Hands On With the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
by Joshua Ho on August 13, 2015 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Galaxy
- Mobile
- Galaxy Note 5
Today, Samsung is announcing the next generation of their Galaxy-brand phablets, the Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+. Samsung’s phablets have been one of their greatest smartphone success stories, finding traction in a market when many thought there wouldn’t be a place for such a large phone. And while you will never see some competitors directly admit to it, products like the Note series have legitimized the phablet form factor and required that the competition catch up as well, making the phablet form factor as much of a home court for Samsung as there can be.
Starting with their 2014 models, Samsung introduced two different phablets, the Galaxy Note 4 and the simply titled Galaxy Note Edge. This year Samsung is retaining the dual phablet approach, however in the case of the Edge product Samsung has shifted gears on what they want to do. For 2015 Samsung seems to be going after a new audience in the form of the Galaxy S6 edge+, which is a more distinct derivative of the Note 5 platform with some greater feature changes than just a curved screen. To try and explain what I mean, I’ve included the specs below.
Galaxy S6 edge+ |
Galaxy Note 5 |
|
| SoC | Samsung LSI Exynos 7420 4xA57 @ 2.1GHz 4xA53 @ 1.5GHz |
Samsung LSI Exynos 7420 4xA57 @ 2.1GHz 4xA53 @ 1.5GHz |
| GPU | Mali T760MP8 @ 772MHz | Mali T760MP8 @ 772MHz |
| RAM | 4GB LPDDR4 | 4GB LPDDR4 |
| NAND | 32/64GB UFS 2.0 | 32/64/128GB UFS 2.0 |
| Display | 5.7-inch 2560x1440 SAMOLED Dual edge display |
5.7-inch 2560x1440 SAMOLED |
| Network | 2G / 3G / 4G UE Category 6/9 LTE |
2G / 3G / 4G UE Category 6/9 LTE |
| Dimensions | 154.4 x 75.8 x 6.9 mm 153 grams |
153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6 mm 171 grams |
| Camera | 16MP rear camera, 1.12 µm pixels, 1/2.6" CMOS size, F/1.9. OIS 5MP F/1.9 FFC |
16MP rear camera, 1.12µm pixels, 1/2.6" CMOS size F/1.9, OIS 5MP F/1.9 FFC |
| Battery | 3000 mAh (11.55 Wh) non-removable |
3000 mAh (11.55 Wh) non-removable |
| OS | Android 5.1 with TouchWiz (At launch) | Android 5.1 with TouchWiz (At launch) |
| Connectivity | 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.2, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC | 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.2, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC |
| SIM Size | NanoSIM | NanoSIM |
As one can see, the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ share a lot in common. They have the same SoC, same amount of DRAM, almost identical displays, the same cameras, fingerprint scanners, and the same battery. Ultimately what differs between the two devices is not the underlying hardware, but the functionality and form factor of the devices.
There are really two important differences between the two, namely the removal of the S-Pen and addition of the curved display to the Galaxy S6 edge+. The result is that while the Galaxy Note 5 is a traditional Note phablet, the Galaxy S6 edge+ is closer to a very large Galaxy S6 edge, and this is why these two closely related devices are placed in very different product lines. In some ways, I suspect that this will be a litmus test for the S-Pen functionality in general, as sales may prove Note functionality has a relatively small effect on the desirability of a phablet.
Galaxy Note 5
Galaxy S6 edge+
Design
Moving past the distinction between the two models, the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ share very similar industrial and material design. The bezel surrounding the display and the back cover both continue to use the highly reflective patterning that we first saw with the Galaxy S6, and in the case of the Galaxy Note 5 the bezel surrounding the display has become even thinner than before. Like the Galaxy S6 edge, the plus variant has bezels that are effectively equivalent to the Galaxy Note 5 as the angle reduces the effective size of the technically larger bezel.
With the Galaxy S6, there was a noticeable distinction between the normal version and the edge variant when it came to in-hand feel as the standard version was significantly thicker on the left and right sides of the phone. With the Galaxy Note 5, this difference is lessened, but the difference in in-hand comfort definitely remains. The big driver for this is the use of 3D glass on the back cover of the Galaxy Note 5, which allows for a more ergonomic design in the hand. I can’t help but compare this to the first phablet that I’ve seen with a 3D glass back cover, namely the Xiaomi Mi Note line, which feels remarkably similar. At any rate, the Note 5 seems to remain more ergonomic than the edge variant, which has a flat back but a curved display.
S-Pen
One of the major updates changes to the Galaxy Note 5 is improvements on the S-Pen, which has a number of new changes to the design and software functionality. On the hardware side, the pen itself now has a changed mechanism that has a push button top that allows the pen to be completely flush inside the phone when not in use, but easily ejected by pushing on the top of the pen to make it protrude. The digitizer also has dramatically reduced latency. In my experience, this helps a lot with making writing more natural on the Note 5 as I don’t hesitate as much while waiting for the input to catch up.
On the software side, Samsung has added a host of notable additions to extend the functionality of the S-Pen, namely PDF annotation, an Air command floating button, customizable shortcuts, and scroll capture. PDF annotation sounds exactly like what you might expect, which is the ability to write directly on a PDF and save the results. This has obvious utility in cases like signing documents, as the user experience involved in digitally signing a document is horrific and usually goes something like printing out a PDF, signing the PDF, and scanning the signed document. In the case of the Note 5, signing a document is pretty much as easy as opening the PDF with the right application, writing a signature with the S-Pen, and saving the changes.
Meanwhile the Air command floating button and customizable shortcuts are somewhat more mundane. The floating button just allows for one-tap access to what was previously hidden behind the button press of the pen, and customizable shortcuts in the Air command menu is useful but not exactly life-changing.
Scroll capture is also arguably a “minor” feature, but I would argue that its value is significant when it comes to improving the user experience of the phone. In short, this screenshot mode makes it possible to screenshot a long list in an entire screenshot, so something like Google Maps directions can be taken as a single scrollable screenshot rather than 2-20 screenshots that might have overlapping information and potentially missing information from the ListView. However, as far as I can tell this capture mode is strangely hidden behind S-Pen functionality when it really should be integrated into the existing screenshot capture gestures that programmatically determines whether to present this scroll capture mode.
Camera
Although the camera configuration is unchanged from the Galaxy S6 with an IMX240 or S5K2P2 camera sensor, f/1.9 optics and a 5MP FFC, there are some new and interesting features present in the camera application. One notable additional is improved pro mode, with extended ISO range down to 50 ISO and the addition of a shutter speed toggle for long exposures. However, manual white balance remains unchanged as far as I can tell with only a few presets rather than fine-grained color temperature adjustments. I was unable to get a RAW sample from the device, but it will be interesting to see if Samsung has properly implemented sensor and lens corrections into the RAW files.
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tenoutoften - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
They don't make sense to you because you're a narrow minded idiot who is incapable of listening to another persons point of view. Quite a few other people have chipped in now thankfully who completely understand what I wrote, it is English after all, perhaps you want to have a look at their comments and hurl them some abuse as well, although I'm starting to think you may have difficulty with reading, fortunately most of the curse words are 1 syllable so you should be ok.Skinnedy - Friday, August 14, 2015 - link
As a train commuter... a lot. I watch movie a day or 2 TV episodes in and out of the city. I like to drop 3 or 4 movies at a time on my card so I have a choice. I listen to music in my car based on categorized folders with the shuffle feature. I'm pretty honest with myself and I use double digit GB per day on my card. Could I work around that? Sure, but I'd rather not have to.I do some work in sports where I can swap the card from my camera into my phone to publish something live much faster than if I transfer it to a computer first.
So yeah, the micro SD card is kind of a big deal to me.
sonny73n - Saturday, August 15, 2015 - link
Do you think we care about how you use your phone, where you watch your video or how you manage your collections? You can get a dumb phone and call it a day but I want a smart phone with an SD card slot so I can swap/share my files without having to delete then copy&paste from my PC. I watch movies and access files from my NAS at home sometimes but I guess you don't know there're speed limits to these network file transfer protocols. What about when you're out of your wifi range, cloud you say? Most of us aren't comfortable storing our personal files in some cloud server and not all of us can afford unlimited data plan or big cloud storage.I've been in IT myself since 2000 and I've never seen anyone in IT field that has thinking like yours. When a company hires you to fix/maintain or administer their network etc., you don't reorganize/change their whole system and everything on it to your liking or lecture them how to tidy their things.
So what if we like to have a phone with an SD card slot and carry all our files/collections in a bunch of tiny SD cards. So what if we like to have the freedom to access our files whenever and wherever we want, as long as our phones battery allows us to do so. That's our choice. We don't need someone like you to tell us how to run our things. Get a life!
tenoutoften - Saturday, August 15, 2015 - link
As an IT professional, you don't dictate, but you do make decisions on how the network runs and recommend things that make the network run smoother which can help save the customer money, data management is part of this. Companies expect you to give them advice, if you didn't do that, you wouldn't be a very good engineer.You're not really in IT though are you kid? "You can get a dumb phone but I want a smart phone" - You must be, what, 13, 14?
Everyone is entitled to an opinion though, even kids, even if you are just hopping on the bandwagon with other people, its only when you get older that you realise that you don't have to have an opinion the same as other people because its safer, you can make a decision for yourself. You'll be there soon kiddo.
sonny73n - Saturday, August 15, 2015 - link
"If you really have 128 odd GB of video and music on your phone, you need a lesson in learning to tidy shit up, not a bigger memory card."You called this advice? You sound very hateful and it makes you look like you're dictating others with your twisted logic. Anyway, there's no point for us debating or arguing with an illogical ahole like you. So what if we like something you don't. Deal with it!
tenoutoften - Sunday, August 16, 2015 - link
The logics fine, I explained myself pretty clearly, it just doesn't tie in with what you think. So what if I think carrying around 128GB of music is pointless, it's not going to stop people doing it, I'm merely suggesting it's not a necessity.In all honesty though, it doesn't look like Samsung give a shit about people who want to carry around 128GB of music either, which would suggest that according to Samsungs market research, people like you are a small fish in a big ocean - It doesn't phase me in the slightest, you're the one getting so butt hurt about it!
nascentian - Monday, August 17, 2015 - link
Faze, not phase, you idiot.Ryan1981 - Monday, August 17, 2015 - link
What I do is copy a season of a TV series to my SD card and watch it during commuting on the train which is 2 hours per day. Next to this I have a large music library which I use when cycling to and from the train. Not to mention that some free games like hearthstone use up a lot of space that the internal memory is just not sufficient for anymore.outerlimitsurvey - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
I guess different people use their phablets differently. Not only do I use a large MicroSD I even plug thumb and hard disks to my phone with an on-the-go cable. When I had a phone without uSD I was constantly managing my storage to have enough space for pictures and videos but now my phone camera is configured to save stills and videos to uSD. My phone is for work and my employer could demand I surrender it at any time. Since most of my personal stuff is on uSD I could just pop it out and give my phone back without loosing anything important. I was a very loyal Galaxy Note user but lack of uSD will make me look around when it is time for a new phone.tenoutoften - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
And you are one of the 10% that sound like you have a legitimate reason for storage, I'm obviously not blanket saying everyone is the same, but I'm willing to bet a lot of the people in this forum are in their teens and only have their entire music library or movies on their phones just because they can, it's more a choice rather than an everyday requirement.If you're recording footage or taking a lot of photos, I get that, I use the phone for photos and video capture for personal use and work as well, but the whole music and films argument, it's just old and invalid these days.
It's exactly the reason Apple don't make a giant capacity music juke box anymore, it did sell when it was available, but it sold because people chose to have their entire music library available - did they ever listen to even a tenth of it months on end, no, but the space was available so they used it. Particularly with the advent of things like google and apple music, storing huge amounts of music is a waste of valuable storage space and ultimately pointless.
I use my note more for internet than for media, it's really useful, particularly with the big screen - I do use it for video, photos and the odd tv show if i'm really stuck, but space is a commodity that people take for granted, it's a lot cheaper to be organised and it's amazing how much space you really have available when it's not filled with unnecessary clutter.