First impressions: Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Edge

BERLIN: Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is finally official, and we had some to play with it at the launch event. Here’s what we think about the South Korean company’s new phablet:
The new Galaxy Note 4 looks a lot like its predecessor, but a closer look at the phablet shows it is smaller, lighter and better designed. Despite keeping the same screen size as Galaxy Note 3, Samsung has been able to shave off a few millimetres from the body while making Note 4.Users would finally be able to hold it in one hand without the risk of dropping it, which is a welcome change.
The metal on the frame that surrounding on the side looks good; the phablet has a nice matte texture on the rim, which hides the fact this is metal but still makes the device look premium. The faux leather back panel has been retained, but the material feels a little less plasticky this time around; the stitching is gone this time.
The position of the camera and LED flash is pretty much the same as that of Note 3, with the addition of a heart rate sensor that is located below the camera. Same goes for the stylus holder, which is located at the bottom right edge.

The most striking feature of Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is the display panel. You get a screen that is slightly raised in a curvature and has a glossy look to it. The display seems to be tougher than what other smartphones in the market have, and looks like a valuable addition to the model. It is easily the most visibly distinctive difference between Note 4 and its predecessor.
There is not much difference in the display quality of Note 4 and Note 3. Though the resolution has gone up, the clarity pretty much remains the same. Other QHD display smartphones in the market (LG G3, Oppo Find 7) struggle with the same problem – it’s hard for the screen to differentiate itself from a Full HD panel. Despite this, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 delivers an excellent viewing experience and offers great colour contrast and viewing angles.
Under the hood is the 2.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor with 3GB RAM, which makes for a pretty powerful device. But this is only for the international market. 3G-dominated markets like India will get the octa-core Exynos processor model, which has a four high-power cores running at 1.9GHz and four low-power cores running at 1.3GHz.
The octa-core Exynos model wasn’t available at the event, so we had to make do with the Snapdragon 805 one. There were no preloaded apps that could put the phablet through its paces, so we will have to wait to see how it performs in various conditions. But opening and closing apps, switching between them etc was a breeze.
The camera gets bumped up to 16MP in Note 4, from Note 3’s 13MP. You also get optical image stabilization this time, so shots you take don’t appear blurry. The level of detailing is pretty nice, but we could see a little noise in dark areas in indoor conditions, so we expect little to no noise in daylight.
Selfie lovers get a 3.7MP front camera (a little smaller compared to the 5MP front cameras of HTC One M8 and Sony Xperia C3), which is pretty good for taking self portraits. The images we took were not too grainy and captured sufficient details for a front camera due to its f1.9 aperture. You get a wide-angle selfie capturing mode, which lets you take panoramic selfies when you move the phablet from left to right.

On the software side, you get much of what you saw in Galaxy S5, but S Pen gets a little more useful as you can now switch between apps faster and keep several active windows as floating widgets. We have seen this floating widgets feature in the past, but here it becomes even more useful as you can open a couple of apps at a time. Samsung Galaxy Note 4’s stylus also lets you select portions of a web page and save them for later use; you can refer to them or email them to a friend.
Like a mouse, S Pen can be used to select any portion of the screen, so text selection on the display becomes easier. Snap Mode can identify parts of an image that contain text and then make the text an S Note, which is editable to a large extent.

Samsung has roped in Swarovski to create a range of diamond encrusted back covers for Galaxy Note 4. Mont Blanc is releasing a range of digital pens (that work as styluses) and flip covers for the phablet. The Mont Blanc flip covers are made of rich leather and feel very nice to the touch.
However, all is not perfect with Galaxy Note 4. The heart rate monitor of the phablet was unable to fixed reading when we tried it at the venue. Similarly, the rear camera selfie mode did not give great results. Apart from these two glitches, we did not encounter any problems with Galaxy Note 4.
Of course, there are some features that Samsung has purposely missed out on: namely microUSB 3.0 and a water-resistant body. And Samsung representatives said that Galaxy Note 4’s fast-charging feature will work only with a special charger (which comes in the box), so your old phone’s charger won’t be much use.
Is Galaxy Note 4 worth an upgrade? If you are still using a Note 2 or S3, then you should probably go for the Note 4, but Note 3 users should probably stick with their current phablet. That’s not to say major upgrades haven’t been made, but the price will likely be sky high, and spending Rs 50,000 doesn’t make much sense to it after shelling out a similar amount less than a year ago.
However, if you do want to upgrade, then Samsung Galaxy Note Edge is probably a device you should consider. It has a unique design, as the right edge of the phablet is curved and can work as an independent display panel; this curved screen has been made using Samsung's Youm display technology, which has been seen in last Galaxy Round smartphone as well.

So, what does this curved screen do? Is it just a gimmick or are the features actually useful?
At present, the functionality of the curved display is pretty limited. This Super AMOLED display panel can show time and date, notifications, news updates, stock tickr, etc. You can select a photo to use as the wallpaper. It can also be used to play games (the game preloaded on the device is pretty rudimentary, but with more apps coming in, we see some potential). At night, it can show the time even when the primary display is turned off.
On the hardware and software side, it is pretty much the same as Galaxy Note 4, down to the S Pen stylus. It, however, comes with only the Snapdragon 805 processor option, not the Exynos variant. This casts a shadow whether or not Samsung will release Galaxy Note Edge in a market like India.
However, if it does make its way to India, we expect buyers to go for this model instead of Galaxy Note 4 due to a new and distinctive design in a package very similar to that of the flagship phablet.
(The correspondent travelled to Berlin, Germany at the invitation of Samsung)