Samsung’s latest and greatest smartphone, the Galaxy Note 9, is now officially available for sale in Samsung brand stores and other retail outlets throughout the country.
This is after the company’s official launch of the device earlier today in Nairobi.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9, announced globally at the start of August, has been up for pre-order in the country since August 17th.
Those who pre-ordered the device then were able to take custody of it and the accompanying goodies that Samsung Electronics East Africa was offering (a welcome pack consisting of Samsung’s new DeX HDMI cable – that enables the user connect their Galaxy Note9 to a monitor or television screen for a desktop experience – a wireless charger and a tripod stand, all worth Ksh 12,000) from one week later – August 24th, the same day it went on sale globally. The device has also been up for sale ever since then in select outlets that were taking part in the soft launch.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 builds on last year’s Note 8 by packing an even larger display, a vastly improved stylus (S Pen) that is now chargeable and, thanks to connecting to the device via Bluetooth, can be used to do things like taking selfies and media playback control. The most standout feature for many, though, is the larger battery unit (4,000mAh) it packs which guarantees longer battery life, a weak point of its predecessor which had the disadvantage of being the successor to a device that Samsung wanted to forget quickly, the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7.
Other features include Artificial Intelligence smarts that Samsung is not hyping up as much as Huawei has over the last two years but which users will encounter when shooting various subjects and scenes using its camera and a water cooling system to keep things, well, cool.
The device goes for Kshs 105,000 for the 128GB variant. While buyers of the device elsewhere in the world have an option of topping up the storage all the way to 1 terabyte by purchasing the 512GB variant and getting a memory card of similar storage, Kenyans will have to make do with the 128GB variant, for now.
Given the steep pricing, Samsung has partnered with the Barclays Bank of Kenya to offer the financial institutions credit card holders a 6-month interest-free payment plan.
The Galaxy Note 9 is available in Midnight Black, Metallic Copper (with matching S Pen), and Ocean Blue (with a Yellow S Pen) colour options.
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