We know from early hands-on impressions that the Galaxy Note 8's screen is pretty special, but now it's official. Following a series of tests by DisplayMate, Samsung's latest flagship has been awarded an all-time high grade of "Excellent A+."

It was only a few months ago when DisplayMate declared the Galaxy S8 to have the best smartphone screen ever, but Samsung has improved on its earlier phone by allowing the Note 8's display to be set 22 percent brighter.

The S8 can reach an impressive maximum brightness of just over 1000 nits. The Note 8, however, maxes out at 1240 nits. It has a screen reflectance level of 4.6 percent, one the lowest DisplayMate has ever recorded for a smartphone. Both these elements make the display easily readable, even in bright sunlight.

The Note 8 has a larger native color gamut than the S8 - 112 percent of DCI-P3 and 141 percent of sRG. It also boasts improvements to the color accuracy and several other enhancements, including four display modes that include Adaptive display, AMOLED cinema, AMOLED photo and basic

Samsung points out that the Note 8 has been certified by the UHD Alliance for HDR, which allows it to play the same content produced for 4K UHD Premium TVs.

DisplayMate highlights the fact that the 2960 x 1440 screen is 20 percent larger than the Galaxy S8 and 14 percent larger than previous Galaxy Notes. Thanks to the reduced bezels, this is achieved without any increases to the phone's overall size.

"The Galaxy Note 8 is the most innovative and high-performance smartphone display that we have ever lab tested," writes DisplayMate's Ray Soneria.