I was interested in the Samsung Note 8. Until I heard about LG's upcoming beast. Really. I swear I'm not an LG fanboy. I loved the G3 and G4. I didn't bother to even consider the G5, which I contend is a piece of junk. The G6? Meh. When a new generation of phones comes out, if I can afford one, I don't think much about brand. I read reviews and mostly decide based on individual phones.
I recommend the LG V30, just now coming out and looking to be same as the Note 8 in many ways and better in some. Yeah subjective :-)
Comparing the V30 to the Note 8, I like the wider screen format, better audio, better placement of the fingerprint sensor, and more rugged body of the V30. Oh and I never did have a need for the stylus on the Note. To me, it just seemed like wasted space and something to lose or break. And who writes anymore? Yes, i get it that some of you like the pen. Then maybe the Note is for you. I have an artist friend who loves it.
It was a big relief to see LG build a phone with such a huge screen but with bezels so thin that the phone will actually fit in a pocket or small hand! And, yay, they didn't follow Samsung into building a super tall and skinny phone. One benefit of the wider screen is the keyboard will be wider. That's important to me. Plus, when you have a super tall phone in your pocket and you try sitting down, what happens?
What else? Something I like on a phone is less buttons and I love seeing some manufacturers are getting the message. But with the 8th iteration of their phones, Samsung has added a new button dedicated to Bixby, their virtual assistant that is so far inferior to Google Voice Assistant. Why reinvent the wheel and not do it better? Maybe future updates will save Bixby. Oh and speaking of buttons, why did Samsung put their fingerprint sensor up next to the camera where (a) it is extremely hard to reach, and (b) you are as likely to smear your camera lens as you are to turn your phone on. Didn't they listen to all the negative press about this design in the Galaxy S8 and S8+? Maybe the design of the Note 8 was already set in stone by then.
In too many ways, Samsung has gotten bloated. Bloated software with a Samsung version of many free Google apps and bloated hardware with buggy gee-whiz features like facial recognition. Don't get me wrong. I was excited to see Samsung finally remove all the buttons from the home screen, like - cough - LG has been doing since the G2 in 2012. And yay, that "infinity" display on the new Samsungs is lovely. But I see it as yet another gimmick that makes it the most fragile phone in existence and relegates some of that very vertical 6.3" to being barely - if at all - usable.
Finally, the camera. For the past few years, LG and Samsung have been neck and neck with camera quality in their flagship phones. This year, spec-wise, it looks like LG finally pulled ahead. We'll see. An aperture of f/1.6 is the biggest I've seen yet in a phone and should mean it takes in more light. The Note 8 stuck with the slightly smaller f/1.7 (yeah in this case a bigger number means smaller lens) from last year's models. The V30's second lens is used for taking wide angle shots, which will come in useful at group gatherings, etc. Here is where the Note 8 has a feature I wish the V30 had: The Note 8's second lens is a x2 zoom (telephoto) lens. I can see that being super useful.
And yay, they are both water and dust resistant. I look forward to when all phones have this feature.
Summary: I really like what LG did this time. They are finally building a phone that checks all the boxes for me.
What about you? What's your favorite new phone? What features do you like, want, hate?
Here is a specs comparison of all phones that I put together years ago and keep up to date:
http://oceanmedia.net/phones.asp