If you ended up picking up the Note 9 or plan to buy one in the future, you be disappointed to learn that there’s no way to disable the dedicated Bixby button that adorns the right side of the smartphone.
Previously, owners of past Samsung smartphones like the Note 8 and Galaxy S9 could switch off Bixby, as well as disable the dedicated Bixby key so that pressing down on it would do nothing. That’s no longer the case with the Note 9; searching ‘Bixby key’ within the Note 9’s leads to an empty screen.
What’s more, the placement of the Bixby button, right underneath the Note 9’s volume rocker, means it’s pretty easy to accidentally launch the assistant.
It’s a small blemish on an otherwise fantastic device that MobileSyrup‘s Patrick O’Rourke called the best big Android smartphone available currently to Canadian consumers.
Even judged against lesser voice-activated assistants like Siri, Bixby is less accurate and sounds more robotic. Compared to Google Assistant, Bixby fares even worse.
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