The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is now official. This means no more guesswork. We have all the specifications on Samsung’s latest smartphone.

To say that this has been longawaited would be an understatement. All Note fans had to send their beloved handheld back to Samsung after them being recalled.

That means that mobile stylus-screen-prodding has been put on hold for longer than most will have been able to cope with.

Well, rejoice now screen-scribblers! Your new Note 8 has been revealed.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

The Note 8 is equipped with a 6.3-inch Super AMOLED display with a Quad HD+ resolution of 2960 x 1440 pixels and it comes with 521 ppi.

The handset is powered by an octa core Snapdragon 835 processor in some countries and an Exynos 8995 in others.

You get 6GB of RAM and you can choose between 64GB, 128GB and 256GB of storage. App and snap space can be increased by way of a microSD card slot that supports up to 256GB cards.

There is also a 33000 mAh battery with wireless charging and Android 7.1.1. An Oreo update should happen soon.

Yes, and the device comes with a new Samsung S Pen.

S Pen

As with the phone, the S Pen is IP68 water and dust resistant, It has a 0.7mm nib and can detect 4,096 levels of pressure. I’m sure that’s good bragging rights in some circles.

The Note 8 sees the return of the Screen off memo feature. However, this time around you can take up to 100 pages of notes before being forced to save.

A step up from doodles on a flat picture, Live Animations bring movement to your doodles by converting your trace path into a GIF.

The translation feature is back too. Just hover over the text you want to translate.

Camera

The Note 8 is the debut of a new camera arrangement for Sammy as it joins the dual lens crew. We expect this to also find its way into the Galaxy S9 in 2018.

Samsung’s pair of sensors gives you a telephoto zoom option.

Telephoto

This means you get 2x optical zoom from that lens. So, no loss of quality when zoom in.

The wide-angle lens isn’t wide-angle like the LG G6, instead, it’s a conventional camera, like the camera of the S8.

You’ll notice that there’s a difference in the maximum aperture of the cameras, with f/2.4 and f/1.7 ratings respectively.

Again, the f/1.7 aperture of the wide-angle camera is the same as the S8, suggesting that it’s probably the same unit.

Optical image stabilisation (OIS)

Both rear cameras are equipped with optical image stabilisation. Samsung claims that it betters existing dual camera systems. The iPhone 7 Plus only has OIS on the wide-angle lens, for example.

In truth, the telephoto lens needs OIS the most as (a) it’s a slower lens with that f/2.4 aperture and (b) handshake at longer focal lengths has an increased effect on the image.

This adds up to the addition of OIS on the telephoto lens will be more stable and sharper on those long zooms.

Activating the zoom is as easy as tapping the “2x” button in the viewfinder window.

Having an actual zoom lens avoids losing quality as a digital zoom does.

Two lenses – two photos

You can even take photos with both lenses at the same time.

This means that if you have a scene setup you then have the choice of how it looks, with a photo coming from each camera. Samsung has dubbed this Dual Capture.

Live Focus

The Note 8 also offers a feature called “live focus” as a shooting mode.

For this to work, you need to have distance between the camera, the subject and the background so that the depths of field can be detected. The dual cameras basically triangulate and then get to ‘see’ in 3D.

What live focus does is let you move a slider to change the level of blurring, a bit like manually changing the aperture on a proper lens.

Not only can this be done live, but it can be changed after the fact, so you can edit the photo once you’ve taken it, adding or removing the blur, as long as you’ve shot in the “live focus” mode.

Other stuff

The handset comes with NFC, WiFi, Bluetooth and 4G LTE, it features an iris scanner, facial recognition and a fingerprint scanner.

Preorder now

Samsung will start taking pre-orders on their new Galaxy Note 8 from Today. The device will retail at £896.

Vodafone are offering the Samsung Galaxy Note8 for  pre-order at £44 per month (£300 upfront cost), which includes 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data.

O2 have it on their O2 Refresh tariffs, and on O2’s Yearly Upgrade Programme for selected tariffs. Head over to their site for pricing and deals.

Carphone Warehouse have a great deal with O2. They are offering Samsung Galaxy Note 8 on O2, 5GB Data, £49pm, £59.99 upfront. PLUS – Claim a free Samsung Dex docking station worth £139.99!

Barring any flammability disasters, or poor battery life, the Note 8 is likely to be a superb phone.

Samsung will offer their new Note 8 in four colors, Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Maple Gold and Deepsea Blue.