Speaking of Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is talking about a product line that has become an emblem, so the responsibility to analyze it is high. Here we go.
Note were bolder range of Samsung products, were mocked by their large size and have now set the standard for all large companies when the size is concerned. However, the extra that gives the stylus is the key factor totally different compared to your competition.
Reached the point where size is not a key factor, the Note trot software adapted, the Stylus and technical characteristics put it at the highest possible range within smartphones. We are facing a flagship product, with a level of rigor and accountability for brand beyond doubt. is the spearhead of innovation in technology consumer , and that is something to consider in your purchase, especially because its price-to-market is 749 €. Much, however, we know the price decrease month to month Samsung products, innovation is paid and is measured in weeks.
Our test has lasted an week, the minimum time that we needed for a full review , despite a month of use, even conclusions are drawn.
This analysis does not attempt to discern whether it is a good idea to buy a Note 4 if you already had 3 actually is not about selling the product, but to analyze their behavior on a day and if compared to other smartphones in its class , price and hardware, is a good, bad or indifferent final product (with shades, of course).
said in the preface, hardware Note 4 is today’s most powerful smartphone , and if our purchase was leading us in the spec sheet, it would be the Note 4 our choice, but now, as we should all know that this is not everything, but it is certainly a determining factor, eye, for better or worse.
Technical Note 4 Features
- Display Quad HD SuperAMOLED 1440 x 2560 pixels 5.7 inches Gorilla Glass 3 / Pixel Density: 551
- Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 (SM-N910S ) Quadcore 2.7 Ghz (28nm HPM)
- Graphics Processor GPU Adreno 420-600 MHz
- Memory 3 GB RAM and internal memory 32 GB expandable through Micro SD slot up to 128 GB extra
- House 16 megapixel (Sony IMX240 Sensor) with Autofocus, LED flash and image stabilization OIS / 31mm and f2, 27
- 3.7 Megapixel front camera f1,9 (Sensor Samsung)
- Video recording up to 3860 × 2160 at 30 fps and full HD at 60fps
- Removable 3220 mAh battery
- S-Pen Sytylus / Fingerprint sensor / Wireless LTE / Wifi 802.11 ac (2.4 and 5 GHz) Dual-band MIMO
- Bluetooth LE 4.1 / Accelerometer, Gyroscope, barometer, Heart rate sensor , brightness, proximity and UV
- Support ANT + / A- Glonass GPS / MicroUSB 2.0 / Infrared / MHL / NFC and MicroSim
- Version Android 4.4.4 with Touchwiz interface (Upgradable to Android 5.0 Lollipop)
- Available in White, Black, Bronze and Rose
- Dimensions: 153.5 x 78.6 x 8.5 mm and 176 grams
In short, this is what it comes equipped one Note 4, which is no small
finishes, construction and sensations
The assembly and Note 4 finishes are extraordinary. Never before had shown Samsung terminal as well as the non-metallic materials used throughout the building, might work better than these.
The back cover is plastic, but with a faux leather finish. A livianÃsima removable lid fits perfectly and leaves poke the protruding camera lens and the LED flash and the heart rate sensor. Also in the back are the speaker , who was not the best place to put it, to take the lid a little relief in that area, prevents the cover and therefore can flow sound below .
The edges of the terminal are beveled metal, into which a piece of polycarbonate matte that embodies all the edge, where they hosted the perfectly shaped buttons with staying a level of just and exceptional detail.
On the front is the elongated Home button and distinctiveness of the mark, and integrated in it, the fingerprint scanner . On both sides of this, capacitive multitasking Backlit buttons (left, ie, in contrast to Android Puro) and go back (right). At the top, the speaker, on the logo of Samsung and on the right side, the front camera and light sensors. All this part not occupied by the screen has a light, striped chic motif for decoration.
The screen itself has a lightweight beveled rounded edges that is hidden at the end of the side frames, and any such above, but being slightly higher metal, leaving a touch at the edges, instead of being the soft edging, slightly harsh metal by cutting. By default search millimeter as good finishes
At the bottom edge stays in the center, the MicroUSB connector (Model 2.0, that is, leaving aside that ugly experiment 3.0 connector) and two microphones (for noise cancellation). There is also the Stylus integrated into the body of the phone on the far right. At the top, on the edge is in 3.5mm minijack connector, one microphone and infrared sensor. On the left edge volume buttons integrated into a single button with differentiated profile and on the right side, a little taller than average height, the button on and off.
I do not want to miss the opportunity to highlight the great work of integrating a Samsung 5.7 “screen on a terminal that is smaller than ones with the same overall dimensions . Do not forget, that having action buttons off the screen, that extra space is gained. That is, we have all our 5.7 inches without the Android on-screen buttons we “steal” that space. The work by reducing the frames makes entire terminal looks and feels like an ideal piece to see, touch and work.
Being a big terminal, the brain tends to think his weight will be greater, and it helps that weighs 176 grams, and look better with less, but still 176 grams, a very good weight, again when compared to the competition. Your use hand is awkward but not impossible, however two-handed use is definitely perfect.
One of the things I do not like in terms of design, is that in the lowest part of the terminal, the frames are so minimal that the touch buttons are back multitasking and absolutely glued to the bottom edge, so that accidental touching is common. As a large moving your grip is not easy and everyone will grab his style too depending on the situation or what is to be engaged, so the possible combinations and thus inadvertently touching the area, multiply. If the Samsung logo was not on top would leave more space for those buttons were higher, thus preventing accidental touches.
Access to the MicroSD is free, and only able to remove the cover to remove the card without removing the battery, if anything happens to the MicroSIM.
nice, very nice, and smart mobile, and polycarbonate premium, combined with the metal areas, give the rightful adjective be constructed with premium materials.
The display prodigious
All the technology, attractive and form factor as a tool rests and pivots on the , which can not be described but as prodigious. Not because of its resolution 1440 x 250 pixels, and its large, 5.7 “if the sum of all of them and that the increase in quality of AMOLED in terms of their likelihood to reproduce color and contrast makes all fears or dislikes that might have the excessive saturation in other generations are cleared or at least blurring almost completely.
The level of detail is exquisite, brightness and color in each corner of the panel is true and correct, visibility in bright light is very good, even in the worst conditions Samsung uses a trick and automatically increases the contrast and brightness overdone, offering a quality and therefore unreal ” bad “but achieving your goal in this critical situation, which is in screen but still see the sun for us squarely and perpendicular to the screen. Also the viewing angles are excellent. On the negative side, but has no direct link with the screen is that if we set to 0 the automatic brightness, Samsung usually provides far less serious than correct brightness when there is little light, nothing that can not be solved by uploading it, but it bothers a little.
The note in this section would be 10 out of 10 . Not disappoint, love, and makes sense that a terminal can have 551 ppi density. And although purists jump alluding to the human eye does not perceive that clearly. Try and see. In a few years no one will dispute this. It is a superb display
Photography. Enough but improvement
Paragraph photography on smartphones is tricky, because increasingly, the care put manufacturers is higher, in fact, for most of us have replaced any compact camera . However, many people still obviously preferring always the best, it conforms to the camera to accomplish its mission, clearly, quality and performance in a variety of settings, whether in low light, motion, backlit, foregrounds, etc.
With the Galaxy Note 4 Samsung opted again for SONY sensor instead of Isocell you used for the Galaxy S5. The reason for retreat and reuse a component of a third party having used and sold his with the S5 is strange. It may be a simple matter of logistics and lack of sufficient production, or it may be because the result did not convince them. The issue is that the sensor using Note 4 has OIS image stabilization, something that would give us an advantage priori in low light conditions , however, the result in this type conditions is simply insufficient to what is expected of a smartphone as well. In this gallery you can see pictures in full light, with little or no light, macro, etc.
A photo gallery with full size images you can find it here.
For those who want a summary and does not know clearly shows the shortcomings of the camera (eye, always speak in comparative parameter with respect to other models on the market, iPhone 6, Xperia Z3, G3, Moto X 2014, etc …) The Galaxy Note 4 in good light conditions responds with a very good color reproduction, a high level of detail, even at the edges of the lens. As the amount of light that shoot decreases, the noise level gets too photo , even to take pictures ugly if we have low light.
The worst part is that not calibrated either the shutter or ISO as under medium light, any moving object appears trepidado or moved, making it impossible, for example, take a photo of my daughter , however still it is without out blurry some element.
The speed and accuracy of the approach are not his forte, although it operates correctly, it is something that should work more if they want to achieve technologies like Focus Pixels. speed access to the camera is bad, has lag, for the uninitiated, that opens rather slowly. The preview image on screen is a problem , because as is normal in this type of digital cameras with digital display, is not at full resolution, but then, in a display of 1440 x 250 pixels and 5.7 inches makes it appear that any picture that we do go wrong and low resolution, which does not happen when we already see the photo in the gallery, but it gives a bad image and makes taking the picture is somewhat “blind”.
I will not dwell on the amount of picture modes and menus that brings the Note 4 and in general the Galaxy, because it would for its own article However I want to express my sorrow to see menus and much of the settings have changed little, being cumbersome, confusing, and of course, house brand, excessive. For instance, There are 4 different ways just to be selfies . Apart from these, there are many more, including the option to download new photo mode. Of course, we can use the volume keys to shoot the photo and open the camera from the shortcut on the unlock screen.
On the video, remember that can record 4K , ie 3840 x 2160 pixels at 30 fps. We also have ways to slow motion recording at 60 and 120 fps (without slowing down).
I leave a sample video recorded at 4K under medium light and also abusing zoom.
Overall, the camera may be the weakest point of the Note 4 with Touchwiz, which will be discussed later, but develops amply with environment lighting and if our demand for the photograph is not decisive in purchasing. The overall score would be 8 out of 10.
Touchwiz, the great but the Galaxy Note 4
Touchwiz is not ugly anymore. There was a time where he hung the San Benito, and rightly so, but slowly it has been refined to be aesthetically pleasing and well made, except for some errors that remain, and thousands of details any perfectionist design could see, but overall, it has passed this step, and beauty and just left to the judgment of individual taste. It is also true that one of the major problems that even you see is that letters and icon sizes are unusually large , you could almost say they are for people with some form of visual impairment. It having many thousands of configurations Touchwiz, I’m surprised no one that can change this, because it refers to the font size system just modifies some sizes.
As in the case of photography, not I will list the disproportionate number of functions that includes Touchwiz, the exorbitant amount of settings, modes and configurations, which is standard and which are number one cause of performance Note 4 it looks markedly diminished for the load to drag.
+ Touchwiz Android comes loaded with approximately 320 applications a true excess (do not be alarmed, many of these apps are invisible user services but they are there). Between that and my cocktail functions, all applications are already preinstalled Facebook: Instagram. Facebook, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, including administrator pages. Evernote is also a special version of Flipboard that can be accessed on the left page on the desktop, just like HTC Sense, the Samsung app store, which in turn invites you to download another app store called S- Club, which will be discussed later, and also a handful of proprietary Google applications, which almost certainly requires you to add back the terrible result of having multiple apps or services with overlapping functions: Two browsers, two apps mail …
Galaxy Note 4 comes with 32GB of which more than 7 occupy these preinstallations (not counting those that could add the shift operator) for the user being less than 25 GB.
To make a small comparison, the Android settings menu has a total of 19 sections: 4 Networking, Device 6, 5 and 4 Personnel System. Touchwiz has 8 menus connections, device 7, 8 staff, 9 and 3 of my system for a total of 39, ie, almost twice that Android, not counting submenus within each section. There are many functions that I tried on and not directly as work, or get lost in them, and I’m not exactly a dunce when it comes to technology and UI is concerned. In short, is a hassle for the user and I think it’s not worth the sacrifice of performance so very and understanding the interface as to compensate for the added value of these functions, of which perhaps, someone place in the world, you can take advantage of some.
But I want to highlight a few that I liked: A menu where you can select the settings that you like and put them available. Of course MultiWindow mode , where you can have different windows with different apps and scale them at will. The ability to customize the settings bar in the notification bar, direct access to a menu where you set the default applications or as the default for that action, the S-Health app and of course and it seems to me the jewel in the crown, inherited from the S5, the energy saving modes, and emergency ultrahorro to surely make a special item and separately.
All this adds up to lag delays and slowness in some specific moments, revealing the best hardware on the market. This slowness is found in : To unlock the terminal (just half a second, but noticeable compared to a Nexus for example) When accessing the camera, both from the lock screen or from the icon itself application. The exaggerated and almost frustratingly slow to open the photo gallery, as well as direct access to the camera right from your own icon and to top that role should help us most of all, it’s the multitasking button , it becomes an expectation that the best is one second, again, being in other terminals, almost instantaneous.
It is not logical that a terminal with 3GB of RAM continue putting perfectly accessible ( with multitasking) a system function to kill apps and free up RAM, frankly, is absurd.
These microlapsos time (Lag) you end up getting used because they are punctual and that the overall performance of the phone is very good, but are undesirable and are something that Samsung can not afford today, with much more powerful processors my computer table not so long ago.
Note that I give Touchwiz software and therefore the Galaxy Note is a 6.5. is definitely the weak point of the terminal . But that will not intimidate the 6.5, which is set in relation to their competition, not as an absolute value of the entire market. The phone is very fast, that’s for sure, and data benchmarks and numbers to real and everyday there’s a stride. Well, approves, but should improve a lot.
There is a close and often cross-connection between the concept Software and terminal performance . In the case of this review is especially difficult to divide, because on one hand we have an important innovation in software, full of choices, some great, but they are excessive and indivisible how they work in actual use and make the terminal performance would be undermined, so … bad note, which is required, Note 4 to the software or its overall performance? We believe that the Software, as the performance is showing the terminal eg testing graphical requirements (which complies with notes) or simply as computing power, ie, if the Note 4 does instalásemos an Android version pure performance would likely be among the top 3 Android market, so that instead of dividing the fault Touchwiz lag between them and give poor ratings to Software and terminal performance a 9 out of 10.
The battery, the S-Pen and extras
The battery. Perfectly fulfills a hard day
Speaking of battery or absolute autonomy is distort and mislead the user , however accurate they are testing, not all terminals have the same consumption turned it off screen or with a certain brightness or otherwise, or in short, any protocol that is used to measure the expenditure between different terminals. Besides the main component, which is the user, not by the way of using the terminal, but by where you live, I use 2G, 3G, LTE and WiFi ago that my use, it has its coverage area Dodge, that operator, etc. etc. So the best way to give a result that can guide you is offer my experience with this and other terminals that use or have used.
With moderate use you can get perfectly two days of battery, with heavy use, have and will complete a hard day with 16-18 hours. Typically, it lasts you half day. By compare you with the terminals currently in use, obviously has much better range than a Nexus 5, but worse than LG G2 or iPhone 6, if you serve as a benchmark. It is a good battery , especially since as a direct example of similarity, the G3, which is rather scarce. Here Samsung despite using a screen resolution of tantÃsima manages much better battery consumption. But another highlight is the extra-fast charging (Eye only works with the charger supplied by the Note 4 and do not know why because it is not anything special: 5.0 V 2.0 A)
That gets load of 0-50% in just 30 minutes and a full charge in half an hour, maybe more. This point makes and function without being the best battery on the market, can be compared.
My note 8.5 for autonomy.
The S-Pen
While many will I “selling, or buying, not” by taking a Touchwiz 6.5, and by extension the software phone, I want to point out that as regards the S-Pen or Stylus and features offered and how they are integrated into the system, are excellent. Clarified that point, I want to declare my public love S-pen , and the pleasure of writing or writing things by hand so easily, accurately and fit, is a delight, but it requires some adaptation I know use it and give it a use. With each passing day, my workflow and relationship to the terminal will integrate this function
We are so used to interacting with The smartphone is touch, which retrain to expand use reconciling the tactile-digital with analog , is a long process and that more can be most effective. I enjoy writing and drawing much scoring and accuracy of the 2048 pressure levels between the pointer and the display make it an excellent experience. And the Note would not be the great terminal that is without the stylus, showing that there is room for such a component. The app that accompanies it, is also a very good job of product, not to mention those that are available in your store, specifically created for the Note. A great work of development momentum for third-party apps that makes all the sense in the world.
Swimming
In the extras I want to add something behind and is S.club ., an extra app that serves complimentary shuttle services to unburden Samsung offers to purchase the Note 4 and they call Samsung Gifts I will not list them all, but the most detacados are: Account Pocket and Deezer Premium for 6 months Orbyt, WSJ, etc etc. In some of them you need to give your payment information, since the first months are free, but then you’ll have to disable it or you will not be charged. One more point value, which is not how far worth it.
S-Health, and the namesake of the recent Google iHealth Fit. A control app and monitoring our health and exercise. Very well executed, beautiful and complete, when added to heart rate sensor, UV rays and measuring blood oxygen incorporating Note 4 definitely make a tool that make you want to use and that is really useful, whether you’re an athlete or not. It has a lot of metrics and it depends on each one, that control is comprehensive or single basic
The application of Smart Remote, TV remote control through the infrared port is very useful and works perfectly, little more can you ask such a function, it just works smoothly.
Fingerprint sensor: It sounds cool, but does not work well. The uses and possibilities that opens a fingerprint sensor on our phone, which is our mobile personal computer, turn door access to all our information and intangibles (also the money is) is to be taken into account. The summary is clear, is a good idea, but Samsung does not know to run . First, because the swipe to unlock the terminal requires that the finger passes through the Home button upright, something that rarely occurs naturally, forcing us to make the gesture and becoming something annoying that even so, succeeds to always unlock the first time. Samsung, keep working on it, but repensadlo well.
Conclusion and review
Know you that despite being an analysis that target is assumed, and although I have put all my efforts into be so, it is still A staff review product and therefore debatable, and who otherwise try to sell you, you doubt, for it is very professional. So I want to end my personal opinion on it, trying to annex part of what the review itself.
It is absurd to qualify phablet Note 4, in fact the first time all text use the word, because the concept of large smartphone, and it makes no sense in the current market scenario. If you have a large screen, but the jump to a tablet, is not measured in inches, but in the type of use made of. For nothing is too big, is easy and pleasant to get used to its size and return for example in my case the Nexus 5, which is already a “big” phone it seems that this toy.
