The Samsung Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ Review
by Joshua Ho on October 2, 2015 8:00 AM ESTSystem Performance
While subjective judgments of performance may be possible to make when the delta is significant, when the gap gets increasingly close within the range of perceivable performance differences it becomes important to rely on more precise and accurate methods of measuring the overall performance of the mobile device. For the most part, when we’re discussing system performance the single biggest factor is often the SoC, which makes sense given that an SoC contains the CPU, GPU, video encode and decode blocks, memory bus, and DSPs. There are other aspects of the device that determine the overall perception of performance and things that can have a meaningful effect on performance, but the SoC is often the gating factor.
In order to test this we run mobile devices through our standard suite of benchmarks. In the case of the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+, there shouldn’t be too many surprises given the commonality in components with the Galaxy S6.
If you guessed that performance in these benchmarks would be similar to the Galaxy S6, you'd be right. Given the shared SoC and general commonality in components performance remains as high as it is with the Galaxy S6. In some cases we see improvements, likely a combination of changes to Chrome and changes to areas like the frequency governor to respond faster to changes in load. It's probably fair to say that the Exynos 7420 will continue to be the best SoC for Android mobile devices in 2015, although it's likely that we'll see significantly increased competition for 2016.
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forgot2yield28 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
How about a Moto X Pure review? I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to get your take on how it stacks up against the big Samsung and Apple phones.danbob999 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
I would like to see screen-off and idle battery tests. Most of the time my phone sits on the table, receiving emails in the background.Dobson123 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
THIS! I got some bad battery numbers with the S6 in idle mode with an active internet connection (WLAN and LTE), don't know what causes this.Shark321 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Agreed. My phone sits around with screen off 90% of the day.WoodyPWX - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Great review as always, thank you!plonk420 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
just a side note, in your comparisons between phones, why does the Lumia 735 (one i'm pondering) and a few others have a handful of lights reflecting? odd setup on your behalf? or is the CCD actually picking that up?JoshHo - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
I believe this is some extra lighting Brett uses, not a sensor issue.zimmybz - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Dude... I can //feel// your disdain by reading written words. This review was clearly a chore. It's such a "meh" effort.I understand you prefer Apple products, and in this case, I can even readily admit that the 6S Plus is probably going to trounce this phone.
I used to come here because there was very little non-technical (specs don't lie) bias in your reviews. I guess those days are gone now.
Here is the major problem - some of us just don't LIKE iOS. It has nothing to do with whether or not it's a technically superior device year to year or whether it has a this or a that.
Reviews like this are what made me stop clicking a lot of other places. I can appreciate that you like iOS better. But an unbiased review of the product in which I can't hear you saying "whatever, it's not an iPhone" the entire time is not what Anandtech used to be.
zimmybz - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
That last line should read: But a biased review of the product....Ryan Smith - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
"I understand you prefer Apple products"While we appreciate the feedback all the same, just to be clear here, Josh is a day-to-day Android user. Which is not to say that he doesn't do a thorough job on both kinds of phones, but I hope you aren't ignoring a good article just because of misconceptions about the author.=)