Oh, that 'water carbon cooling system' in the Note 9 may not actually make it any cooler

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The Note 9 has a novel-sounding water carbon cooling system, but it may not be as meaningful as Samsung claimed at Thursday's launch, according to new tests today.

In fact, there was no noticeable difference between Note 8 and Note 9 temperatures in a series of three tests using a heat gun for measurement, says Tom's Guide.

Both Note phones quit working after reaching 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius) in one test described as an outside 'torture test'. It took 17 minutes and 30 seconds for both Samsung handsets to reach this shut-down point.

At launch, Samsung told us that the heat sink on its chipset is three times larger than the one in the Note 8 and it's there to extract the utmost processing power. This was at the same time is was touting its timed exclusive over Fortnite for Android.

Not ice cold, but cooler than an iPhone

There's good news, however. The iPhone X is said to have become unresponsive in just 14 minutes and 30 seconds in the same torture test. It stopped working a 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.6 degrees Celsius). It only bested the Galaxy phones in one of the three tests.

Also, regardless of these tests, the Note 9 is shaping up to be one of the best phones we've ever reviewed thanks to its big 6.4-inch screen size and juiced-up 4,000mAh battery. Our early tests prove its best Samsung phone to date in terms of battery life and it successfully plays Fortnite – though it does get a little hot under the collar.

Our beef? This proves that you can't believe all of marketing terminology thrown at you at smartphone launch events, even if something like 'water carbon cooling system' sounds scientific.

Lead photo credit: Tom's Guide

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Matt Swider
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