Another tidbit pertaining to Samsung’s incoming Note 8, with the company hoping its premium palm-stretcher phablet brand can rise phoenix like from the ashes of the Note 7 flaming battery debacle.
A lot is riding on the success of the Note 8, to see whether Samsung’s brand can rebound from a major product recall that risked putting a serious dent in its reputation as well as landing a hefty expense on its balance sheet.
The company has previously claimed it’s seeing faster than ever pre-sales for a Note device in the U.S.
Now its expanded that momentum claim, saying pre-orders for the premium phablet have hit the highest ever velocity for its Note series — and beat the Note 7 pre-orders by about 2.5x over five days, according to a Reuters report.
The company said pre-orders reached around 650,000 Note 8 handsets over five days across about 40 countries — an initial response Samsung’s mobile business president described as “very encouraging”, speaking at a press event in South Korea (where he also teased a possible foldable smartphone launch for the Note line next year).
The Note 8’s U.S. price-tag starts at around $930 — inflating the expense of top-of-the-range premium smartphones, even as Apple is on the cusp of outing its own new high end flagship, the iPhone X, which is slated to cost $1,000 or more.
TechCrunch’s Brian Heater judged Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 “a nice return to form for the series” in his TC review — while also noting that Samsung seems to be erring on the cautious side, avoiding bombarding the phablet with new features.
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That feature restrain doesn’t appear to have put off Note loyalists, at least.
The phablet is due to start shipping this Friday, September 15 — which is also the day tipped for at least some of Apple’s new iPhone models to go on sale, even if the iPhone X is slated to be coming later than the other new handsets we’re expecting: the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
Stay tuned to our liveblog for the official word from Cupertino as we get it.
