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Samsung's Note 8 display sports record-breaking brightness

DisplayMate test shows Galaxy Note 8's peak brightness is 22 percent higher than the Galaxy S8.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
Expertise I have more than 30 years' experience in journalism in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
Steven Musil
2 min read
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Hidden Features

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 has the brightest smartphone display on the market.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Samsung just raised the bar in smartphone screens. Again.

A year after DisplayMate awarded the Samsung Galaxy S8's screen its first-ever A+ grade, the screen tester has crowned the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 as the best performing smartphone display, awarding it its top grade as well.  The feature-packed phone, unveiled last week, is Samsung's follow-up to last year's disaster-stricken Galaxy Note 7.

The Note 8 brings a compelling list of advantages, but one of its key selling points is its massive 6.3-inch AMOLED display. And with good reason; the Note 8's display is 22 percent brighter than the Galaxy S8, a "noticeable and major improvement," DisplayMate said in a report released Monday.

The Note 8's screen has a maximum brightness of 1,200 nits (a unit of visible-light intensity) compared with about 1,000-nit peak the Galaxy S8 achieves. By comparison, the iPhone 7 has a peak brightness of 705 nits, according to DisplayMate.

This extra bump should go a long way toward improving the viewing experience, especially in direct sunlight where screen performance seems to fade the most.

The new handset also features a dual camera setup, a promising portrait mode and the signature S Pen stylus found on every Note phone. Note 8 preorders started Aug. 24, and the phone goes on sale Sept. 15 in the US, UK, South Korea and other select countries. It'll roll out globally through October.

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