Quick Thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy Note 5

For the past couple of years, I have been making the same “Pen is mightier than finger” joke at Samsung’s Note series. The fact is, ever since the Note 3 was announced with a new suite of S-Pen features, that statement above has held true. The precise S-Pen is indeed more powerful than our big fat blunt fingertips.

Traditionally, the Note series has always been the device that “one-up” the S series, and the best phone that Samsung will put out in the year. Is it still the case this year with the Galaxy Note 5? I got my hands on one early on, and would like to share my thoughts on the device after having used it for a week.

At first glance, it is easy to mistake the Note 5 for the S6 Edge. Not that it’s a bad thing since the S6 Edge was pretty good looking to begin with. It is clear where the inspiration for the design of the Note 5 came from. Front and back glass panel, with the same design cues from the S6 Edge. The main difference other than the size is how the back panel is curved at the edges instead of the front.

The thing that struck me the most was how the phone doesn’t feel like a phone with 5.7” display when I picked it up. The Note 5 actually has the same width as the LG G4 with 5.5” display, which is an impressive feat. That, combined with the slimmer body, and a back with curved edges, makes it easier to use one-handed.

On the front of the phone, you have a 5.7” Super AMOLED display with QHD (2560x1440) resolution. When I got the Note 4 last year, I thought it was the best display I have seen on a phone yet. That is until the S6 came along. With the Note 5, the display now has a quality similar to that of the S6. Great viewing angles, vibrant colours, and great contrasts. The range of the brightness is great too, with the ability to go really low for night viewing, and high enough for outdoor viewing.

As with the S6, you have the same fingerprint sensor within the home button, and it seems to perform similarly as well. That also means that the sensor still has a slightly lower hit rate compared to Apple’s offering. As I mentioned in my S6 review, it might be simply down to the shape of the button, and how it is raised. The iPhone’s button is sunken in, and a round shape, so when you're pressing the button, your finger is almost always completely covering the sensor. Though I did find that the S6's sensor seems a bit more accurate, not sure if it's just down to the Note 5 being a bigger phone, thus harder to reach down to the home button.

Of course you can’t talk about the Note 5 without talking about the S-Pen. The S-Pen is found at its usual spot on the bottom right of the device. This time round, there is an additional step of pressing on the pen first to extend the end of the pen before pulling it out. While it is an additional step compared to older Note devices, because it is more protruded, it actually makes it easier to pull out. The spring mechanism on the pen itself doesn’t really do much else, but it does make it feel more similar to an actual pen. Software wise, there have been a few key upgrades as well for the S-Pen, and I’ll talk more about it later.

Powering the device, is the same 14nm Exynos 7420 chipset that was in the S6 and S6 Edge. Except this time round, you have 4GB of LPDDR4 RAMs instead of 3GB. The device is impressively fast, probably helped by what seems like a faster animation speed. Switching apps are quick, and even multi-window mode posed no issue for the device. 

That said, there is an inexplicable lag in the device from time to time. At times I would press the home button to turn on the device, but it would just stay blank and unresponsive for like 5 seconds before it goes back to its speedy self. A number of users has reported the same on local tech forums as well. Hopefully this is something that Samsung will fix soon.

Another thing that stood out to me was how cool the Note 5 ran. Only under very heavy load (installing apps, restoring backups, and setting up the phone at the same time) have I seen the device warm up, which is definitely an improvement over the S6.

With the Exynos chipset, comes Wolfson DAC as well. I am not an audiophile by any means, but I do like my music to sound good. With the Note 5, Samsung has included something call UHQ (Ultra High Quality) upscaler, which will upscale regular compressed music files into higher quality soundtracks. This is actually similar to Sony’s DSEE HX feature,  and does make it sound a little better. However, since the Wolfson DAC on the Note 5 sounds pretty decent to begin with, I left the setting off to conserve battery.

The single speaker is housed at the bottom of the device. It sounds decent actually. The speaker has good volume, and is relatively clear in most situations. It's not going to blow you away like HTC One M9's dual front facing speakers though.

Which brings me to one of the most controversial part of the device, the non-user-replaceable 3,000 mAh battery. Other than that, there is also the fact that it is actually smaller than the Note 4’s 3220 mAh battery. In my time with it, the Note 5 was able to last me a full day of use with some juice to spare, but not much more than that. On one of the days, I tried using Power Saving Mode, but it didn’t seem to make a big difference in terms of battery life.

My battery life also seems to fluctuate as well. Below are 3 sets of battery life screenshots from 3 different days.

(Day 4, pretty normal, and same as the previous few days)

(Day 5, for some reason Google Services killed my battery)

(Day 6, back to decent battery life again)

In my time with the Note 5, its battery life isn’t actually that much better than the Note 4 despite the more efficient 14nm Exynos processor and LPDDR4 RAMs. That’s a bummer considering the battery is now no longer user replaceable. On the flip side, Samsung does claim that their adaptive fast charging will be able to power up the Note 5 from 0 - 100% in just 90 minutes. Also, the Note 5 now supports fast wireless charging which will take just 120 minutes, a full hour faster than on the S6.

Personally, I don’t really mind not having removable battery much, but then again I am not your usual consumer. I do change phones often enough that I don’t have to deal with the wear and tear on the battery that comes with long term use. For users planning on using the device for a full 2 years period, especially heavy users, I can certainly understand where they are coming from. The inability to easily replace the battery with a new one when the current battery has been worn out is pretty troublesome.

The same goes for expandable storage really. While I appreciate the availability of having expandable memory, I personally don’t need this feature. I am using a lot of cloud storage for my documents and photos, and I don’t really store large collection of videos, music, and games on my phone. However there are certainly people who does just that.

To me, I think the faster UFS 2.0 storage on the Note 5 is worth the trade-off, and one could simply carry a USB OTG thumb drive along with them if they wished to store their media.

Onto the software side of things, the main difference you’ll see are the new app icons design. Other than that it is largely the same user interface as we have seen on the S6 and S6 Edge. However I did notice some additional features that Samsung actually missed out on the S6, like checking the call duration for one. Though I expect those to make its way over to the S6 eventually when 5.1.1 goes live.

Being a Note series device, it also has unique software features related to the S-Pen. Action memo, Smart select, and Screen write, are largely similar from the Note 4. So is the ability to detect up to 2048 levels of pressure. You are also able to add in some apps as shortcuts in Air Command now. Screen write did get a nice upgrade which allows it to capture up to 22 pages (and stitches it up automatically, the more pages, the lower the resolution of each page) instead of the usual 1, which is a really nice upgrade, but the feature I am most interested in is actually the Screen-off Memo feature.

Basically, when the screen is off, you can pull out your S-Pen from the phone, and it will allow you to immediately do a quick memo. Once you’re done, just put your pen back in, and it turns off the screen again, and saves it automatically. With this, you get the same immediacy you get from using a traditional pen and paper. No need to launch an app, or tap on the screen, you just pull it out of your pocket and write.

In some ways, this is actually more powerful than pen and paper. Combined with Action Memo features, it becomes exceedingly useful. For example, you meet an old friend that you lost touch with for years, and you want to exchange contact information. You just need to pull out your Note 5, pull out the S-Pen, write it down, and put it back into your pocket. Later when you’re free, open the Action memo, and save it as a contact. Done.

Also, as part of Galaxy Gifts, you are able to download Autodesk's SketchBook for Galaxy apps which offers pro features for free. This is great for people who likes to doodle to pass time instead of playing games. In the left picture above, I could use layers to trace a photo I took, and then colour it quickly. On the right, I actually drew that on the Note 4 slightly earlier using the just S Note app.

On the back of the device, you'll find a familiar camera setup as the Galaxy S6. 16MP rear camera, with OIS, and an aperture of f/1.9. The camera bump is now smaller though compared to the S6. The camera UI is pretty much identical compared to the S6, which is a good thing in my opinion. It is simple, and easy to use. Double click home button to launch camera is here on the Note 5 too, and is just as quick.

A couple of "useful" features has found its way into the camera app as well. You get a new "Live Broadcast" mode which allows you to broadcast what you are shooting on your phone on Youtube straight away. Also, there is a new video collage feature which allows you to easily create a unique video for sharing on social media. Frankly, those are not something that I really find that useful though. What I care about, is whether the Note 5 has inherited the S6's camera prowess.

In terms of the image quality, I am happy to report that it is still pretty fantastic, but don't pop the champagne just yet. The camera has a weird quirk that slightly over-exposes images when you use "tap to focus" on the viewfinder (on full auto it works just fine). I am seeing the phone use HDR mode more often that it did on the S6, and I am guessing it's because of this. On the bright side (pun intended), there is a slider to quickly tone down the exposure value down a notch or too, and Samsung's HDR mode is actually pretty natural looking. Still a little annoying nonetheless.

The Note 5 is able to take some pretty good looking macro shots.

In low light or night settings, the Note 5 has the tendency to go for a higher than necessary exposure value in auto mode too, much like the S6.

One of my gripes about the Pro mode previously was how it was lacking more manual controls. With the Note 5, you are now able to output RAW files, and you now have more manual controls such as shutter speed (as slow as 10s).

Much like on the S6, the Note 5 seems to have a bit of trouble finding the focus in much dimmer conditions for macro shots. It took a bit of adjustment of the position to finally get it to focus on the toys.

Overall this is probably one of the best camera on a smartphone still, which shouldn't be surprising since the camera seems identical on paper. It improved in a couple of areas like more options in Pro Mode, while maintaining the same excellent quality, and capture speeds. Sadly in some areas, it took a step backwards. The tendency to slightly over expose shots when tapping to focus is something I did not see on the S6.

On the S6, I described the camera as "effortlessly great", and it still holds true for the Note 5. I could double click the home button, quickly fire off a shot, and most of the time the shot is going to look good. But, because of the weird quirk that favours a higher exposure when tapping to focus, I actually prefer the camera on the S6 over the Note 5. While Live Broadcast, Video Collage, and additional Pro Mode features are nice to have, I would rather have a more consistent Auto Mode.

Full resolution images for comparison here: Note 5, Note 4, S6, G4

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This year, the Note series got one of its biggest changes yet, the exclusion of removable battery, and expandable storage. A change that incurred outcry from avid Note series users who live and die by those features. As a big screen device with precision pen input, it's hard not to view the Note as a heavy productivity device or a multimedia device. Both of which require large amount of storage and battery life.

As mentioned above,  I don't really mind not having either of those as I think the faster storage/performance is worth it, and the faster charging does help to alleviate the smaller, non-removable battery. The more diminutive size of the phone makes it easier to use one-handed too. My only concern is that I wished Samsung would offer a program to quickly change the battery at the service centre at a reasonable fixed price. That would remove my remaining concern about the difficulty in replacing the internal battery after it has been worn out.

As a smartphone, there is little to complain about on the Note 5. This is an impressively good device, packed with useful S-Pen features. For anyone who loves using the S-Pen, this is the best Note ever, and the improvements in S-Pen features alone is worth the upgrade. Personally I am not a fan of large screen devices. I prefer devices that are easier to handle one-handed. But the Note 5 stands out from the pack as an exception. Due in part to its sleeker profile, and mainly due to how useful S-Pen features are.

For the launch in Singapore, Samsung is only offering the black sapphire, and gold platinum. Missing are the white pearl, and the new silver titanium colour (which looks stunning in videos I have seen). Why didn't those options make it to Singapore? I have no idea. Also this time round it only comes with 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, and lacking the 128GB version for some reason. It seems almost like Samsung is trying to minimise their risks by only bringing in the more popular colours and storage option only, which is a little disappointing if you ask me.

The Note 5 despite the few minor quirks I mentioned above, is probably one of the most impressive device I have used this year. Top-notch hardware, with great software to boot. That, plus S-Pen features makes it the only phablet I would be willing to carry around on a day to day basis. Hopefully, Samsung will push out updates quickly to iron out the creases in the software.