Samsung Galaxy Note 5 : Unleash the Powerhouse.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 : Unleash the Powerhouse.

We are nearing  the end of 2016 and you're probably wondering why Note 5. Well ,in light of Samsung's latest Note 7 fiasco, the Note 7 line is now officially dead costing Samsung about $ 17 billion in refund suit soon to follow. That leaves us with Note 5 , still the latest and greatest note line from Samsung.About a year after its initial release ,how much does this device live up to in today's standards ? Well let's find out .

Design and form factors

The most important fact about the design is that it’s nothing over the moon. Everything seems to be a mix-up of what the note series and the flagship S series together has to offer. Perhaps the most significant move to the S series design is the front and back glass panels.Just like the S6, the front and back glass gets bounded by a metal frame which feels great in hand .And the subtle inclusion of translucent effect on the glass makes it shine and reflect, literally! .

                      

                                                                                                            source:www.droid-life.com
The usage of glass panels means the device is a fingerprint magnet .This is another big shout out to  S6 .but some subtle curves and chamfered edges boldly differentiates it from S6 and adds to easy handling of the device .

source:optus.com.au
Every other components of the design are exactly there where they should be .The home button ,volume rockers are exactly where they  were in the previous models .Perhaps a new addition is the fingerprint scanner which is now embedded into the tactile home button.this makes it a lot more user friendly compared to the swipe gesture that prevailed in its predecessor.At the bottom part ,we have microUSB port ,headphone jack (pretty useful) ,the speaker grill ,the S pen, all aligned .
The S pen looks much sleeker now and you can almost get a pencil like vibe from it . A fun new addition is that the top of the pen is now actually tactile, which many people might enjoy playing with .
A place of concern in an otherwise perfect design is the lack of removable back cover, which means no removable battery, and exclusion of external storage.  Absence of both this feature , considered as a holy grail by some, is a major let down for Android power users .

Display

                                                    source:androidauthority.com

Samsung is famous for its legendary Quad HD Super AMOLED display, which are undoubtedly the best display you can get . The note 5 boasts this AMOLED panel .Now the display may seem as same as the previous note , but and enhanced and incremented viewing angles adds to an already great display .Quad HD seems to be the solution for larger display as the note 5 packs an excellent pixel density of 518 ppi .

source: androidauthority.com

The thin bezels really helps the display to bloom in all its glory .Games and movies in this phone,which is primarily designed for texting and writing , is an absolute joy .

Hardware

There isn't any new inclusions that we haven't already seen in previous notes and phones .The device packs standard suite of connectivity .NFC is there which is intended to be used for Samsung pay . The placement of the single grilled audio port benefits this time around. Sounds are sharp  and loud ,as usual as you'd expect from a Samsung

source:androidcentral.com

The addition of the fingerprint sensor was a step into the future back when the note 5 first launched. Though it's initial usage was limited only to unlock the device ,it has now become a major component of an ever growing Samsung Pay ecosystem.
Storage options in note 5 is limited to 32 GB or 64 GB version. Without any possibility of an expandable storage ,power users are forced to go for the 64 GB variant which comes with added premiums . The storage in galaxy note 5 is UFS 2.0 . Samsung claims that this standard can rival the SSD and it helps to maximize the speed. This ensures a smooth performance of the device owing to the highly optimized internals

Software

It can now be safely said that after ages, Samsung has finally listened to its users, the bogged down Samsung's OS is now gone ,leaving a much more streamlined os that's on par with stock Android ,all the while keeping its useful features .Plenty of features es can now be found with a little bit of digging ,like triggering the one handed feature by hitting the home button three times or easy access to multi window from recent apps screen . The amount of tutorials that follows this skin is far less ,that's probably the most significant thing about this version of touch wiz.
Options like Smart Select ,Screen write, and memo creation has been created to nicely complement the S pen . In addition to these features ,the S pen now can be used like a mouse, whose best use can be seen while scrolling through text .

An interesting new feature is the off screen memo taker . Now removing the S pen no longer wakes up the device ,but rather opens up offscreen memo interface ,which means you can take a memo without waking up your device ,for anyone in need to quickly jot down infos . Seems like a pretty neat idea ! source : engadget.com
Taking the S-Pen out in any other situation, or pressing the button on it, opens up the refreshed Air Command menu, which now also includes a few shortcuts to user-defined applications, though it does feel weird to put anything

on this list that doesn’t ultimately take advantage of the stylus. The Action Memo is still able to read handwriting and insert it into a number of different applications, though the feature mainly remains a way of quickly adding to S-Note. In S-Note, every note can be easily pinned to the homescreen, as well as turned into a reminder; both of these features are practical and make the Screen-Off Memo that much more appealing to use regularly.
Smart Select is also back with all its glory ,making it easier as ever to cut a portion and sharing the screen . Screen Write is also another great option ,it lets you take a screenshot of the current work area and edit it to your liking .

source: techradar.com

The most appealing thing about the S pen now is probably that now it feels a bit more essential than before .and this was achieved by not over saturating it with buttons and tutorials . Sure the list of its usage are not long as it used to be ,but the existing ones are pretty solid .

Performance

Performance is a high point for the galaxy note 5 .the octa core Exynos 7420 processor clocked at 2.1 GHz backed up by 4 GB of RAM ensures the swiftest of performance in this toned down version of touch wiz .

source : wccftech.com
Antutu benchmark puts it at 66521 and geek bench score puts it at 4787 at multicore and 1467 at single core .note that higher is better .

source: anddoidpit.com
The Note 5 seems to do well ahead of recently released oneplus 2 and Nexus 6.
The galaxy note 5 succeeds where the note line has always excelled - being the fastest and best iteration of the galaxy experience in a given year .

Camera

Quite literally,the note 5 retains its camera quality from its predecessor.It houses a 16 MP rear shooter with a f/1.9 aperture and 4k video recording capabilities, along with a wide angled  5 mp lens in front .
All the usual modes are present ,from slow motion to a new video collage mode . Shooting in the stock camera app is nice and quick in most situations, though it can be a bummer sometimes ,u also get a slider for changing the exposure in bright and low light conditions.
Picture quality is trademark note like .Continuing to live upto the expectation from Samsung. Good saturation makes sure the picture never gets dull ,and a fine amount of details can be captured as well .f/1.9 aperture is a bliss for depth of field effect ,in addition ,it helps out a lot in low light conditions .Although in low light ,a noticeable amount of noise is present due to higher ISO compensation. Some samples taken in low and high exposure are included below

Battery

The galaxy note 5 packs a 3000mah unit ,this might seem pretty small ,but it tends to last a full days of usage due to its highly optimized internals .screen on time won't get you beyond 4.5 hrs, but the standby time on this device is great .if you minimally use it ,you can easily get a full day out of it .
The small battery size only reflects Samsung's ever increasing tendency to make their device thinner . But the positive thing is that ,they tried to backup this hard hit battery with fast charge option . It's nice that Samsung supports PMA and Qi fast charging standards out of the box . This goes a long way to say that samsung is committed to keep you powered up even in intense situation

source :wccftech.com
The fast charge capability will be useful for everyone,as it can get back a decent amount of battery life in about 10-15 minutes of charging ,an hour of charging will give you a full battery.Battery benchmark shows that it did significantly well compared to note 4 or galaxy s6 edge.

Final Thoughts

There you have it ,an in depth review of the galaxy note 5 . Note 5 boasts the best of yesterday, which still may be appealing for some .In addition to a great camera it boasts a stellar display from s6 and makes it even better on a 5.7 inch screen . It's hard to suggest this phones in lights of galaxy s7 or Google pixel .But even to this day, galaxy note 5 is a complete phablet package.

Posted in: Hands on Review