Earlier this week, the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 went up for sale in the United States and various other parts of the world. With the sales of the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge losing momentum and the Korean giant losing market share over the last few quarters, a lot depends on the Galaxy Note 5 for Samsung.
To counter the impending launch of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus and to prevent it from cannibalising the sales of the Note series, Samsung decided to unveil the Galaxy Note 5 a month earlier than its usual launch time frame. The company announced the Galaxy Note 5 at its Unpacked Galaxy event last week and released it across major markets of the world on August 21.
So how good is the Samsung Galaxy Note 5? We round up some of the notable reviews of the device to help you save time and make your decision of buying the device easier.
The publication found the Galaxy Note 5 to be a bigger version of the Galaxy S6 with some design tweaks, though they say that it is not really a bad thing. Additionally, the found the display on the phablet “gorgeous”, which should not really come as a surprise since the display on the Galaxy S6 was crowned as the best display found on a smartphone earlier this year.
As for the S Pen, this is what Dieter Bohn had to say about it:
S Pen:
Look, I get it: the S Pen is still a hard sell for most people. If I’m honest, I’ll admit that most of my affinity for the stylus comes from the idea of using it more than actually using it (and, yes, some Palm Pilot nostalgia). But if you find yourself wanting to mark up documents on a phone, it really is pretty great.
Despite coming with a smaller 3,000mAh battery, the Galaxy Note 5 did well in The Verge’s battery tests.
Battery:
The other complaint about the Note 5 is the battery size: it’s 3,000mAh, which is actually smaller than its predecessor (and, again, you can’t swap it out in a pinch). I can allay some of those concerns — but not all. The Note 5 held up for over 8 hours in our looping website battery test, and in real-world usage, I managed a whole day without a problem. But two days — or even a day and a half — is tougher to promise.
To conclude, this is what the publication had to say about the Galaxy Note 5:
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.
The publication’s review of the Galaxy Note is very positive, and they say the design and internal improvements more than make up for the lack of two of the favorite features of power users: a removable battery and a microSD card slot.
The website praises the reduced bezels on the Galaxy Note 5, which makes the device feel smaller than it actually is. Additionally, it notes that the curve on the back edges of the device help improve its ergonomics, which was a big pain point on the Galaxy S6.
Build Quality:
This is a Note that doesn’t actually feel much bigger than any other phone, which is perhaps the biggest overall win of this design change. That may go against what some Android enthusiasts consider to be a tentpole of the Note experience — giving you any and every spec despite what it does to the overall experience, but it makes a lot of sense when trying to market a large phone to regular phone buyers.
It did, however, criticise the Note 5’s speaker for being tinny and barely audible.
I’ll use it to listen to the occasional bit of podcast while I’m walking around the house or for a short YouTube video, but it’s hardly going to blow you away if you want to watch any longer-form media or get multiple people in on the listening experience.
Software:
Samsung greatly improved TouchWiz with the Galaxy S6 and the same version of its skin is found on the Galaxy Note 5, though the iconography has been tweaked slightly to give the UI a slight refresh. Android Central notes that the Galaxy Note 5 comes with the same display density as the Galaxy S6, which is higher than what the Galaxy Note 4 had despite coming with the same screen size and resolution. This increase in DPI might take many existing Note users a few minutes to adjust to the screen, but after that they will find everything on their previous Note display hilariously big.
Performance:
When it comes to performance, Andrew Martonik notes that the Galaxy Note 5 offers almost lag free experience. Whatever lag that used to show up on the Galaxy S6 in certain parts of the UI are completely eliminated from the Note 5. He also notes that either due to software optimisations or the extra gigabyte of RAM, the Galaxy Note 5 is a better multi tasker than the Galaxy S6.
I was never particularly bothered by this on the Galaxy S6, and I haven’t seen any issues in the Note 5. Be it the extra gigabyte of RAM or software improvements, I was able to open up dozens of apps and intentionally switch between very old cached processes to see how the phone reacted — apps resumed properly, without reloading or losing data. Let’s hope this oft-cited issue has been resolved.
Battery life:
The Galaxy Note 5 should be easily able to last you a day, but don’t expect anything more from it.
A full day of my usual use, which includes some music streaming, podcast listening, taking pictures, lots of email and social networks, a mixture of Wifi and LTE data, and maybe a little tethering here and there, I would end a full 16 or 17 hour day with 20 percent left in the battery. That’s all with 85 percent brightness on (plus automatic brightness), and no apps or features disabled for fear of battery drain. Comparing to my time up to this point using the Galaxy S6, the numbers work out — that’s roughly 20 percent more battery than I came to expect out of the smaller phone.
In the end, Android Central notes in its review of the Galaxy Note 5 that if you can afford it, you should definitely purchase the device.
What do you think about the Galaxy Note 5 based on the reviews above? Will you be buying the device or are you waiting for the iPhone 6 Plus?
