 What innovation is left in phones? I mean, what could possibly make you run out and spend nearly a thousand dollars on a cell phone when companies like OnePlus and ZTE are convincing consumers that they should be able to have devices with six gigs of RAM in their pockets for less than half the cost? Is the answer curved glass and more ways to scan your body parts? Well, Samsung sure hopes so, and let's take a closer look at the Note 7, my new daily driver and the first Note class device to earn that position. Corsair's NL series fans feature magnetic levitation technology and custom engineered rotors to provide a high performance, low noise experience. If that sounds cool, you can learn more at the link in the video description. The S series has traditionally launched first as the mainstream performance member of the generational family, with the Note following months later aimed squarely at enthusiasts, heavy content consumers, and productivity freaks, with a stylus, larger screen, refined software, and beefier hardware specs being its usual calling cards. And the Note 7 continues this tradition in some ways, but like the Note 5 before it has broken with the community's expectations in others. While the Note 7 does have a larger screen, a stylus, and is the first to launch with Samsung's reimagined touchwiz, Grace UX, spec wise it's pretty much identical to the S7, S7 Active, and to an even greater degree, the S7 Edge. It rocks an Exynos 8890 octa-core processor, 4 gigs of DDR4 RAM, 64 gigs of onboard storage, with micro SD expansion. For those wondering by the way, if the DualSIM Plus micro SD mod from the S7 and S7 Edge still works, it does, but the tray is more fragile now so be careful. And then around the back is the same dual flash equipped 12 megapixel F1.7 4K video primary camera that's been with us since the S7. Not that I'm complaining. The bump is actually more pronounced than usual, but it launches lightning fast, has great low light performance, has this cool auto slow down for playback of your slow motion clips where it detects the fast moving part of the video and then you just fine tune it which is kind of cool, and generally continues to be my favorite smartphone camera for capturing all the moments that I do. On the sides you'll find the lock button and volume buttons. Their tactile feedback feels quality, but I wish they weren't directly opposing each other even though I'm starting to wonder if there's any point in me even continuing to say that anymore. Down at the bottom we find the 3.5 inch headphone jack, something we might not be able to take for granted for much longer, a fast charging compatible type C connector to go along with the new Gear VR, a microphone port, a speaker port that is loud enough but shares its non-optimal palm firing attribute with the other 5.7 inch device I keep in my pocket, and finally the holder for the improved S-Pen that now boasts 360 samples per second updates and 4096 pressure levels along with, here's a new one, IP68 water resistance with or without the pen in its holder. Damn. Up front is another first, a 5.7 inch curved Corning Gorilla Glass 5 2560x1440 AMOLED HDR display. With almost no HDR content available, I can't really comment too much on that, but it looks great with everything else as usual. And as for the glass, well the main advantage of Corning's 5th generation glass is supposed to be improved drop resistance from selfie levels. But whether that actually works outside of a controlled lab environment, and perhaps more importantly, whether that comes at the cost of less scratch resistance is still a developing story that I will be keeping an eye on. As someone who doesn't usually destroy phones for the sake of making a video, all I can really contribute to that is that in my two weeks with the device it doesn't have a single mark, whereas some of the worst that I've seen managed to get scuffed up in a pocket with my plastic headphones very considerably in that time. So let's talk about what other features make the Note 7 an upgrade over the S7 Edge. If you had your hopes up for a return to removable for the 35mAh battery, sorry, they're much more subtle than that. The 3D glass on the back is now curved to the same degree as the front one, which sounds like a very small tweak, but when combined with the basically bezel-less looking front curved glass and the strong accidental touch rejection along the sides, makes this, aside from being in my opinion the sexiest phone to date, by far the most holdable Note device yet for small-handed folks like me, in spite of them having to make room for the S Pen inside. So then on that subject, well, the stylus is a lot of fun to doodle with and great for screenshotting and marking up things like web pages to send to others. But with that said, as a non-artist, I don't think I'm getting the most out of it and I don't see myself paying a big premium for the privilege of using it. I mean, there's a lot of functionality, but I've never felt the need to create a GIF out of something that I'm watching on my phone. Though, aside from the way you need to fight with the UI of whatever you're capturing, I will say it's pretty intuitive to use. On top of that, as a millennial, I actually type or dictate much faster than I write with a pen. And again, maybe age is a factor here, but I'd probably tell my grandparents to get something else. I'm having fond memories of my briefing on the Galaxy Mega right now, if they really need a magnification wand in order to use their phone. And Glance, a feature I was actually kind of excited about that lets you hover over a minimized app to refer back to it quickly, would sell me on it if it was any faster than just using Task Switcher. I tried using it for compiling a prop list and doing internet research, but even in that case, the multitask view would work better. That is, if Sheets was supported anyway. With that said, the translate feature looks awesome, if you ever translate anything, which I generally don't. And when it comes to the feel of using the stylus, if I was the kind of person who used it a lot, I would be amped about the improvements that have been made to the leg and the overall natural feeling of it. So I have to give kudos there. Moving on, it's got fast wireless charging, though to be clear, I still don't recommend using it when it takes literally four seconds to plug your phone into a low current 1 amp charger before you go to sleep, which coupled with the excellent battery management of modern devices like the Note 7, will get most people through all but the most demanding days, but it's still a cool feature, and Samsung's wireless charging battery case is a pretty neat magnetic phone snap-on case as an option for emergencies. As for the headline feature, the Iris Scanner, having spent more time with it, I'm really impressed by how quickly and usually how well it works, but it just didn't add anything to the experience for me. Whether I'm looking at my phone on my desk, taking it out of my pocket, grabbing it from a car dock, or hell, wherever people keep their phones, in every situation it was as fast or faster for me to get a finger on the home button instead of pointing the display at myself and adding the extra step of swiping the screen. Which doesn't mean it's not cool as all hell, and a huge step forward for biometric authentication. I just want to see a software update where I can use it as an additional authentication factor for stuff like the cool new secure folder feature. I mean, I'd rest easier knowing that you need my password and one of either my fingerprint or an Iris Scanner, maybe some combination of all three in order to get into my private contacts, pictures, and documents. On the subject of software then, let's talk about Grace UX. XDA Developers has an article declaring it to be a trash sandwich, so there's that. But as a heavy phone user, but one who doesn't really try to do much out of the ordinary with my device, the main difference I noticed was the appearance. Sorry, Samsung software engineers who probably worked really hard on this. The clipboard feature is still awesome. Flipboard is still there to suck up 15 minutes of my life when I accidentally swipe to the left. Auto-caller ID is still really cool. I guess there's a cool battery optimization button, and you can customize your power profiles now, which gives you better, more granular control over the power savings of your device. The always-on display can hold a shopping list or a picture and has icons for your notifications on it now, though you still can't preview them like you can on Motorola devices. And I guess the edge panels are neat, with location contextual junk that you might want to do being the highlight for me over the default speed dial shortcuts that are already in there. T9 dialing is the king of absolutely everything and has made the contact list and speed dial on my phones the least accessed thing for years now, which leaves, I guess then, only the conclusion. Interestingly, one of the least watched parts of my videos, so I'll try to keep it short. The Note 7 is really great. I wouldn't pay $1,000 unlocked for it personally, but if I didn't have to pay for phones, which I don't, then it's the one that I would choose to use. The charging port digs into my finger a little bit, and the touchscreen stylus accuracy falls away a little bit near the edges if you're trying to position a cursor, but these are the biggest complaints I could come up with. It's functional and beautiful, with the slight adjustment to the curve making a much bigger difference to its usability than I could have possibly expected. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. 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