If I could credit Samsung with anything, it's making big phones
into a fad for the rest of us. The company basically birthed the idea of a
phone-tablet hybrid, and if it wasn't for the Note series, Apple might not have
even considered bumping the iPhone up to 5.5 inches. (You're welcome, iPhone
users.)
With that said, Samsung continues to improve the Note series
with every new version. The Galaxy Note 5 is no different: it boasts a
beautiful screen, powerful innards -- including an extra gigabyte of RAM -- and
suite of helpful productivity apps to accompany its super precise stylus, the S
Pen. If you haven't considered a mega-sized Android phone until now, the Galaxy
Note 5 is the best place to start. It's so good at everything it does, it
outshines the rest of the Galaxy family of smartphones.
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A big body, a big screen
Florence Ion
The Galaxy Note 5 is just as sleek as its predecessors, despite
its larger size.
The Galaxy Note 5 looks like a bigger, more professional version
of the Galaxy S6. It has the same metal and glass construction, rounded edges,
and the barely-there bezel on the sides of the display. But it's slightly
denser and a little heavier to hold, which is especially apparent when you're
actually talking on the phone. As for the S Pen, it's tucked away
inconspicuously on the bottom near the charging port. When it's docked, it just
looks like an extra button.
Florence Ion
The S Pen resides in that small hold on the bottom of the Note
5.
Samsung slimmed down the Galaxy Note 5 enough so that even
smaller hands like mine can have an easier time grasping it. It's still a
pretty big phone, though, so don't expect something that easily fits in your
pocket.
Florence Ion
I don't feel like I have the tiniest hands in the world with the
Galaxy Note 5.
Samsung stuck with its usual button layout: a physical Home
button with a fingerprint sensor built in, two capacitive navigation buttons on
either side ("back" on the right and "recent apps" on the
left), a volume rocker on the upper left side, and a power button on the right.
If you've been a Samsung user for a while, you know this routine already. But
if you're a newbie, you'll have a whopper of a time getting used to the Note
5's reversed navigation buttons. I wish Samsung would change the placement of
those buttons, or at least leave it up to the users to choose for themselves.
Florence Ion
The Note 5's Quad HD Super AMOLED display is just vibrant as its
siblings, and even brighter. Because of the screen's larger size, you can
actually share a video with a friend without worrying that they can't see much.
My fiancé and I spent time going through our YouTube subscriptions on the Note
5 and we were pretty comfortable watching it together on its 5.7-inch display.
The only set back was that I could only hold the phone a certain way, lest I
was muffling the tiny speakers on the bottom side.
The larger screen size is also great for productivity. I have a
better grip for thumb typing, so emails can be penned more quickly. Editing and
cropping photos and videos is much easier, and reading an ebook or digital
magazine is possible without bumping up the font size. As an added bonus,
Samsung optimized the display so that it doesn't use up as much energy at a
given brightness level. So, if you like to read on your phone, have at it! The
Note 5 can handle it.
Phenomenal performance
Jason Cross
The Galaxy Note 5 smashed its precedessor in our performance
benchmarks, though it's quite on par with this year's smaller-sized
flagships.
The US-variant of the Galaxy Note 4 came with a Snapdragon 805
processor, which was a good chip, but not as fast as Samsung's latest Exynos.
The Galaxy Note 5 runs the same 64-bit Exynos 7 Octa 7420 processor as the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. It's fast, it's
furious, and it's also energy efficient. I put all the benchmarks into their own article so you can see an in-depth rundown of
the Note 5, including whether its 4GB of RAM actually helps performance. (Hint:
it does.) Just be warned that this phone gets almost scalding on hot days -- I
was not thrilled benchmarking it in 109-degree California heat, and had to stop
for fear of burning my hands.
Jason Cross
but I want to
reiterate that my day-to-day experience with the Galaxy Note 5 mirrors what the
chart shows above. The Galaxy Note 5 lasts a really long time with varying
usage, and that's with location, Wi-Fi, and data on. Granted, if you're using
turn-by-turn directions or playing a game, you're going to use up juice much
more quickly than you would leaving the phone in your bag with the display off.
But I like that I can do the latter without worrying that the phone is dying
just by being on.
One of the best cameras on the market
Florence Ion
The Note 5's rear-facing 16-megapixel sensor is one of the best
on the market.
Like the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, the Note 5 is an Android phone
with a camera that you can rely on in any situation. It features the same
camera sensors, including a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a 5-megapixel
front facing one.
This puppy was too cute not to snap a photo -- with my finger in
the corner!
The Galaxy Note 5 also performed on par with its predecessors in
our lab camera tests.
The Note 5 has particularly wonderful low-llight performance,
made better by the fact that the phone now features manual shutter speed
controls, up to 10 seconds.
And unlike the last generation Note 4, the Note 5 won't drown
out your subjects with the rear-facing flash.
Samsung didn't just copy and paste the camera sensor from the
Galaxy S6 and leave it at that; it tossed in some neat new tricks in the camera
app, including the ability to select the shutter speed. This can lead to professional-looking
night time shots, though you're limited to a 10-second exposure.
The stars weren't out, but I was able to get some of that night
time atmosphere light with a 10-second exposure. You can see the indoor light
lighting up the top of the umbrella in the left-hand corner. Typically, this
picture would have come out pitch black.
I went more in-depth with the new camera features in the Note 5 here, including its YouTube streaming
functionality and all of its new manual settings. It's convenient having the
features you'd use with a third-party app baked right into the native camera
app.
Can your Palm Pilot do this?
I'm going to skip over Touchwiz here because it's exactly the same as
what's on the Galaxy S6: it's lighter, it's blue, and it comes preloaded with a
suite of Microsoft apps that you can't delete. You'll notice in my photos that
I loaded the Google Launcher on my review unit after a while because I like
having Google Now permanently affixed to the left of the Home screen. I still
have to contend with the garish Quick Settings, but it's not that bad. Also,
Samsung's been much better about software updates in the last year, so you
should be fine with timely Android updates (if your carrier doesn't hold you
back).
Florence Ion
The new S Pen feels more like a real pen.
I've always believed that it's the included stylus that makes
the Note series worthwhile. Samsung updated the S Pen with a clicky top and a
nib that looks more like a ballpoint pen. It's also a bit more dense, so it
feels balanced when you hold it. I kept accidentally putting the S Pen away in
my pencil pouch, thinking it was an actual pen.
Florence Ion
Air Command now takes up the entire screen.
Of course, the real benefit of the S Pen is its accompanying
software. Samsung overhauled the Air Command screen so that it's an entire page
of icons, rather then just a pop-up overlay like on the Note 3 and Note 4. The
usual suspects are still there: Action memo, Smart select, Screen write, and S
note. You can also add two of your own shortcuts for any third-party apps that
take advantage of the S Pen.
I'll be honest: I mostly used the S Pen to collage makeup and
clothing I want to buy. Whatever!
The S Pen-specific apps have been polished up a bit, too. Now
when you write on screen, you'll hear a cute swishy sound that's supposed to
mimic the sound of a pen on paper. There's also the ability to pop out the pen
and start writing on the Lock screen, or you can capture a entire webpage in
any browser app with Scroll capture. I went more in-depth with these features here. Samsung also bundled in
the ability to do PDF annotations on the fly, which are way easier to do with
the S Pen than with just your finger. I edited a letter for my Mom recently and
didn't immediately feel the need to run to my computer to take care of edits.
Audio tricks that aren't gimmicky
Florence Ion
Samsung got a little "jealous" of its competitors'
audio-enhancing capabilities, so it made its own.
Samsung's been pretty consistent about delivering powerful
phones with fantastic displays, but you could accuse it of leaving sound quality
behind. It changed its tune this year -- pun intended -- by introducing a suite
of sound quality enhancement features to the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, including
Adapt Sound, which calibrates your headphones, and SoundAlive+, which helps
recreate the effect of surround sound even when it's not present. These
features work pretty well, though they're not as significant sounding as what
HTC offers with BoomSound, for instance.
Samsung features software that calibrates the audio for you to
make it sound fuller, richer.
The Galaxy Note 5 brings with it a feature called Ultra High
Quality Audio (UHQA), which helps "enhance the sound resolution of music
and videos." In practice, it seems to just enhance the bass of whatever
you're listening to, and it's not entirely apparent unless you download music
or videos directly to your device. I tried it out with Chromeo's latest album
and, like I originally described in my hands-on, it just sounds like
someone finally wired the smartphone "stereo" correctly. I'm bummed
it doesn't currently work with streaming apps like Spotify and Digitally
Imported, though there is some more third-party support coming soon. Out of the
box, Pandora and YouTube are the only apps that take advantage of this new
sound-enhancing feature.
Pay with your phone -- just not yet
I wanted to mention very briefly that while the Galaxy Note 5
currently support wireless payments with NFC via Google Wallet, the Samsung Pay
feature is not live yet. It'll be in beta this month, and is scheduled to
launch in September. When that happens, I'll be taking it out for a test drive
in the real world. Stay tuned.
The King of Phablets
Florence Ion
Your new King of Phablets.
Samsung's phone-tablet hybrid device no longer feels like it's
been made to cater to an elite group of professional smartphone users. It's for
both the business-centric user and the creatives types who want to doodle and
dawdle all day with their smartphone in hand.
I enjoyed the last two generations of Samsung's Note phablet and
I gave them both high scores, but I'm giving the Galaxy Note 5 a slightly
higher score because it's absolutely everything you want out of a smartphone: a
fantastic camera, a productivity device, a sketchbook, a digital scrapbook, a
boom box, and a portable gaming console. If you're going to spend gobs of money
for the most premium smartphone out there, it's gotta be completely worth your
while, and the Galaxy Note 5 is totally worth it. If Samsung would only cut
back on the heavy-handed TouchWiz interface changes and bloatware, it could
easily score 5 stars.
