First impressions: Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Edge

BERLIN: Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is finally official, and we had some to 

play with it at the launch event. Here's what we think about the South Korean 

company's new phablet:

The new Galaxy Note 4 looks a lot like its predecessor, but a closer look at the 

phablet shows it is smaller, lighter and better designed. Despite keeping the 

same screen size as Galaxy Note 3, Samsung has been able to shave off a few 

millimetres from the body while making Note 4. Users would finally be able to 

hold it in one hand without the risk of dropping it, which is a welcome change.

The metal on the frame that surrounding on the side looks good; the phablet has 

a nice matte texture on the rim, which hides the fact this is metal but still makes 

the device look premium. The faux leather back panel has been retained, but the 

material feels a little less plasticky this time around; the stitching is gone this time.

The position of the camera and LED flash is pretty much the same as that of 

Note 3, with the addition of a heart rate sensor that is located below the camera. 

Same goes for the stylus holder, which is located at the bottom right edge.

The most striking feature of Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is the display panel. 

You get a screen that is slightly raised in a curvature and has a glossy look to it. 

The display seems to be tougher than what other smartphones in the market have, 

and looks like a valuable addition to the model. It is easily the most visibly 

distinctive difference between Note 4 and its predecessor.

There is not much difference in the display quality of Note 4 and Note 3. 

Though the resolution has gone up, the clarity pretty much remains the same. 

Other QHD display smartphones in the market (LG G3, Oppo Find 7) struggle 

with the same problem - it's hard for the screen to differentiate itself from a 

Full HD panel. Despite this, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 delivers an excellent 

viewing experience and offers great colour contrast and viewing angles.

Under the hood is the 2.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor 

with 3GB RAM, which makes for a pretty powerful device. But this is only for 

the international market. 3G-dominated markets like India will get the 

octa-core Exynos processor model, which has a four high-power cores 

running at 1.9GHz and four low-power cores running at 1.3GHz.

The octa-core Exynos model wasn't available at the event, so we had to make 

do with the Snapdragon 805 one. There were no preloaded apps that could 

put the phablet through its paces, so we will have to wait to see how it 

performs in various conditions. But opening and closing apps, switching between 

them etc was a breeze.

The camera gets bumped up to 16MP in Note 4, from Note 3's 13MP. You also 

get optical image stabilization this time, so shots you take don't appear blurry. 

The level of detailing is pretty nice, but we could see a little noise in dark areas 

in indoor conditions, so we expect little to no noise in daylight.

Selfie lovers get a 3.7MP front camera (a little smaller compared to the 5MP 

front cameras of HTC One M8 and Sony Xperia C3), which is pretty good for 

taking self portraits. The images we took were not too grainy and captured 

sufficient details for a front camera due to its f1.9 aperture. You get a wide-angle 

selfie capturing mode, which lets you take panoramic selfies when you move the 

phablet from left to right.



On the software side, you get much of what you saw in Galaxy S5, but S Pen 

gets a little more useful as you can now switch between apps faster and keep 

several active windows as floating widgets. We have seen this floating widgets 

feature in the past, but here it becomes even more useful as you can open a 

couple of apps at a time. Samsung Galaxy Note 4's stylus also lets you select 

portions of a web page and save them for later use; you can refer to them or 

email them to a friend.

Like a mouse, S Pen can be used to select any portion of the screen, so text selection 

on the display becomes easier. Snap Mode can identify parts of an image that 

contain text and then make the text an S Note, which is editable to a large extent.



Samsung has roped in Swarovski to create a range of diamond encrusted back 

covers for Galaxy Note 4. Mont Blanc is releasing a range of digital pens 

(that work as styluses) and flip covers for the phablet. The Mont Blanc flip covers 

are made of rich leather and feel very nice to the touch.

However, all is not perfect with Galaxy Note 4. The heart rate monitor of the 

phablet was unable to fixed reading when we tried it at the venue. Similarly, 

the rear camera selfie mode did not give great results. Apart from these two 

glitches, we did not encounter any problems with Galaxy Note 4.

Of course, there are some features that Samsung has purposely missed out on: 

namely microUSB 3.0 and a water-resistant body. And Samsung representatives 

said that Galaxy Note 4's fast-charging feature will work only with a special 

charger (which comes in the box), so your old phone's charger won't be much use.

Is Galaxy Note 4 worth an upgrade? If you are still using a Note 2 or S3, then 

you should probably go for the Note 4, but Note 3 users should probably stick 

with their current phablet. That's not to say major upgrades haven't been made, 

but the price will likely be sky high, and spending Rs 50,000 doesn't make much 

sense to it after shelling out a similar amount less than a year ago.

However, if you do want to upgrade, then Samsung Galaxy Note Edge is 

probably a device you should consider. It has a unique design, as the right edge of 

the phablet is curved and can work as an independent display panel; this curved 

screen has been made using Samsung's Youm display technology, which has 

been seen in last Galaxy Round smartphone as well.



So, what does this curved screen do? Is it just a gimmick or are the features 

actually useful?

At present, the functionality of the curved display is pretty limited. This Super 

AMOLED display panel can show time and date, notifications, news updates, 

stock tickr, etc. You can select a photo to use as the wallpaper. It can also be 

used to play games (the game preloaded on the device is pretty rudimentary, but 

with more apps coming in, we see some potential). At night, it can show the time 

even when the primary display is turned off.

On the hardware and software side, it is pretty much the same as Galaxy Note 4, 

down to the S Pen stylus. It, however, comes with only the Snapdragon 805 processor 

option, not the Exynos variant. This casts a shadow whether or not Samsung 

will release Galaxy Note Edge in a market like India.

However, if it does make its way to India, we expect buyers to go for this model 

instead of Galaxy Note 4 due to a new and distinctive design in a package very 

similar to that of the flagship phablet.