are now gushing over it as the $1000 phone that is actually worth the money...

 

[gemmydn]

I just got my note 9 over the holiday weekend and I love it. I took a picture but I wasn't that impressed still I realized it was set to lower setting. I still have to try it at the highest setting but I haven't yet.

 

[The_Chief]

Just keep in mind that maximum resolution will be in a 4:3 aspect, and not the 16:9 widescreen. There are only so many pixels - to get the sharpest image, the camera has to crunch them into a smaller area.