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The new Samsung Galaxy Note is here and with it comes a whole new set of upgrades as compared to the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. The phablet is the latest in the series of larger phones coming from the unstoppable Samsung.
We’re going to give you the low down on what’s what with Samsung’s latest offering, what you’ll like about the phone and which areas it really excels in.
Looks
The Note has graduated in looks from the plastic styling of the Note 4. It’s got a smooth Gorilla Glass 4 screen as well as backing and now features a metal aluminium alloy as the border. The rear of the phone is curved, to make it easier to fit in your hand, and it is slimmer. The Note 5 comes in either a gold platinum or black sapphire version. Overall it looks and feels like a far more premium phone than the old Note.
Screen
As always, the Galaxy Note’s screen is what draws people to the phone. The latest upgrade is no exception. It’s a large 5.7 inches with a 2560×1440 Quad HD Super AMOLED display with 518ppi. If you do lots of work, surfing or reading on your phone you’ll be delighted with these specs.
S Pen
The phone keeps its defining stylus pen and gives it some great upgrades. The pen is now fully spring loaded and popping it out launches a note taking app – even when your phone’s still locked. This feature is great for any quick notes you want to take. Jotting down ideas during breakfast or a dream journal perhaps?
The pen also has a number of neat tricks allowing you to get much more out of your phone experience. The ability to easily screenshot a scrolling webpage ensures you can read pages as easily offline as you do online.
Camera
The phone has a 16MP camera with f1.9 aperture, with beefed up autofocus, optical stabilization, contrast and exposure. The ability to go from pocket to snapping away in just 2 seconds also means you’re never again miss that opportunistic on the go shot – a feature that the Galaxy S6 implemented first.
Also onboard is the option to take 4K video and a 3.7 megapixel front facing camera with some Samsung proprietary Selfie software onboard for retouching your pics.
Charging
A useful phone is one that charges quickly and holds its charge longer. The Note 5 has both traditional and wireless charging available (via a charging pad) and plugging in takes just 90 minutes for a full charge, and with the pad 120 minutes. The battery is a 3000mAh non-removable charge with up to 20 hours of talk time.
Under the hood
Inside, the phone specs are what you’d expect from a premium phone, starting with the superfast CPU. The Exynos octa-core CPU features a 2.1GHz quad main CPU cluster and a 1.5GHz quad. As for the memory, the phone features 4GB of RAM and can be purchased with 32GB or 64GB of memory that’s not expandable. The phone comes standard with 100GB of free storage on Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage solution which should help with the missing expansion slot.
Price
You can purchase the Galaxy Note 5 with the 32GB memory option outright for $1099 directly from Samsung. If you’re going through one of the service providers, Optus have plans starting from $65 per month (on the $40 My Plan Plus with a $25 handset cost) up to $100 per month (on the $100 My Plan Plus with $0 handset cost) and Telstra have plans starting from $83 per month (on their S plan) up to $145 per month (on their XL plan). Plans are current as of 24/08/2015.
Galaxy S6 Edge+
Samsung have also released the Galaxy S6 Edge+. The name is a little confusing as it refers to the latest version of the Note Edge, and not the standard Galaxy S6 Edge. If you’re after all the capabilities of the Edge design, then this is the one to pick up instead. The general specs of the phone are the same but the extra capabilities of the Edge design means it comes with a slightly higher price tag.
