It is a long held truth that the iPhone changed the mobile phone industry, but it is often forgotten that the Samsung Galaxy Note series has proved just as influential to the evolution of smartphone design. Would the iPhone 6 Plus exist if the Galaxy Note had been a failure? I highly doubt it.
But Apple is off to a flyer. My iPhone 6 Plus long term review found it to be a hugely capable handset and my Nexus 6 review argues Google is also now a significant rival to Samsung’s more expensive new Galaxy Note 4.
So having lived with the Note 4 for the last month, does Samsung still have what it takes to remain king of the phablets and is it better than the company's underperforming Galaxy S5? Let’s find out.
Design And Durability - Practical And Tough
For years Samsung has been kicked around for its designs and that trend has continued with the Galaxy Note 4. In some ways this is fair. Like the Galaxy 5, the Note 4 does not have head turning looks and its plastic back is often targeted as cheap by critics.
I agree with this, but after a month of use I have a significant counterpoint to make: the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 has a wonderfully practical design. In fact it is easily the most practical phablet on the market at the time of writing.
Read more: iPhone 6 Plus vs Galaxy Note 4: 2014’s Biggest Android Fight
Why? For starters, for a phablet, Samsung gets the size just right:
- Galaxy Note 4: 153.5 x 78.6 x 8.5 mm (6.04 x 3.09 x 0.33 in) and 176 g (6.21 oz)
- iPhone 6 Plus: 158.1 x 77.8 x 7.1 mm (6.22 x 3.06 x 0.28 in) and 172 g (6.07 oz)
- Nexus 6: 159.3 x 83 x 10.1 mm (6.27 x 3.27 x 0.40 in) and 184 g (6.49 oz)
While the Nexus 6 is ergonomic but huge and the iPhone 6 Plus is stylish but too flat and slippy, the Note 4 gets the balance right. The much criticised back provides good grip, the buttons are well positioned and - while the Nexus 6 has slimmer bezels - the Note 4 still fits a big screen (5.7-inches) in a shorter space than the 5.5-inch iPhone.
Galaxy Note 4 back won't win beauty contests, but it is rugged and grippy - image credit Gordon... [+]
Furthermore it is tough. I've dropped the Note 4 a number of times and it hasn't picked up a scratch and that much criticised back can be swapped if any damage does occur.
Similarly having upgradeable storage and a removable battery is something that is hard to give up when you get used to it. Like its rivals the Note 4 has fast charging, but it is just the cherry on top when you can just swap the battery and be back to 100% in 10 seconds. Meanwhile adding another 128GB of microSD storage for under $40? Yes please.
Read more: iPhone 6 Plus Long Term Review: Beautiful Freak Is The iPhone’s Future
I'm still not a fan of Samsung’s use of a physical home button and capacitive back and multi-tasking buttons, but don't believe the hype: the Galaxy Note 4 is actually a very well designed phone and one which is built to last.
Screen - Pack Leader
While the design of the Galaxy Note 4 will take time to grow on you, what wows from the start is the screen:
- Galaxy Note 4: 5.7-inch, 2560 x 1440 (2k), Super AMOLED panel – 515 pixels per inch
- Nexus 6: 5.96-inch, 2560 x 1440 (2k), AMOLED panel – 493 pixels per inch
- iPhone 6 Plus: 5.5-inch, 1920 x 1080 (Full HD), IPS panel – 401 pixels per inch
The good news is this powerful first impression doesn’t wear off. Samsung has been criticised for oversaturated colours on its AMOLED panels in the past, but the Note 4 isn't guilty of this and DisplayMate's much respected tests recently concluded that it is the “best performing Smartphone display that we have ever tested”.
For me the LG G3 runs it very close, though the G3’s tendency for oversharpening text alienates some. The Note 4’s 2k panel will be a big draw for many andon extremely close inspection does see it appear fractionally sharper than the 1080p panel in the iPhone 6 Plus, but I'm still not convinced 2k displays are vital in phones given their extra battery drain and performance requirements (more later).
That said the Note 4 screen is glorious and it also edges ahead of both the smaller Galaxy S5 and 6-inch rival the Nexus 6 due to greater brightness and slightly wider viewing angles.
Page 2: Phablet Features and Performance
Phablet Features - Phablet Focused But Bloated
This isn't the place to discuss Android and the upcoming Android 5.0 upgrade in great detail. For that you can read my colleague Jay McGregor's Android 5.0 Lollipop review and my best and worst features guide and head-to-with iOS 8.
What is worth focusing on, however, is Samsung’s effort to evolve Android to make the Note 4 a genuinely enhanced phablet experience as opposed to just a big phone.
Key to this is the S Pen. Samsung’s highly advanced stylus writes on screen as well as a real pen does on paper and it is a wonder to behold. The S Pen also brings greater functionality with the ability to hover near the screen and bring up additional program and navigation options and it is actually quite nice to use for navigation in general and stores away inside the phone.
Read more: Best And Worst Things About Android 5.0 Lollipop
That said after a few weeks my use of the S Pen decreased dramatically. Fingers are still faster and easier to use for most things and aside from signing the occasional document it was no longer a big draw. This is a highly individual assessment and your need for the S Pen may differ.
It was a similar experience elsewhere. Samsung’s ability to overlay windows is useful, but again my usage of it dropped off with time. Furthermore I didn't find Samsung’s own email, browser and fitness apps replaced any of the stock Google apps or third party apps I was using already and I do prefer the look of stock Android (especially with Lollipop’s Material Design) to TouchWiz.
That said I'm not going to hit Samsung too hard about any of this. Right now Android does lack dedicated phablet features and it is a notable flaw of the Nexus 6 so Samsung has been forced to step into the breach to build a lot of these features itself. They are a decent attempt, but Google must address this within stock Android as forcing manufacturers to build their own additional phablet functionality will only create new fragmentation.
As such Samsung deserves credit for trying to patch the holes itself and I'm sure many Note 4 users will use the specific phablet features more than I did long term. I do wish the TouchWiz UI would bite the dust, but I circumvented this by switching to the standard Google Launcher within a few weeks.
It was a similar case with the Note 4’s heart rate monitor (positioned beside the camera flash) and fingerprint scanner (which requires a swipe not merely contact like Apple's TouchID home button). The former feels a little like bloatware (it isn't easy to exercise with the Note 4) while the latter needs more finesse to make it something I'd enjoy using daily.
Something I did enjoy though is Samsung's multi-window modes. Being able to drag almost any process into a smaller window (notably video) while switching to another app is a great use of the large display. Google really needs to think about this in a future Android Lollipop update.
Read more: iOS 8 vs Android 5.0 Lollipop: Material Difference
Strangely, while the Note 4 has so many features, it actually lacks a crucial one found on the Galaxy S5: water resistance. The S5 can sit in a metre of water for 30 minutes and come out fine, but strangely Samsung hasn't equipped the Note 4 with the same thing. It’s a mistake.
Performance - Fast But Not Smooth
My dislike of TouchWiz is not purely superficial, a notable snag in using the Galaxy Note 4 long term is the performance.
No, it isn't slow. The Note 4 is a step up from the Galaxy S5 with Qualcomm’s top of line Snapdragon 805 chipset which has a quad-core 2.7GHz Krait 450 CPU and quad-core 2.5GHz Adreno 420 GPU. It can handle anything you through at it from 4k video rendering to the latest 3D games from the Play Store. So speed is not the problem, smoothness is.
Simply put the Note 4 may open apps as fast as any other phone (if not faster) but it does so with regular stutters and occasional lag. This lack of optimisation can give the impression that a very fast phone feels slow.
Read more: Nexus 6 vs Nexus 5: What’s The Difference?
Why do I lay the blame with TouchWiz? Because the Nexus 6 has the same chipset and doesn’t have these problems with Android 5.0 Lollipop, an update with more processor-intensive transitional animations than Android 4.4 KitKat, which is underneath the Note 4’s TouchWiz UI.
Owners of the Note 4 will get used to these little glitches, but they really shouldn't be there in the first place.
Page 3: Camera, Audio And Battery
Camera - Great Sensor, Questionable Image Processing
Let’s be clear about this from the off: the Galaxy Note 4 has a brilliant camera and fantastic video recording.
The camera opens quickly, focuses as fast as any smartphone on the market (including the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus with their ‘Focus Pixels’) and has excellent performance in low light. Results also look brilliant on the Note 4’s wonderful display.
Read more: Why iPhone 6 Plus Camera Beats iPhone 6
Having had the Note 4 for some time though, you do sometimes notice a small snag when opening them full size on a computer and that is Samsung’s obsession with sharpening images. Sharpening adds definition and can look superb, but the technique can also go wrong and sometimes the Note 4 draws in lines and edges where it looks to replace lost detail and it can look a little odd - as in the image above.
If it was possible to mix the Note 4’s camera sensor with Apple’s overachieving image processing the combination would take phone cameras to a new level.
On the flip side video is uniformly excellent. The Note 4’s inclusion of optical image stabilisation (OIS) - missing from the Galaxy S5 - evens out bumps and jumps and it records in future proof 4K. The slow motion mode isn’t up there with the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but there is time to address that with a software update. The Note 4 sensor certainly has the chops to surpass them.
Read more: Android 5.0 Camera Tests Show Update Instantly Improves Every Smartphone
Audio - Making The Best Of A Bad Design
Phone calls on the Note 4 sound great. As always results will vary depending on your phone signal at each end of the call, but the speaker is typically loud and clear. Whether that much despised slim plastic back plays a role in this is unknown, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Audio from the external speaker, however, is less impressive. It is about as loud and clear as rear firing speakers get, but no premium phone should have a rear firing speaker in 2014. iPhones have long had speakers which fire from the bottom edge, but even these are step behind the front firing speakers seen on most HTC phones and the Moto X and Nexus 6.
Rumour is Samsung will radically overhaul the upcoming Galaxy S6, which is being developed under the tantalizing codename ‘Project Zero’. Front facing speakers should be top of the list.
Battery Life and Charging
Big phones tend to have better battery life and the Galaxy Note 4 is a great example of this. It is fitted with 3220mAh capacity battery - the same as the Nexus 6 - and it easily delivers all day battery life, even with heavy use. Two days will be a stretch, but 1.5 days is reasonable.
Read more: Battery Life 'Holy Grail' Discovered. Phones May Last 300% Longer
This means the Note 4 lags slightly behind the iPhone 6 Plus (primarily due to iOS’s more efficient standby time), but it does outlast the (still excellent) Galaxy S5 and even, surprisingly, the Nexus 6 running Android 5.0. Furthermore, like the S5, the Note 4 battery can be quickly swapped out when you're running low.
This is a brilliant feature and one that I didn't fully appreciate at first having used iPhones and Nexus devices as my daily drivers for years. It is going to be one of the biggest things I miss about the Note 4.
Besides the long lasting, removable battery, the Note 4 also has quick charging for good measure and Samsung supplies a quick charger out of the box (unlike the iPhone 6 Plus). This gives you a 50% charge in just 30 minutes. Use the phone while charging and that time will increase, but it another big win for the Note 4.
Page 4: Value For Money and Bottom Line
Value For Money
$299 on a two year contract nets you a 32GB Note 4 which can be expanded to 160GB via a 128GB microSD card (circa $65-85 for a respected brand). This makes for a formidable phone and I'd suggest adding a second battery as well (about $50).
Off contract the Note 4 also scores well against its rivals:
- Nexus 6: 32GB – $649; 64GB – $699
- Galaxy Note 4: 16GB – $599, 32GB $699
- iPhone 6 Plus: 16GB – $749, 64GB – $849, 128GB – $949
Read more: Motorola Moto X (2014) Review - The Year’s Best Smartphone
It sits the middle being significantly cheaper than the iPhone 6 Plus, but more expensive than the Nexus 6. Both the Nexus 6 and iPhone 6 Plus lack expandable storage and a removable battery though, which means some will perceive their value differently.
Galaxy S5 price drops should come soon with the Galaxy S6 due in early 2015 but significantly, a 16GB Note 4 with a 128GB microSD card and second battery will cost less than a 16GB iPhone 6 Plus.
Bottom Line
The world may be filling up with phablets but, at least for now, they have very different strengths and weaknesses. Of the leading contenders the iPhone 6 Plus and Nexus 6 are the choice of Apple and Google purists, but the Note 4 is the truest ‘real’ phablet thanks to its myriad of smart software customisations that are designed to take advantage of its big 5.7-inch display.
I admit I didn't find myself using many of the Note 4’s phablet-specific features after the first month (with the exception of split screen) which make draw similarly minded users towards the Galaxy S5, but I was still awed by the Note 4's incredible display, grew to appreciate the rugged design and the excellent camera and battery life. If you go Samsung, the company's decision to offer expandable memory and swappable batteries will also be deal makers for many.
But beauty of the Note 4 is it has greater functionality than any other phone on the market and no serious weaknesses. The biggest is it lacks the finesse of the iPhone 6 Plus and Nexus 6 and TouchWiz remains an ugly UI which isn't as smooth or polished as it should be by now.
It says a lot that a stock Android 5.0 Lollipop 'Google Play Edition' of the Galaxy Note 4 could be the best smartphone on the market. As it stands Samsung has still made a very, very good one and it is easily the company's best phone to date.
Disclosure: Thanks to Three UK for the loan of this Galaxy Note 4 review sample
Read more: iPhone 6 And iPhone 6 Plus vs iPhone 5S And iPhone 5: Should You Upgrade?
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