Samsung Galaxy Note Fan Edition uses Note 7 hardware and specs, but sports Galaxy S8 UI including Bixby

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Fan Edition (FE) is official, and is being launched on July 7th. As we told you the other day, South Korean carrier LG Uplus is accepting pre-orders at a price of KRW 700,000 which translates into $611 USD. The latest word is that no more than 400,000 units will be sold in South Korea so that the device doesn't cannibalize the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note8 phablet. Overseas sales are being considered. The original color options, Black Onyx, Blue Coral, Gold Platinum, and Silver Titanium, are available.

There are some small changes from the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. One major difference is the battery, which was the cause of the random explosions that forced Sammy to pull the phablet off of the market last year. The new battery on the refurbished Fan Edition is 3200mAh, which is an 8.5% reduction from the 3500mAh cell employed on the OG Galaxy Note 7. An 8-point safety check makes sure that each cell used for the phone is safe. In addition, the Samsung logo is no longer found under the earpiece, and a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Fan Edition logo is on the back.

The Galaxy Note 7 (FE) features a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display with a 1440 x 2560 resolution. The Snapdragon 821 chipset is under the hood, replacing the Snapdragon 820, with a quad-core CPU and the Adreno 530 GPU. 4GB of RAM is inside along with 64GB of native storage. A fingerprint scanner is on board as is an iris scanner, and the device sports an IP68 certification rating. That means that it can be submerged to as deep as nearly 5-feet of water for as long as 30-minutes and emerge unscathed. The S Pen is included.

The UI for the Galaxy Note 7 FE is the same as the one that is found on the Samsung Galaxy S8 which means it includes an "Always On" function. And while there is no dedicated Bixby button, Bixby can be found on the device.

UPDATE: After reaching out to Samsung, we learned that Samsung is indeed recycling certain Galaxy Note 7 components for the production of the new Note Fan Edition. However, the new phone also includes unused parts, such as those out of phones that never got opened. About Samsung's virtual assistant feature, the Galaxy Note Fan Edition will feature only Bixby Home and Reminders instead of the complete Bixby experience.


source: Samsung (translated)