Android By Russell Holly Sep. 3, 2014 2:11 pm
I have never been a huge fan of Samsung’s Note line. On top of not being a fan of huge phones personally, the Note line has always represented everything that is wrong with Samsung’s design language. The plastic casing to the Note line flexes when you hold it, combining the feel of cheap plastic with the fear that gripping the phone with any amount of strength would cause irreparable damage to the device. Samsung attempted to improve this with the launch of the Note 3, but implemented the worst faux leather backing ever seen on a portable device in the process.
Now that the Note 4 is here, however, it would appear as though all of that has changed.
Samsung’s Unpacked announcement included plenty of things to be excited about, including the birth of the fourth Galaxy Note. Unlike its predecessors, Samsung has used aluminum around the entire bezel of the device. The aluminum has been colored to match whichever casing you choose, which is a huge step up from the obnoxiously chromed bezels of the Galaxy S5. This gives the Note 4 a rigid feel and a classy look that has been missing from Samsung’s products for quite a while now.
While it is true that looks aren’t everything, raw hardware has never been something the Note line has lacked. This year Samsung has included a QHD Super Amoled display that packs 515 pixels into every inch. The 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon processor under the hood with 3GB of RAM promises to be capable of delivering 4K content, and the 3,220mAh battery that has been stuffed into the 5.7-inch casing should be more than enough to get you through the day. If anything should go wrong, Samsung claims that just 10% of the battery in Ultra Power Save Mode will get you 24 hours.
Despite all of that horsepower, the phone doesn’t feel any faster than the Galaxy S5. Samsung’s animations are all exactly the same, unless of course you are using the S-Pen or taking advantage of the advanced multitasking gestures, this is TouchWiz as you have come to either love or loathe. This means you get a lot of flashy colors, a lot of Samsung-focused software that you’ll either use or remove. You can also stuff the phone into the back of a Gear VR and do some pretty cool things, but that’s a story for another time.
The bottom line is this is the phone Samsung should have been making all along. It means Samsung has hardware that feels competitive with the HTC One M8 or the Sony Experia Z3, and raw specs that make it a tough phone to compete with. If you have been waiting for the Note line to feel a little more grown up, that time is now.
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Now that the Note 4 is here, however, it would appear as though all of that has changed.
Samsung’s Unpacked announcement included plenty of things to be excited about, including the birth of the fourth Galaxy Note. Unlike its predecessors, Samsung has used aluminum around the entire bezel of the device. The aluminum has been colored to match whichever casing you choose, which is a huge step up from the obnoxiously chromed bezels of the Galaxy S5. This gives the Note 4 a rigid feel and a classy look that has been missing from Samsung’s products for quite a while now.
While it is true that looks aren’t everything, raw hardware has never been something the Note line has lacked. This year Samsung has included a QHD Super Amoled display that packs 515 pixels into every inch. The 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon processor under the hood with 3GB of RAM promises to be capable of delivering 4K content, and the 3,220mAh battery that has been stuffed into the 5.7-inch casing should be more than enough to get you through the day. If anything should go wrong, Samsung claims that just 10% of the battery in Ultra Power Save Mode will get you 24 hours.
Despite all of that horsepower, the phone doesn’t feel any faster than the Galaxy S5. Samsung’s animations are all exactly the same, unless of course you are using the S-Pen or taking advantage of the advanced multitasking gestures, this is TouchWiz as you have come to either love or loathe. This means you get a lot of flashy colors, a lot of Samsung-focused software that you’ll either use or remove. You can also stuff the phone into the back of a Gear VR and do some pretty cool things, but that’s a story for another time.
The bottom line is this is the phone Samsung should have been making all along. It means Samsung has hardware that feels competitive with the HTC One M8 or the Sony Experia Z3, and raw specs that make it a tough phone to compete with. If you have been waiting for the Note line to feel a little more grown up, that time is now.
More...
