Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 is a big-screen phone that commands your attention - and not just because it's a sequel to a device the company was forced to recall. It's because the Note 8 ushers in a new class of smartphones that is super-premium.

Gorgeous 6.3-inch Infinity Display; Fantastic dual cameras; Fun and useful S Pen enhancements; Handy App Pair feature; Strong overall performance; Very good battery life

Awkward placement of fingerprint sensor; A couple of early bugs; Very pricey

I swore off ‘flagship' phones this year, ditching my weary iPhone 6S and dropping £200 on a mid-range Android phone with a battery the size of a small moon. I'm delighted with it to an increasingly boring extent.

It's the best camera phone I've used and it's everything a high-end phone should be; You can feel where the money's gone

The fingerprint scanner is hard to reach and the face/iris scanning alternatives are unreliable

Some thought the Note 8 might never happen. After the successful launch and subsequent disastrous recall and discontinuation of the Note 7, which still gets namechecked on some airlines as a banned object, you'd have forgiven Samsung for dropping the Note name and starting again.

Stunning design and build; Great screen; Well-implemented stylus and software; Superb cameras

Average battery life; Wildly expensive

The Samsung Galaxy Note8 had a lot riding on it this year particularly since its predecessor – the Note7 – literally went up in flames a year ago. But the good news for the many fans of the Note brand is the Note8 has truly delivered.

A cutting contrast to the usual rigamarole of flagship products, it's fair to say Samsung‘s Galaxy Note 8 exists in a very "unique" context.

S-Pen; QHD+ Display

Battery life burns down fast; Exynos can't keep pace with Snapdragon

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is unquestionably one of those devices that is greater than the sum of its parts. It's not just a powerful tool or a capable multimedia machine, it's a joy to use and it can do anything you'd expect any top-tier smartphone to do and so much more.

Outstanding display; Rich S Pen integration; Excellent performance; Impressive camera

Even in 2018, the Galaxy Note 8 remains the biggest reimagining of Samsung's best smartphones for productivity, and more than enough to right the major wrongs of the recalled Note 7 . This is a mega-sized mea culpa.

'Infinity Display' is excellent; Samsung's best camera x2; Fast with 6GB of RAM

‘Infinitely' expensive; Battery life held back; Weak speaker

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is Samsung's flagship smartphone. It features a dual-camera setup, offering two different focal lengths. It's an update to the controversial Note 7, which you may recall as being notorious for its exploding battery problem - Samsung is of course promising this problem has...

A really excellent phone. The best Galaxy Note yet, with a superb camera, battery, display, and fantastic performance. It is also the best stylus-based phone to date.

Huge and gorgeous display; appealing design aesthetic and solid build; BEST stylus experience on a phone; Excellent battery life; Excellent camera; Solid performance

Massive and perhaps somewhat unwieldy; expensive

The Galaxy Note 8 retakes the throne as the ultimate Android phone for now, but some intense competition is just over the horizon.

The Galaxy Note 8 tops Samsung's already excellent S8 and S8 Plus with dual cameras and a boatload of stylus tricks; It's the most feature-rich Android phone you can buy

An expensive phone, the Note 8 has more features than most people will need; Samsung's portrait mode can be finicky; The poorly placed fingerprint reader repeats the Galaxy S8's worst design flaw