The new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is a pretty incremental upgrade to the Note 8. But it's still by far the best smartphone choice if you want to take notes or draw on your handheld.

The new S Pen is more brightly colored, so it's harder to lose. It also uses Bluetooth Low Energy to act as a remote control for your phone; it charges when it's in the phone, so you won't end up running out of power.

The Note 9 runs Android 8.1. Samsung suggests a whole bunch of bloatware apps, but you can refuse them if you want.

Samsung has really been playing around with fingerprint sensor positioning recently. The Note 8 (middle) has horizontally oriented cameras and a fingerprint sensor next to them; the S9+ (right) has vertically oriented cameras with a sensor below them; the Note 9 (left) has horizontal cameras, but a fingerprint sensor below them.

The S Pen slides right into the slot in the phone, just like it has done with previous Note models.

All the existing S Pen features are there, including Air Commands when you pull the pen out. But there's a big new feature: The pen can act as a Bluetooth remote control for your phone at a distance of up to 30 feet.

The Galaxy Note 9 keeps the headphone jack as well as USB-C port. It also has a microSD card slot. If you get the 512GB storage model, and add a 512GB card, that's a terabyte of storage.

The Galaxy Note 9 has the Galaxy S9+'s dual-aperture camera, which physically opens up wider in low light. It also has the trendy AI auto scene setting features that we're seeing on a lot of cameras right now.

The new $49.99 HDMI adapter for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 kicks it into multi-windowed, desktop DeX mode when it's connected to a big display. You can use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, or use the Note 9's screen as a keyboard and touch pad.

Folks who preorder the Note 9 can get a pair of AKG headphones or 15,000 units of Fortnite in-game currency. For $99, you get both.