As someone that has not seen one what is so good about these Note phones? I know they have the capacitive pen, but that just seems an added faff to use each time when a finger will do. TBH I am surprised the Galaxy S7 Edge is not the flagship phone it is fabulous.
My wife has a S7 Edge. I have a Note 4. Neither of us has the slightest interest in trading phones. She sees most of the Note-specific features I rely on daily as "faff" (to use your term) or "bloat" (to use hers). My daily workflow would really suck without them, so the S7 Edge, while a remarkable and amazing phone, is of little interest to me. She's in the target market for the S series, I'm in the target market for the Note series. Her phone never comes out of her purse at work, mine rarely goes into my pocket.
The S-Pen isn't capacitative - it uses uses a far more precise EMR sensor on the phone - basically the same tech that Wacom tablets use. If you are trying to do handwriting, precise drawing, etc this is a night-and-day difference from using your finger or a traditional capacitative stylus. Going back to a regular stylus to draw out anything feels like going from a nice pen to a crayon. Not everyone draws out ideas on their phone, so this is really important to some (like me), and completely unimportant to others.
The sensor doesn't require that the pen actually touch the screen to know it is nearby, so you get a "preview dot" that shows precisely where your pen will "drop" on the screen when you touch the pen to the screen. This "hover-over" feature also supports scrolling and a bunch of other things that are little niceties but hard to give up once you start using them regularly.
The partial screen capture is something I use almost daily, and the fact that it automatically rips any writing and presents it to me as OCR text is extremely handy - obviously I could do any or all of these things without it but capturing handwritten notes off a whiteboard and sending them as text instantly from my phone is extremely efficient if that is your intent (which it is for me several times in the average day).
Samsung has two flagship phone lines. The S and the Note. They appeal to slightly different audiences.
I think there will be a tremendous marketing effort when the Note 8 comes out. Possibly deep discounts to build the brand. But I don't think it will be specific to those that purchased the Note 7, it'll be worldwide for all buyers to build market share and prove that the Note line is still the best and most beloved line of phones.
I can't wait for the Note 8, I'm ready to throw this S7 Edge into the trash.
It's possible, but at the end of the day they also have to make a profit - and I think the holdouts that refuse to give up their Note 7 even after the battery life has been crippled and faced with a looming complete kill switch flip says a great deal about the kind of brand loyalty that is pretty normal for the Note series.
I suspect whether they discount it or not, their biggest problem will remain making enough of them to meet demand, as it has been for some time.
They may, however, at least acknowledge brand loyalty and offer anyone with a Sammy phone some special deal, especially because there's a fair-to-middlin' chance that someone with an S7 Edge was (like you) forced into it by the failure of the Note 7.
I want to want the Note 8 or whatever they call it, but if nothing else the Note 7 debacle reinforced my already strongly-held bias toward the replaceable battery which has already caused me to skip the 5 and the 7. My Note 4 has plenty of legs left, as long as I swap out the battery every year or so... We'll see if that changes next year.