Many Galaxy Note 9 features were leaked before the official launch, including its S-Pen. On 27 June 2018, Samsung sent out invites for the next "Unpacked" event, showing a gold S Pen image. According to that teaser, it was announced on 9 August 2018. On 15 July 2018, a picture was posted showing Samsung co-CEO Koh Dong-Jin holding a Galaxy Note 9. On 2 August 2018, a picture of the box with the Note 9 was posted from Russia.
Specifications
Hardware
Screen
The Note 9 has a 1440pSuper AMOLED display with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio. The design on the front is otherwise similar to the Note 8, using an "Infinity Display" as marketed by Samsung.
It has 128 or 512 GB storage options. The 128 GB model has 6 GB of RAM while the 512 GB has 8 GB of RAM, making it the first Samsung flagship mobile phone with 512 GB of internal storage and 8 GB of RAM. All models also have a microSD card slot that can support a microSD card that stores up to 512 gigabytes of data, expanding storage up to 1 terabyte with the 512 GB model.
Battery
The 4000 mAh battery is significantly upgraded from previous Samsung Galaxy phones such as the Note 8, which came with a 3300 mAh, while the Galaxy Note 7 and Galaxy Note 5 came with 3500 mAh and 3000 mAh respectively. A 4000 mAh battery was previously seen only in the Active variants of the S7 and S8. The Note 9 has fast wireless charging capabilities via the Qi standard. Wired fast charging is supported at up to 15 Watts using Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0.
Camera
The dual-camera system has one lens with a dual-aperture system similar to the S9, but the setup is flipped horizontally rather than vertically, similar to the Note 8's setup. Like on the S9, video recording is supported with 2160p at up to 60 frames per second, 1080pslow motion at 240 frames per second and 720p at 960 frames per second for a short duration.
Exterior
The Note 9 has IP68 water & dust resistance and a USB-C connector that supports Samsung DeX without a dock, through HDMI. It has a 3.5 mm headphone jack along with AKG tuned stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. It is the last Samsung Galaxy Note device to come with a headphone jack. The phone is made out of metal. The fingerprint sensor has been moved to below the camera setup, just like the S9 & S9+, rather than next to it like on the Note 8. There is also a water carbon heat pipe on the phone as part of the touting towards its gaming capability allowing for longer gaming sessions without thermal throttling.
S-Pen
The biggest change to the Note 9 is to the S-Pen. The S-Pen now has Bluetooth capabilities, including the ability to tap the button on it to do certain tasks, such as moving forwards or backwards in presentations or taking photos, and third party support is provided for apps via an SDK. The S-Pen now has a "battery" that charges when the pen is docked in the silo, with Samsung claiming 30 minutes of usage with only 40 seconds of charging.
Software
The Note 9 ships with Android 8.1 Oreo with Samsung Experience 9.5 as the software overlay. The phone was later updated to Android 10 with Samsung's One UI. The latest version is One UI 2.1 that got released to the phone on June 2020. The camera software has been further improved and now includes an AI scene recognition that is capable of identifying 20 different scenes and making necessary adjustments to the camera's variables to produce better image quality.
