Last year's Note5 marked a deviation from the traditional approach to the Note line that until then we had expected from Samsung. To nobody's surprise, the device went on to become a success despite the reproach from enthusiasts.
I was admittedly one of the people that was initially disappointed with the Note5, and shortly after its announcement I wrote a piece titled "The Note 5 Marks the Decline of a Power User Flagship Line". In that same article, however, I noted that the change was not all bad, and once I managed to get my hands on the device, I wrote an in-depth review that solidified my thoughts on Samsung's new direction. The Note 7 has been leaked to hell and back, and for weeks we've seen discussion similar to that surrounding last year's Note5. I think a lot of voices, however, get caught up discussing the rumored or confirmed specifications and fail to see the larger picture, which is equal parts promising and worrying for the Note line, but in no way a sign of doom for Android or enthusiasts.
The Note 7 is a continuation – perhaps even the culmination – of a trend that began in 2015, and has no signs of stopping — as different, and perhaps treacherous, as this path feels to enthusiasts and "power users", it's worth understanding why Samsung felt compelled to go down this path, and why it'll most likely pay off for them. Most importantly, we must see this in context to understand that it's not a major loss for power users in (and because of) today's market.
Fall and Rise, Rise and Fall
The Galaxy S6 was the breath of fresh air Samsung needed at a point where the company's profits and sales began taking a turn for the worse. After the disappointing Galaxy S5, Samsung had a lot to prove (especially in terms of design) and the company's early incursion into the world of metal with the Galaxy Alpha and Note 4 were not quite enough to lift the expectations. But that's where the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge managed to redeem the S line and bring back the attention it lost the previous year. All eyes were focused on the phone's premium design, but the Galaxy S6 also brought other key hardware advancements like the Exynos 7420 processor and UFS 2.0 storage that gave it a substantial edge over its competition for the rest of the year.
The Note5 was nonetheless just as powerful as ever, and despite seeing no processor upgrade over the S6, it still managed to outperform everything in 2015 excluding the Kirin 950 on the CPU front (due to its newer-gen Cortex A72 core setup), which was released at the end of that year.
Samsung's profits are now higher than they have been in the past two years on Galaxy smartphone sales, with many many publications praising the S7 and S7 Edge for being some of the most refined flagships yet. And that much is true — bringing back both expandable storage and waterproofing was a smart way to begin justifying the premium price-tag in an age where affordable flagships manage to stand neck-to-neck in other departments.
The (not-s0) sad truth is that the market has pushed Samsung to be a lot more conservative and risk-averse with their flagships, this time focusing on what's tried-and-true and pushing for a more refined, perfected experience instead of the wackiness of old. The Note5 fully assimilated the design language of the S6, riding on the glass craze and leaving some mourning the missed chance of incorporating real leather in an attempt to bring the Note's old design language to maturity. This approach brought Samsung plenty of success and attention as we've seen, and a style that's also now being imitated and is in no need of fixing — yet even then, Samsung managed to improve upon it with these new releases by adding the waterproofing of the S5, a feature people actually ask for.
Affordable flagships put pressure on premium flagships to justify their prices
Last year we also wondered whether this meant that the Note line would abandon the "phablet king" title it held for long. In retrospect, I can't see how that was ever in doubt — a look at today's market shows most major OEMs offering devices in the same size range, all being very competitive. This is a consequence of both a reduction in prices and diminishing returns in the year-to-year improvements of flagships. On the pricing side, the affordable flagship puts constant pressure on premium smartphone makers to justify the $700+ payments they ask for, and in turn this is reinforced by the fact that much of hardware is hitting practical plateaus and phones today are more homogeneous both in their components and the user experience they manage to offer. In other words, cheaper phones are good enough, and they are starting to pop up everywhere. Some OEMs choose to tackle this issue through new features (or gimmicks) like the recent wave of modularity
The Note5 didn't bring a processor bump over the Galaxy S6, and the Note 7 looks to follow the same practice. At the very least, you could say, the Note5 upped the RAM by offering 4GB instead of 3GB, whereas the Note 7 looks to keep it simple with 4GB still. This leads to similar criticism as last year's — the Note 7 is more of an S7 Edge with a stylus than the Note device some expected. The hardware improvements the Note 7 brings over the S line are, perhaps, the smallest we've ever seen in any given year.
"Thanks to ported ROMs and pulled APKs, you can already enjoy much of the Note 7 on other Galaxy devices at no extra cost"
TouchWiz's user experience has been a (usually-negative) talking point of every Samsung device, even the latest ones, but after projects like Good Lock and the Grace UX beta for the Note5, and the ported Note 7 ROM, the prospects of an improved UX – or even a revamped feel to TouchWiz – look much better. Samsung has claimed to have achieved a truly-optimized TouchWiz as early as the S6's release, but this was simply not the case. Even with the S7 one can face slowdowns and frame-drops, and even if the Note 7 brings back the reassuring thermal efficiency of the Note5, a revamp is in order at a point where Samsung's hardware has gotten so good that such issues stick out like a sore thumb. The new S pen features we know are coming look to be really useful additions, and the Stylus experience was already rather stellar on the Note5, with the Marshmallow update further fixing some of the smaller UX annoyances I found in my review. Samsung's S7 certainly had no hardware shortcomings, and I personally want to see them finally bring forward an Android ROM that's as different as they want it to be, but as fluid and polished as we consumers deserve.
The times they are a changin'
All in all, I think the Note 7 is a safe bet for Samsung, perhaps too safe. But while it might not generate the excitement other Notes have brought to enthusiast communities, its mainstream appeal (and marketability) is higher than ever in my opinion. I am also personally worried about the bootloader situation on this phone for the US (carrier) variants as seen with the S7 and S7 Edge protections that made even the easiest of developments and mods a nightmare, or downright impossible. The S6 and Note5 already faced serious development constraints last year due to the Exynos processors, which are diminished the AOSP ROM potential of the phones. These latest devices and their bootloaders make us believe Samsung just doesn't care about the (admittedly small) power user base that enjoys squeezing out the potential of their phones — and with the hardware the Note devices have traditionally packed but recently toned down, this is bound to deter once-loyal customers.
The Note 7 will most likely be a successful device nonetheless, whether Android enthusiasts and power users like it or not. We are not Samsung's main audience now, and we haven't ever been — their decisions are aimed at maximizing world-wide, mainstream appeal, and at this point we should just be grateful for any bone they might throw our way (intentionally or otherwise), such as the re-inclusion of expandable storage. The Note 7 might not be the "power user phone", or the no-compromise flagship device we were treated with in the past. It certainly doesn't seem to be bringing the latest specifications or the best 2016 will have to offer, nor much in terms of a hardware upgrade over the S7 Edge. But the S Pen and other Note exclusivities have been mastered by now, and there's no doubt the Note 7 will bring them back with a vengeance. The decisions employed by Samsung are most likely the smartest to maximize their business — it's hard for us to criticize them when they've been doing so well lately in terms of sales, reviews, and seemingly consumer satisfaction too.
It's not the Note we might want, and I personally can't justify the price-point – even as a Note-lover who hasn't skipped a device since falling for the line with the Note 3 – when I have other devices I am content with. The Note line has matured into something different, but the market has too, and unless you really need the S pen, you are no longer missing out on anything by opting for other phablets. In fact, you can already enjoy the Note 7's new features on other Galaxy devices (S5, S6, Note5) thanks to firmware ports, meaning you don't necessarily need to shell out for the hardware to get most of the new experience. And once Android Nougat rolls out, large phones will be even sweeter and one of Samsung's biggest phablet strengths, multi-window, will no longer be a rarity. The Note line many in these circles once loved is gone, but the improvements and trends it set forward are now more mainstream than ever, and you have plenty of options worth considering. Make the best of Android's device variety and choose the one that suits your needs the most, or the one that lets you tweak the phone to your liking.
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