Gadgetory

carrying a big phone is no longer by itself a badge of distinction in a time when most smartphone screens hover somewhere around five inches and even longtime holdouts have gotten into the super-sized game it's not enough just to be big you've got to be smarter than the average smartphone you've got to be special and maybe just maybe you've got to have a stylus is the fourth generation of Samsung's famous phablet line worth your time and your money i'm michael fisher with pocket now let's find out in our video review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 okay so this is the best Galaxy Note ever made of course it is that's how annual upgrades work if it wasn't there would be a problem but what does that mean well for one thing it means samsung has finally addressed one of our longest standing gripes fit and finish the polycarbonate backplate is still done up in a fake leather pattern to fit in with the whole notebook aesthetic but last year's stitch work and plated plastic is out in its place a seamless joint meeting an aluminum magnesium bezel with painted detail and a gorgeous double chamfer have we seen this design before oh yeah are we worried about it scratching over time absolutely we've already got a few dings in our review unit in fact but one will never get tired of design that looks this good and too soft metal or not it's got to take damage better than the cheap plastic on the note three and you better believe you're going to drop it the note 4 is thicker and heavier than most smartphones on the market and reaching across its 5.7 inch display with one hand is a daring endeavor best suited to the brave or the foolish that display is a Super AMOLED panel at the super-high resolution that's become a necessity for top-tier smartphones and yes it's exactly as beautiful as the manufacturer says it's dimmable too almost absurdly low levels it's bright enough to read in broad daylight and it's protected by a layer of material that Sampson tells us is more robust than Gorilla Glass 3 but that didn't stop us from scratching it when we dropped it accidentally that glass extends almost to the metal border with a tiny expansion gap that's caused a big stir you've probably read about it well we're not really worried about it it is a little concerning from the standpoint of dust inversion so we'll keep an eye on it for after the buzz in a few months finally embedded in the glass is a Wacom digitizer capable of over 2000 levels of pressure sensitivity which gives life to the s-pen silo'd in the phone's bottom edge that special stylus is a big part of what makes a note and note so let's talk about it real quick Samsung keeps adding features to the s-pen suite but its core function is the same as fun as drawing on a screen can be it's the navigation function that we like best we've said it before using the S Pen as a pointer for ordinary actions like scrolling and selecting feels much like using a mouse on a computer and Samsung has added to that experience this year with a new highlight function that makes it easier to copy and paste text or to look up words in the dictionary that kind of stuff comes in handy more often than you'd think and so do other abilities like annotating photos or using swipe on the keyboard it's stuff like this rather than the party trick nonsense that makes us sad to leave the Galaxy Note behind after a review period every year even though we wouldn't use it all the time we wish every smartphone could have an S Pen it's much more than a simple stylus where the note 4 stumbles is when it tries to do too much and here Samsung can't help but fall back on old habits the company's third party UI is just so heavy that it can't avoid keeping you waiting especially in the rebranded magazine now called briefing and the multitasking ribbon which has been redone to resemble the latest version of Android now this is a very common issue we've yet to meet a smartphone that doesn't lag at some point but Samsung phones always seem to start bogging down early which is concerning considering how much power phones like this are packing and what you get in exchange for that performance hit are features that all too often seem incomplete scrolling with the s-pen only works in certain apps tossing content between apps is the same story functionality is duplicated all over the system making the phone more confusing than it needs to be while the company deserves some leeway for including features that few others are bringing to the table it's getting a little old giving Samsung a pass on design in exchange for capability the competition isn't standing still after all if you're the kind of power user the note line was created for maybe you'll adapt easily to the interface quirks if so you'll get a feature package that makes the note feel like much more than an ordinary big screen smartphone you can toss apps into resizable windows shrink them down to floating orbs or divide them across the screen so you can keep an eye on facebook while you're watching YouTube throw photos from the gallery to an Evernote memo use s finder to search the entire system for one search term when the note 4 remembers that it's a powerhouse it can do some awesome stuff and it looks better doing it than previous generations to new transparencies and minimal design give it a more modern feel if you use the stock launcher and the briefing app is so hip looking that you may forgive its sluggishness as we expected the note 4 also brings many of the improvements from the Galaxy s5s health is more capable than ever thanks to the note 4's heart rate blood oxygen and UV sensors and even if you can't make sense of that data the coach is back to tell you to get off your Duff every hour and move around a little bit fatty the fingerprint scanner is still an awkward swipe sensor but it works much better now than when it debuted in the spring and speaking of features there's a whole menu section devoted to making the phone easier to use with one hand on a device is why does this shrinking the screen to within a thumbs reach is more than a clever add-on it's almost a necessity and this is a feature even you lefties can appreciate if you can master the tricky activation gesture same with the side key panel that slides out from the bezel which would be much more useful if you could trigger the notification shade with it maybe in a future update with a 16 megapixel sensor and the fancy optical image stabilization we love to see the note 4's camera isn't lacking for hardware and as usual Samsung has backed it up with plenty of controls on the software side - in terms of design this huge closely to what's happening in the rest of the UI it's pared down and modernized a little bit but it's got a ways to go to catch up with some of the competition's usability this being 2014 selfie centric options abound you've narcissists you can squeeze more people into the frame of the wide-angle 3.7 megapixel front facing a much mo if you have any friends or you can take a detailed self-portrait with the main camera using audio and vibration cues once you get over yourself you can start taking pictures of the world around you and hear the note fours fancy hardware really pays off colors are luscious contrast is rich and automatic settings keep up really well with most environments that optical stabilization makes taking photos and video much smoother through the viewfinder and combined with faster autofocus and some software magic it makes low-light photography a real pleasure the note 4 is still a big device so it's a little awkward to shoot with for the hundredth time we'd really like to see a hardware camera button here rather than the hacky solution of using the heart rate sensor as a shutter key also the audio tends to peak more than on other phones when shooting video in loud environments all told that's a pretty short list of complaints for a smartphone camera habitual shutter bugs and budding cinematographers will probably be very well served by the note 4's optics just like Keanu Reeves showed us in speed sometimes being taller makes all the difference and the few millimeters of added height on this year's note make it slightly more comfortable as a phone the sharp edges aren't the greatest on the ear but sound quality is fairly clear and plenty loud on our end and callers reported that we came through the same way loud to the point of clipping but not as clear as some other phones noise cancellation is thankfully solid through both handset and speakerphone modes and speaking of speakers samsung's decision to move them back to the back is kind of annoying but the component is loud enough that it's not a deal-breaker even if you're someone who uses a lot of loudspeaker that's our favorite background track from one of our favorite games and gaming is of course a delight on hardware this powerful our american review unit packs the potent combination of a Snapdragon 805 with an Adreno 420 and three gigs of ram every game we threw at it the note 4 ran wonderfully and with microSD expansion up to 128 gigs you can install plenty of titles to external memory if you're willing to take a few extra steps it's also really nice to know that your battery won't die after a half hour of gameplay and the note 4 stamina is fine it's got the swappable battery common to Samsung phones so you can carry a spare if you need it and it also brings the super efficient ultra power saving mode for dire endurance emergencies over seven days of testing we've usually been able to hit five hours of screen on time after a 16 hour day which is good the note will probably get you through the day just don't go trying to last all weekend with it with the Galaxy Note 4 Samsung has reasserted its dominance of the phablet market it helped create it's not just another jumbo phone it's a bundle of features so dense it should probably come with an old-style 500 page instruction manual but you wouldn't read that and despite its quirks the note 4 really is friendly enough that you wouldn't - this is a smartphone for power users yes for people who want one device instead of a phone and a tablet then it's even a device for people who don't want a computer to an extent anyway more than any of that though the note 4 is a smart phone for people who love smart phones and in that respect it's the best one Samsung's ever made just like every year there's so much more to the Galaxy Note that we didn't cover here so go check out the rest in our full note 4 review available at pocket now on October 16th and join us Friday October 17th at 2 p.m. Eastern for a special note 4 edition of the pocket net weekly podcast where we'll take your questions live on the air till next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter reminding you that he didn't make a note pun even once in that whole video you're welcome Internet as always thank you for watching everyone we'll see you next time