Samsung's Note line of phones has always been about three things: a huge screen, outsized performance, and a stylus. But now, with the Galaxy Note 5, two of those three things aren't so special anymore. Every Android phone is big now, and almost all of those big phones are fast and powerful. And more than any of them, Apple's iPhone 6 Plus has been eroding Samsung's claim to phablet dominance. The rest of the world caught up with the Galaxy Note. Fighting all of that was always going to be an uphill struggle, so something had to change. To its credit, Samsung did just that. The new Note is different: it's a beautifully designed object that feels like it belongs to the same family as the other Galaxy phones. If you can't beat 'em with power and size, try to beat 'em with design. Oh, and don't forget that stylus. The Note 5 looks nothing so much as a blown-up Galaxy S6 — which is a shorthand way of saying it's a lovely combination of glass and metal. Of course, it has a huge 5.7-inch screen, but Samsung has reduced the bezels on all four sides compared to the last Note. That makes it more reasonable to hold in one hand (for basic tasks, anyway). The back is made of glass, too, and it curves in to meet the metal rim on the left and right, which also makes it easier to grip. I don't find the glass too slippery to hold — but ask me again once winter hits and my hands are dry as dust. What I do find are fingerprints everywhere on the gold version, which isn’t coming to the US (the white version, I’m told, is less prone to fingerprints). It practically begs me to just give in and put a case on the thing. But that would be a shame: literally every person who I've handed the Note to has expressed pleasant surprise. Samsung clearly has done some optimization to get the most out of the battery, but I can't let go of the idea that gigantic phones should have equally gigantic battery life (despite the fact that larger displays often suck up more battery life at same time). Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the norm across the industry right now. Samsung does try to make up for it with really impressive fast charging. It tops off ridiculously quickly off the right charger. It even charges faster than other devices on a wireless charger, which are usually quite slow. The 16-megapixel camera should elicit zero complaints from any user. It's fast, full-featured, and takes very good photos. It uses the exact same sensor from the Galaxy S6, though the software has been slightly updated to support more manual controls, offer RAW output, and use OIS in video. The overall interface, however, is just as simple as before, and I’m glad that Samsung decided not to mess with a good thing. Colors in daylight or even medium lighting are vivid, and everything is crisp and sharp. My favorite part is that you can mostly leave HDR in auto mode and not have to worry about it slowing things down too much. Like the S6, the Note 5 is slightly over-aggressive in trying to brighten up low-light photos, which can make them a little too yellow and occasionally blurry — but those are extreme cases where even the iPhone 6 Plus struggled and usually put something out that was too dim anyway. You can still tuck into full manual control settings and the usual bevy of filters and camera tricks — the latest is live streaming to YouTube. The live YouTube interface could use a little work, though. It’s confusing to set up and configure a stream, and it also struggles to work well on anything but the fastest connections. But seriously: just double click the home button, leave the camera in full auto mode, and shoot away. There are still not enough Android phones that let me give that kind of easy advice. Now that it can't hang its hat on power or size, the Note 5 differentiates itself with the S Pen stylus. Samsung’s stylus story is better this year than it has even been. It's still plastic, but it slides out of the silo after clicking the ballpoint pen-style top. It's fun to fiddle with, but having to click it to pull the stylus out is actually kind of annoying; I'd actually prefer not to have that extra step. catch and break the detection mechanism that makes the whole S Pen system work in the first place. So be very careful with it. As of August 25th, we're waiting on a response from Samsung about whether or not it has any policies around this design flaw beyond "follow the instructions in the user guide." The Note 5 is running on Android 5.1 with Samsung's suite of software — essentially unchanged from the S6 here as well. Samsung's lighter touch is still much appreciated, though its color choices on the default theme are nevertheless a nightmare of pastel blue and neon green. Fortunately, the theme store is much more filled out now than it once was — so there are third-party options to tone it down to something more civilized. A LIGHTER TOUCH ON SOFTWARE Otherwise, most of the "Samsung Weird" stuff is still hidden away and out of your face — and there's S Voice and a search field in the settings area if you need to hunt any of it down. Honestly, the fact that I can leave my feelings about Samsung’s software to the end of a review and don’t feel the need to heap opprobrium on it is kind of stunning. If the company can keep up (or even extend) this restraint, I’ll be seriously impressed. Samsung is also including 100GB of Microsoft OneDrive storage, the better to make up for the lack of a microSD card slot. The model I tested was the international version of the phone (the gold one you see pictured isn’t coming to the US), so I can't speak to whether or not US carriers will lade their usual software hassles on top of Android. My guess is that Samsung will let them, and that's a shame. Speaking of the carriers, they’re setting the prices for the Note 5 in the US, which range from $696 on Verizon to $739 on AT&T. The story of the Note 5 is the story of what Samsung can do when it holds itself back. Instead of tacking on endless features and juicing up every spec to the max, Samsung’s refining the ones it’s already created. It's making compromises on the battery and memory so that it can create a more approachable phone. And it succeeded: the Note 5 is probably the most consumer-friendly Note ever. I really love this Note 5, but I can’t shake the feeling that I miss the old, unfettered excessiveness of the old Note. It’s just a little less Note-like than before. The Note used to be something like a computer mainframe in your pocket; now it’s just a really great phone. Below are the full specs for this device. NETWORK Technology GSM / HSPA / LTE LAUNCH Announced 2015, August Status Available. Released 2015, August BODY Dimensions 153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6 mm (6.03 x 3.00 x 0.30 in) Weight 171 g (6.03 oz) SIM Nano-SIM - Fingerprint sensor (PayPal certified) - S Pen stylus DISPLAY Type Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors Size 5.7 inches (~75.9% screen-to-body ratio) Resolution 1440 x 2560 pixels (~518 ppi pixel density) Multitouch Yes Protection Corning Gorilla Glass 4 PLATFORM OS Android OS, v5.1.1 (Lollipop) Chipset Exynos 7420 CPU Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57 GPU Mali-T760MP8 MEMORY Card slot No Internal 32/64 GB, 4 GB RAM CAMERA Primary 16 MP, 5312 x 2988 pixels, optical image stabilization, autofocus, LED flash,check quality Features Dual Shot, Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection, panorama, HDR Video 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60fps, optical stabilization, dual-video rec., check quality Secondary 5 MP SOUND Alert types Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones Loudspeaker Yes 3.5mm jack Yes COMMS WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot Bluetooth v4.2, A2DP, EDR, LE GPS Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou NFC Yes Radio To be confirmed USB microUSB v2.0, USB Host FEATURES Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, heart rate, SpO2 Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM Browser HTML5 Java No - Wireless charging (Qi/PMA) - market dependent - ANT+ support - S-Voice natural language commands and dictation - Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic - MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264 player - MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+/FLAC player - Photo/video editor - Document editor BATTERY Non-removable Li-Po 3000 mAh battery Stand-by Talk time MISC Colors Black Sapphire, Gold Platinum, Silver Titan, White Pearl SAR US 1.53 W/kg (head) 1.28 W/kg (body) SAR EU 0.45 W/kg (head) 0.58 W/kg (body) Price group 9/10 TESTS Camera Photo / Video
I have the galaxy note edge now, I would definitely buybthe note 5 when this was official released in the netherlands. Now I will have to wait on the new note phone, this is a high end line!
Great device you have. Yeah definitely should check on the updates to when the Note5 is released in your area. Samsung has really stepped up the game on their Note5 with all the new features they built into this device.
as great as this device is , the deal-breaker for me would be the uni-body form. I cant imagine a phone in today's age that does not carry a slot for an external memory card - not to mention you cant swap batteries. I think they really dropped the ball on this one.
Thats indeed I think the only disadvantage of this phone. However the battery, how long is 1 full load?
People saw the lack of micro SD and a removable battery coming with the S6's arrival, but Samsung is reported to bring back micro SD expansion on the S7. They've been heavily criticized for removing 2 staple features.
