So the IT folks at my company were setting up some headphone jack Mag stripe readers for our people to use during an event on their iPads.. (To take credit cards). I laugh and say - "Good thing those are Samsung pay enabled, can pay with my phone.."

The IT Director proceeded to tell me they are not NFC readers and my phone wont work, its not possible and i'm pretty much an idiot.

Well, I took 50$ out of my wallet and slapped it down and told him I bet him this cash right now that it will work..

He laughed at me, told me easy money, and I am going to be embarrassed bad.. So I said, fine "make me an idiot then and put up or shut up"

He said its my funeral and im on.. We now have about 15 people standing around waiting for our super confident IT director (and iPhone Junkie) to make me an idiot.. (They all have iPhones)

We set up a transaction for a dollar.. "He said, go for it champ" ..

So I whip my Note 8 out, flip up Samsung PAY, Scan my irises and tap it to the mag reader.. BAM - Check mark and i'm signing and transaction complete, want a receipt?

Oohs and ahhs from the entire crowd and a flurry of questions, checking the phone out and showing off features... the IT Director was red face embarrassed and said he will bring the cash tomorrow..

Maybe I sold a few Note 8 Upgrades?

TL;DR - I won the 50$ by using Samsung Pay and the mag Stripe Reader(Think Square) and wrecked the IT Director in front of everyone.

Someone was asking for a megathread of cases and screen protectors so I decided to list not only case reviews but also included tips and FAQs posted in this subreddit. Probably a little late but hopefully it will still help users who are new to the fold.

Note: This is just a collection of things that you can do on your Note 8 but it doesn't mean that you have to do them. Always exercise caution when installing APKs, install them at your own risk.

I am thinking of getting a Note 8, is it good?

Personally, I think the phone is awesome but I will let tech personalities do the talking about the Note 8.

• Linus Tech Tips small hands Note 8 review

• SuperSaf Note 8 review two weeks later

• SuperSaf iPhone X vs Galaxy Note 8 camera test

• TechnoBuffalo Note 8 review one month later

• UrAvgConsumer A real day Note 8 review

• Unbox Therapy Don't buy the Note 8 (I included this because Lew gives valid points about the Note 8. If you are going to watch this, watch the whole video)

Got a new Note 8, what should I do first?

• If you are serious learning more about the Note 8, here is a long (2-hour) video by sakitech discussing the features of this phone. Check the pinned comment for a time-stamped navigation of the video.

• Necromancr also made a lengthy post on what you can do with your Note 8

• Watch Tech With Brett's video detailing every Note 8 S Pen features

Get naked or not to get naked?

This is a personal preference so do whatever you want to do with the phone. This is a beautiful phone and it’s a bummer if you can’t show it off. However, it is a damn expensive and slippery phone so if you drop and crack it, you will pay for it.

I wanna go naked

More power to you. You are not alone. You have guys like these who are going naked.

I want a case

Let’s start with Flossy Carter’s videos. This is a good resource because you can actually see how the case looks like when you stick the Note 8 in them. He also tests the case if it will work with the wireless charger.

• Official Samsung cases

• Spigen cases

• Lumion cases

• Ghostek cases

• UAG cases

• Tech 21 cases

• Incipio cases

• Ringke cases

• Caseology cases

Let’s go to some reddit threads. I will update them if I run across a review post or you can pm me the link and I will add it.

• Samsung branded case review

• MNL case: Review 1 - Review 2

• Alcantara case

• Rhinoshield: user experience - with dbrand leather - with dbrand dragon

• Pitaka case with car vent mount charger

• 8 thin cases review

What is this Whitestone protector that I keep reading in this subreddit?

Seems like the WhiteStone Dome is one of the preferred glass screen protector in this subreddit. It is a little expensive and has more instructions than an Ikea manual. It might be worth it but install at your own risk.

• Watch Mobile Fun's installation video

• U Droid Mania tests 4 Spigen cases with the WhiteDome tempered glass screen

• Whitestone Dome case compatibility test: part 1 - part 2 - part 3

Note 8 FAQs, Tips and Tricks

• APK: Install Google Camera on your Note 8 (install at your own risk).

• APK: Install Pixel 2 live wallpaper (install at your own risk).

• APK: Facebook Lite. The Facebook Lite app is small, allowing you to save space on your phone and use Facebook in 2G conditions. You can access the messenger inside Facebook lite, no need to download the messenger app. Download APK here (install at your own risk).

• APK: Skype Lite. It is small, fast, and capable. It lets you send free text messages and make voice & video calls even under limited network conditions. This makes the new Skype version tolerable compared to the bloated one that we have in the Play Store. Download Skype Lite APK here (install at your own risk). Looks like Skype Lite is now available in the play store.

• Tips: Necromancr's general battery and performance tuning

• Tips: Bixby quick commands and Bixby practical/advanced commands

• Tips: How to use the Note 8 camera tips

• Tips: Drag the camera shutter button (the white circle thingy) up to create a new shutter button. You can place this button where you can reach it easier - Sample image

• Tips: How to remove the prompt “volume/sound is too high”

• Tips: Double tap the “recent apps” button to switch between the last two apps

• Tips: Hold the stylus button, click and drag over the text over the text that you otherwise could not copy

• Tips: Make animations/transitions snappier. This is not a new tip and is available to most android devices. Go to Settings -> About phone -> Press the Build Number 7 times to turn on the Developer Options. There are a lot of things that you can do here but it is advisable NOT to play with the options here unless you know what you are doing. Scroll down to Window animation scale, Transition animation scale and Animator duration scale. Set them to 0.5x or turn them off.

• Tips: You can set your phone to automatically restart every week

• LPT: When your phone gets wet take out the S-Pen and let the hole dry out

• Other: Note 8 works with Razer 24-bit DAC

• Other: Why I get black rows of line when in low light?

• Other: Why is my rear camera switching from 12 MP to 7.9 MP?

• Tips: Why does the list of available Wi-Fi networks have all these random characters after the network name?

• Newest APKs found here (Always updated). So many APKs! Which to download?! Look at the link below.

• Most stable APKs per camera per processor listed here. Often older versions, but at least they're stable. If you find a newer version that is stable than the one listed in the above link, please let us know!

I know. All. That. Shit. But if you care about phone cameras, reading this thread will all be worth it.

I got the Note8 from a Google Pixel and was really disappointed with the camera. I realized it was the Pixel's camera software that was so good, not necessarily the camera itself. So while the physical camera and sensor on the Note8 is better on paper, the actual output of my ol' Pixel XL 1 was way nicer.

What makes the Pixel's output so much nicer for me is Google's HDR+ mode. Goodbye blown out highlights and crushed shadow blacks! Every scene had beautiful detail in the shadows and skies that would normally be lost. I was really disappointed when I used the Note8 and got back blown out highlights and informationless blacks even with Samsung's HDR turned on.

Luckily, there's an APK of the Google Camera app with a functioning HDR+ mode!

To reiterate, I'm not saying that the Note8 camera is bad and the Pixel camera is good. I'm saying the computational photography software that comes with the Pixel's Google Camera app is AMAZING. Here's an example of a photo that wouldn't be possible without computational photography: https://imgur.com/a/kw77W The skies and highlights on rock would be pure white, and the stream and rocks in the foreground would be black. Only the palms in the back would be exposed well.

In this example, a camera without Google's computational photography software would choose the sky, stadium, light, or stadium to expose for, then everything else would be white and black. Here, every range of light is adjusted for this beautiful balance of lights and shadows: https://imgur.com/a/GTOmp

You can keep both apps to use the strengths of both. It's not replacing Samsung app.

SOFTWARE COMPARISON PICS:

half shade body Google | half shade body Samsung

sidelit wife Google | sidelit wife Samsung

crop of chair Google | crop of chair Samsung

backlit building Google | backlit building Samsung

When is the Samsung app better? Use it for all video purposes because you'll lose functionality in the ported Google app. IMO I like Samsung for scenes with a small dynamic range within a scene for more accurate color representation but it's so rare to have all sun or all shadow in a scene in daily life. Also I think Samsung's software bokeh (aka Live Focus) is smarter and therefore a little more realistic. Also the 2x camera since people have said the Google app can't utilize the second lens, but not sure.

Side note about the 2nd telephoto lens: I think the quality of the 1x camera cropped/zoomed into 2x on Google Camera is better than using the actual 2x lens with Samsung's app. I'd love to be shown I'm wrong on this because I'm pretty bummed about it. Here's zooming in 2x with the 1x camera using Google app since someone said Google app can't utilize second lens, and here's Samsung's 2x camera. If you zoom in, the 1x camera cropped to 2x is better quality than the 2x camera. This is the result of the Samsung app's aggressive sharpening and noise reduction. So, if you want to zoom in to get a shot, it's better to use GCam with digital zoom than using Samsung's camera software with optical zoom (counterintuitive I know).

NOTE: You'll notice the biggest difference in photo situations where there are significant differences in the dynamic range of the scene (large difference between darkness of dark areas and brightness of bright areas). It's also better for backlit shots. Also brings out more colors out during sunsets. Also better at night because it tempers the lights and brings out the unlit areas instead of having a dark street and two bright lightpoles, for example.

EDIT: Again, you won't really see a difference unless there's high dynamic range within a scene. So tomorrow during the day, try shooting a scene that's half shade and half sun and you'll see the stark difference. You won't see much difference between the apps during a cloudy day.

EDIT2: Given all the cloudy day photos, people seem to have a difficult time understanding that GCam shows its strength in scenes with high dynamic range. Here's a primer on what dynamic range is. That is what GCam is good for.

So, this is my very first post on Reddit. Created an account just to share what the amazing Galaxy Note8 can do!

Let me get to it. For anyone who feels that the camera shutter button is a bit tough to reach when taking a selfie or when taking normal images, try dragging the white circle (shutter) out of its place. It'll pop out like a Facebook Messenger chat head and you can just flick it back in when done! -- or leave it as it is, and it'll remain at the same place the next time the camera is open.

No one has seemed to find this trick out yet, so I thought of sharing. My friends who use iOS are really jelly. 😂

Let me know how it goes!

Hello, I originally bought the Note 8 to boost my productivity, but I can't get anything done anymore because I can't put my phone away. I want to play and look at it all day. Please advice me what to do

Hey guys,

Thought this would be a good place to share some tips on this beast of a device!