SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 4

If you want an amazing phone, and are leaning large this time around, the Galaxy Note 4 is one of your two best options. It’s never had strong competition before, but this year you can choose between it and a brand new iPhone 6 Plus. The Note kicked off the phablet trend a couple years ago, but can it hold on to the crown? 

Comfort four times refined 

Apple may be new to the phablet game, but this is Samsung’s fourth time around the supersize block, and the result is a very comfortable phone, despite its bulk.had the usual discomfort when I tried to stretch my fingers to various corners of the screen with one hand, but that comes with any of these big designs. You will get used to the size after a week, and some of you will love it. It would be nice if Samsung included a Reachability feature like the iPhone 6 Plus has, which pulls the screen halfway down so you can easily reach all corners. There are some hidden settings to resize the screen and adjust the position of the keyboard, but none of them work as well as Apple’s elegant solution. Samsung’s 5.7-inch screen matches the outgoing Note 3, and slightly edges out Apple’s smaller 5.5 inches, but they’re all pretty close. Though its phones are usually all plastic, Samsung has added an aluminum bumper around the edges with a nice shiny edge to it, like an iPhone 5. That’s not a slight, either. This is the best-looking Galaxy Note yet, and the faux-leather back has much better grip to it than any iPhone. The Note 4 feels and looks like a premium piece of tech, which isn’t always the case with Samsung phones. We’re very impressed by the new look, though it does come at a cost. Yet again, there is no water resistance in the Note 4. That’s sad. Those hoping for a waterproof design should look at the Galaxy S5. 

Phablet features 

The Note 3 was a confusing mess of features, but Samsung reigned itself in with the Note 4, focusing mostly on enhancing how you use the S Pen stylus and multitask with apps. 

S Pen: If you like styli or have any desire to digitally write or draw on a regular basis, the Note 4 is the only phone for you. When you pop out the S Pen, the Air Command radial menu opens right up, easily letting you select some different ways to highlight text and take screenshots. The Note 4 also feels a little more accurate and faster at writing than the Note 3. Action Memo is the best app, and lets you scribble notes or doodles with fine accuracy. 

The S Pen makes it easier to select text when you’re typing, and will quickly, accurately convert handwriting to text. Multitasking: If you enable multitasking in settings, you can run apps either windowed on the homescreen, or in split-screen mode, with one app on the top of the screen and another on the bottom. When you tap the Recent Apps button on the lower left of the phone, it brings up a cascade of apps you’ve recently used. If you touch and hold on the top of any of these apps, it will run windowed on your home screen, where you can drag it around or minimize it into a floating icon. Some apps, mostly from Samsung and Google, have a split-screen icon that will move them to the top of the screen and let you choose which app you want to run in the bottom. Both features work very well. 

A similar interface 

The Note 4’s Android skin looks and feels very similar to its Samsung brothers. It runs on Google’s Android operating system (version 4.4) and has access to the Google Play Store for apps. Sixty five bloatware apps pile up to 7GB, but sadly that’s no worse than most Android phones these days, and you can disable the ones you don’t want to use. Built-in Flipboard support means you can swipe left on the home screen to access Flipboard. It’s a nice touch, but if you don’t like Flipboard, you’re out of luck. 

 A quality camera 

The Galaxy Note 4 has a fantastic 16-megapixel camera. Like the GS5, it’s a big step forward from older Samsung phones, and the Galaxy Note 4 has the best Android camera out there. The image quality we got on most shots was good, but, as usual for a smartphone camera, it couldn’t match the iPhone 6. It can produce pics with more pixels, but they aren’t as beautiful. In most low-light shots, the iPhone 6 produced more accurate, more vivid photos.