Samsung has a reputation for its GALAXY Note series phablets, they managed to succeed and convince consumers and competitors that a stylus is indeed something useful in today’s multi-touch display world, many other smartphone makers have also tried implementing that however failed to achieve or exceed what Samsung has done. Fast forward today, despite being late to receive the GALAXY Note 4 in our labs, we still find it one of the most impressive phablets and Samsung is starting to be different this time, there’s a whole new design language and charm that this product that simply wins our heart over.
Samsung GALAXY Note 4 Hardware Specifications
Processor: Samsung Exynos 5 5433 Octa-Core 1.9GHz+1.3GHz
RAM/ROM: 3GB/32GB ROM expandable via MicroSD up to 128GB
Display: 5.7″ Quad-HD (2560×1440) Super AMOLED with Gorilla Glass 4
Camera: 16MP Sony BSI O.I.S (Main), 3.7MP f/1.9 BSI(Front)
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, BT 4.1, NFC, IR Blaster, Heart Rate/UV Sensor, Fingerprint Scanner
Networks: 4G LTE Cat 4/DC-HSPA+/GSM
Battery: 3220mAh
The Note 4 gets more attractive with metal
The GALAXY S5 didn’t really receive much love for its cheapo plastic and dotted back cover design, being last year’s flagship,Samsung is fast to realize that consumers have to come to prefer metal phone designs and started implementing it on theGALAXY Alpha, followed by the Note 4 and A-series line up. The Note 4 adapts the very same metal frame design from theGALAXY Alpha, measuring a sleek 8.9mm and weighing 176 grams, it is undoubtedly one of the slimmest flagship phablets that you’ll be able to buy in the market. Despite of that, the phone isn’t entirely made of metal like the HTC One M8, Samsung has brought forward that faux leather back cover that is made with the familiar flimsy plastic, which is still acceptable given that we are able to swap the battery of the device.
Aesthetically, the GALAXY Note 4 has a pretty good grip despite being a huge device, the combination of the phone’s metal frame and faux leather back cover definitely gives user a premium feel when holding the devices. The phone sports a reasonably thin bezel which will allow manageable one handed operation if you have large hands, the sleek form factor also allows you to reach the phone’s heart rate sensor on the back which can be used as a camera shutter when taking front facing pictures.
Despite maintaining the same 5.7-inch screen size, the Note 4 gets an upgraded Quad HD resolution Super AMOLED component, it is bright and beautiful as always with Super AMOLED displays, that resolution however won’t really demonstrate too much difference from a 1080p display, unless you look really closely at the screen itself, otherwise there isn’t much to ‘wow’ about the phone’s display.
In short, we are generally impressed with the GALAXY Note 4’s design and ergonomics, however that home button will definitely annoy you as it causes accidental presses and calls out S-Voice when you have the phone in your pockets.
Improved and reliable software experience with lesser bloat
Again, we weren’t really satisfied with the GALAXY S5’s software experience last year as it is heavy and loaded with bloat. Thanks to improved hardware and an updated version of TouchWiz, the GALAXY Note 4 performs brilliantly in executing our daily tasks with very minimal lag, it still isn’t snappy but thankfully there isn’t any transition lags. The 64-bit Exynos 5 processor works perfect in launching our apps without any force closes and we should expect an even better experience when the phone gets upgraded to Android Lollipop, which hasn’t arrived at our unit at this point of time.
With every new introduction of the GALAXY Note series, Samsung tends to introduce new ways of taking notes with the phone itself. The Note 4 didn’t really introduce groundbreaking features this time, the S-Pen is still very much the same hardware that you’ll find back on its predecessor, except that this time Samsung has allowed much pressure to be applied on the touch screen and digitizer, thus giving a much better and realistic note taking experience on the phone.
On the software side of things, Samsung has somehow simplified item selection and image cropping when chosen in its Air Command, you won’t need to hold on to the S-Pen’s button this time to perform a perfect crop. Apart from that, Photo Note is an amazing OCR feature that turns images into text S-Note, which you can also choose to convert them to an editable format if you wished to.
Multi Window has also been improved on the Note 4, there’s no longer a small button on the screen that distracts you in full screen applications, instead you will need to call that feature out by long pressing on the ‘Back’ button, you can even resize app windows if you really want to multitask on that big screen.
Overall, the Note 4’s software experience and feature remains one of the most impressive ones that we’ve ever used, though we might not be always using those new features that Samsung has brought to the table, but you’ll definitely appreciate when there’s a need to use them.
Camera
Samsung has been improving its smartphone camera technology over time, the GALAXY Note 4 sports an optical image stabilization camera that takes widescreen 16:9 16-megapixel photos, picture quality turn out to be extremely favorable in both brightly lit and low light conditions. The phone’s camera software still unfortunately isn’t the fastest in terms of startup speeds, shutter speeds and saving a full resolution picture is generally fast, the phone’s camera is inarguably one of the best performing ones that we’ve ever come across, check out the camera samples down below.
The Note 4’s front facing camera performs reasonably well despite being a 3.7-megapixel shooter, its f/1.9 aperture demonstrates some pretty good looking pictures in low light, however that Wide-Selfie shooting mode isn’t something that we’re fond off as it tends to stitch pictures inaccurately most of the time.
The GALAXY Note 4’s video recording capability has also been tremendously improved from its predecessor, the phone will shoot 4K UHD resolution videos, however with the help of OIS onboard, video stabilization is excellent and Samsung has either done some magic to the phone’s microphone or camera software, because audio quality is seriously on par with Lumia smartphones, we shot our Airwheel X8 first look video down below entirely with the GALAXY Note 4.
Benchmarks, Battery Life and Network Quality
The Exynos 5 processor demonstrated some pretty kickass benchmark results in productivity however falls short in graphics benchmarks, some of the games we tested on the Note 4 has noticeable lags however maintains playable, which could be probably due to some software tweaks required either on the phone’s software or the app itself.
We were pretty negative when we got to know that the Note 4 was running off an Exynos chip as it isn’t as efficient as Snapdragon chips, however we were in fact very wrong, the Note 4’s battery life was an impressive one, it lasted us a full day of usage with two and half hours of on screen time while having multiple email accounts synced and Google Now enabled in the background. Furthermore, Samsung’s adaptive fast charging technology kept us less worried when we needed to charge the phone real fast.
The Note 4 unfortunately features Cat 4 LTE connectivity which is reasonable for current 4G LTE networks in Malaysia, however it isn’t going to be future proof once our telcos start rolling out Cat 6 LTE services in the near future. Thanks to the phone’s great aesthetics, it didn’t strain our hands when we held it up to talk for long durations and our callers reported a great voice call quality from our end.
Verdict – Samsung’s best all-rounder smartphone
I’m always positive about the Samsung’s GALAXY Note line ups, they were in fact the best product family that I personally feel the company has taken care of, the GALAXY Note 4 is one of the best smartphones that I’ve used despite being late in the review, it has great aesthetics, superb smartphone performance, practical features and great battery life, and that is something you can’t really find on most cheap Chinese flagships these days.
The Good:
+ Good software experience
+ Beautiful hardware and display
+ Best in class camera performance
+ Great battery life
The Not so Good:
– No Cat 6 LTE support
– Price could be lower
The Samsung GALAXY Note 4 currently retails at RM2,499, we give it a score of 9/10
