The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is one hell of a smartphone, and while you get an awful lot of bang for your buck, it wasn’t quite enough to justify its £899 launch price. But now the Galaxy S10 is stealing the limelight, retailers have begun to make the Note 9 a bit more affordable, and at this price it represents pretty good value, even if it has been mildly eclipsed by Samsung’s latest. Right now at John Lewis, you can buy the 128GB Samsung Galaxy Note 9 for £649 in midnight black, lavender purple or ocean blue . If you prefer to deal with Amazon, the internet’s biggest retailer has price matched, selling the ocean blue model for £649 . To be clear, this is still expensive: you could get the similarly-specced OnePlus 6T for £149 cheaper, but the Note 9 is something of a specialist handset packing in everything you could possibly be looking for. So yes: it’s IP68 protected against water and dust, it supports wireless charging, it has expandable memory and it still keeps the headphone jack too.
Buy now from Amazon
Then there’s the ace up its sleeve: the S Pen. A powerful stylus that lives inside the phone for doodling and jotting down ideas when they come to you. With the Note 9, the S Pen now connects via Bluetooth, which means you can use it as a remote controller for simple functions: taking a selfie, or moving a slideshow forward in a presentation. And yes, it is a phone from last year, meaning it’s no longer the most powerful Android handset out there. But the Exynos 9810 is the equivalent of a Snapdragon 845, which is no slouch and certainly won’t be holding you back any time soon. So to paraphrase Nathan’s review : it doesn’t really put a foot wrong, aside from the hefty cost of entry. With £250 off, it’s now seriously worth considering – especially with the Note 10 likely still a good six months away. Buy now from John Lewis
