Samsung Galaxy Note 4

“The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (SM-N910F) is an excellent smartphone. The material impression is now better and pretty appealing with the metal frame. The Snapdragon 805 is very fast, but the throttling of the Adreno 420 under load is pretty annoying. It will be interesting to see if the SM-N910C version with Samsung's 64-bit processor Exynos 5433 and ARM Mali-T760 has the same problems.The Super AMOLED display with QHD resolution of the Note 4 is probably the best display of its kind right now that you can get in a smartphone. Large color space coverage and accuracy as well as excellent outdoor capabilities don't leave anything to be desired. The mega-smartphone is complemented by a clever digitizer operation and very good communication modules, which are up to date with LTE Cat. 6. The quick charging times are surprising and the battery runtimes are very good.It is unfortunate that the USB 3.0 port has been replaced with a slower version. We would also like to see an always-on voice control for the Galaxy Note, which already works great in the Moto X. Furthermore, we would like to see an IP certification. We still award additional points for the large number of good features and the S-Pen operation, even though the throttling is a bit annoying.If you are looking for a high-end smartphone with many superlatives and you are willing to pay the corresponding price, then you will be happy with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. The predecessor is also still a good choice if you want a less expensive smartphone.”

“This Note update is kind of boring. It's a spec bump with a few nips and tucks, but there's nothing significantly different. We think the Note Edge's existence shows Samsung is searching for something new in the phablet space, but until it finds whatever that new distinguishing factor is, we're left with a very minor upgrade. It's a little faster, the build quality is a little higher, the screen has a few more pixels. The biggest addition to the Note 4 is the eventual availability of the Gear VR, but we don't have that to test yet.Samsung is at least experimenting with a metal frame now, and that's a decent boost to the device's premiumness. New materials are not a silver bullet, though. Samsung needs to work on the faux-leather plastic back and the S-Pen, which feels like it was made as cheaply as possible.TouchWiz is still bad, and Samsung doesn't seem like it wants to solve the long-running problems its software has always had. The company cares more about shoving its own apps in users' faces than the overall user experience of its devices. This frustration remains something customers must learn to deal with. There are 50 ways to do everything, and Samsung's app design clashes with the normal way Android works. This year TouchWiz likes to unnecessarily hide the status bar, which is frustrating and pretty pointless. The apps that do this either scroll vertically anyway or have tons of wasted space.It's a new year and new iteration, but this is much the same old Note. If you like the Note 3, you'll like the Note 4. It doesn't offer much for upgraders, but much of the industry is on a yearly cycle. Samsung seemingly had to release something, so it did.”

“The Galaxy Note 4 impressed us with its look and feel, and flexed some hardware muscle while at it. The 16MP OIS camera didn't disappoint either - to say the least. The battery life was pretty awesome too, while the user interface has been nicely polished and stripped off of a lot of clutter.The heart-rate and blood oxygen sensors will always have limited use but, as the S Health app improves, they'll be getting closer to realizing their full potential. The fingerprint sensor is also a welcome addition over the Galaxy Note 3 for those who would want a little extra security without having to type long passwords.We particularly like the new S Pen features and the improved multi-tasking, which extend the Galaxy Note 4's advantage in terms of productivity. Indeed, there's no other smartphone in the market that can quite match the latest Samsung phablet as a productivity tool.But, as we said in the beginning, a flagship risks being remembered for its failings rather than its achievements. We didn't quite find any of the Galaxy Note 4 shortcomings bad enough to potentially go viral in the wrong way.We would have appreciated water resistance, we don't really like the step back from microUSB 3.0 to 2.0 and the user interface, while certainly headed in the right direction, still requires an update or two to become completely consistent, but we don't think any of this is a deal-breaker.Stereo speakers are another item on our wish list, but maybe that would have pushed the dimensions beyond the point of reasonable. Finally, we really hope, as production catches up to the demand, that Samsung takes care of the gap around the screen and give the stellar design the flawless build quality it deserves.What matters at the end though is how the Galaxy Note 4 compares to its peers - the ones it will be fighting for the affection of the customers.”

“The Galaxy Note 4 is a bit of a handful and is rather expensive but lovers of the Galaxy Note range will likely be enamoured with this edition. It is, on the whole, a great device with plenty of power and features. As long as you're aware that you're buying a huge phone and will get the most out of what it offers. Otherwise a smaller and cheaper handset is probably a better choice – the Galaxy S5 or one of its rivals.”