Samsung GALAXY NOTE 5 - Review

                                                  NOTE 5

Samsung emerges with its new flagship phone the NOTE 5 just 1 year after the launch of NOTE 4. This time Samsung puts in much more effort in designing and choosing the materials for the new NOTE, this time it deviates from the repetitive choice of materials  and have played with metal and glass. There are many tweaks and new features in the NOTE 5 and we'll be talking about them in the whole review.

Hi, I am Eeshaan and this is what I think about it.

Pros

* Glass back design

* Record break specs

* Stunning camera

* S Pen

Cons

* Expensive 

* No micro SD

* Non Removable Battery

Design

Since Samsung chose a glass and metal body, the phone looks and feels really premium. The metal adds a weight to the phone, which gives the feel of holding a costly device, which it actually is. It somewhat resembles the design of Samsung GALAXY S6.

The back panel is made out of glass and is protected by GORILLA Glass 4. It curves on both the edges giving a nice grip to the user, since it is really slippery. There's a metal band around the phone like in the NOTE 4 and also consists a much faster fingerprint scanner embedded inside the home button.

The phone consists of only one speaker on the bottom but Samsung provides user with a powerful one. The speaker sounds really crisp and clear and is a loud one so you don't need any external speaker for watching movies or videos or listening to music.

Sometimes while playing a game you will find yourself covering the speaker with your index finger.

Alongside the speaker you will find the charging port, the 3mm audio port and a microphone along with the S pen ( Stylus ).

This time the S pen is styled like a real pen, you'll have to push it to take it out of the phone.

I will be having a separate segment for the S pen so all the new functionalities will be written there.

On the left hand side you will find the volume rockers, they are much tactile and clicky like the power button which is on the right side of the phone. 

On the top of the phone there is another microphone along with the SIM tray.

User can see the network bands on the top as well as the bottom of the device.

The overall design is impeccable and feels like the premium device it is.

Display

Like the NOTE 4, the NOTE 5 also comes with the same QuadHD Super AMOLED 5.7inch display with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels (~518 ppi pixel density). It is the finest screen I have seen on any device and works perfectly under direct sunlight. There is not much glare and is a heaven for multimedia consumers. Both the front and back are protected by GORILLA Glass 4, which saves them from getting all scratched up and doesn't let them break easily.

Reading on it is fun and streaming videos on high res. is a charm.

As most people who have used a Samsung device with Super AMOLED display know that the colours are just fabulous, it gives the user a feel of depth. The colours are really vibrant and the blacks are deep.

The display can get really bright as well as very dim, so you can do your work in both day and night.

Camera

The device comes with a relatively better camera than the NOTE 4.

Both have the same sensor and resolution but the image processing is much better in the NOTE 5.

It has a 16MP sensor with a resolution of 5312 x 2988 pixels.

It captures really sharp images and do not have the problem of over sharpening like in the NOTE 4.

Clicking home button 2 times opens the camera in a snap and you can capture your special moments in an instant.

There are many preloaded presets but one of them that catches the eye is the PRO mode which lets you set all the parameters yourself and many other which can be downloaded.

You can also make videos in 4K which is much more stunning than that of 1080p.

It have one of the best camera in smartphones.

The front one is of 5MP and can  also capture some awesome selfies.

Processor

It comes with a new and improved processor which gets things done quickly. 

It has a Quad-core 2.7 GHz Krait 450 processor and a Adreno 420 GPU. 

Games run smoothly on the device and while playing high end games one cannot notice any lags or frame drops.

Multi tasking is a bliss, with the dual window and screen in screen one can do many things at once.

Running many apps in the background and changing between them is much easy since the device keeps the background ones running and open them from where you left.

There is no lag after pressing the tabs button like it was noticed in the NOTE 4, it took a little time to open the multi window but you won't face the same problem in this one.

The scroll animations are smooth and all the other UI animations too are pretty good.

Processing speed is fast and what can I say it is just pleasureful working on this device.

Compared to the NOTE 4, it is much faster and sophisticated.

S Pen

The new S Pen design is really nice and gives a feel of holding a real pen. Many new S Pen functionalities are there and makes the work a piece of cake.

There a new feature for faster note making in which when the screen is off you just pull out the S Pen and it shows a back screen on which you can write a note and later it is save in the SNote app.

There's also a thing known as scroll capture which simply lets you captures screen shots of a website or a page and stitch it into one long photo so you get all the information needed in one pic rather than taking many screen shots.

    CAUTION: Do not ever put your stylus in the opposite direction it will cause your stylus to get stuck      in the device and if you try to pull it out, it will damage the sensor that senses if the S Pen is in the device or not and it will also take some functions with it like the faster note making.

UI - User Interface

It runs Android lollipop 5.1.2 which is smooth and much better than its predecessor the 5.0 since it consumes much less battery.

There a theme store in it this time which has tons of themes which you can buy or download the free ones and apply for a new look.

Themes will change your whole experience as the will change the icons and interface of the dialer screen and messaging app etc.

The new UI is much more better than that of the NOTE 4, it looks much better as well.

Not a lot of customisations can be made but we still have the theme store.

Verdict

This is a great smartphone which require two hands and a pile of cash, but it is the best smartphone in the market with a great stylus and a large screen with an accurate camera. If you are looking for external micro SD card and a removable battery then this one is not for you but if you can live with it then buy it.

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