Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is an impressive device and it is clearly one of the greatest Android phablets ever released. It comes with a gorgeous camera, fast charging capability, powerful camera and other features. In fact, it could still be one of the best options in early 2016. Here are five wonderful things about Samsung’s latest phablet:
1. Beautiful display: The AMOLED display used in Note 5 has very dark blacks, impressive contrast, vivid colors, crisp text representation and others. It also comes with an insane Quad HD 2560 x 1440 resolution, which is four times sharper than 720p displays. No matter at what angle, the display looks really good to look at. It’s true that 1080p Full HD resolution is probably enough for many, but only for 5-inch display. For 5.5-inch display and higher, Quad HD resolution is more preferable. The display of Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has amazing color saturation, without weird color tint that may ruin the whole experience. It is simply gorgeous all around. The Note 5 also has smaller bezel and this makes holding the device easier and more enjoyable.
2. Samsung Pay: Some people may not easily be sold on Samsung’s version of wireless payment, especially with issues that affect Apple Pay and Google Wallet users. However, Samsung Pay is something different and it’s the best payment method all around. Unlike Google’s and Apple’s solutions, Samsung Pay is backward compatible with earlier swipe-based terminals. Meaning, Samsung Pay is potentially compatible with 95 percent merchants in the US. Instead of struggling to find a merchant with NFC payment terminal, we could go to many more stores. To do this, we could tap the fingerprint scanner and put the phone near the terminal. Even if the cashier tells us that, “it won’t work here”, he could be amazed when it does.
3. High quality photography solutions: Camera is already considered as the basic feature of any smartphone. By double tapping the Home button, we could take photos instantly, even if the phone is locked and the display is turned off. It means that we can take a stunning 16Mp photo or a crisp 4K video in a fraction of a second. The camera comes with built-in OIS, auto-HDR and autofocus features. In low-light situation, we won’t need to use flash that may ruin the color accuracy. The camera app has a pro mode that allows users to mess with shutter speed, color temperature, ISO and others. However, there’s a drawback of having the ability to capture high-resolution images and videos. The 32GB internal storage is barely enough to store these media files, especially because there’s no micro-SD card slot. The Android OS, TouchWiz UI and pre-installed take up a huge portion of the limited storage space. Fortunately, it is easy to sync with a PC and transfer our media files.
4. Improved charging features: Many smarpthone manufacturers would just add a standard microUSB port for data transfer and charging; and call it a day. However, Samsung adds the “adaptive fast charging” feature. It means that in less than 25 minutes, we could charge the battery from completely empty to 50 percent. 100 percent charge can be achieved in just 80 minutes. As comparison, standard smartphones may need more than two hours to fully charge the battery. Again, Samsung adds something more, because we also get a wireless charging feature. We could charge the phone without using any cable and the device could simply be dropped on the mat. The fast charging capability also extends to wireless charging and the time needed to fully charge the phone with this method is only slightly longer. Earlier wireless charging capability was slow, but it isn’t the case here.
5. Other extra features: Just like earlier Note models, the Note 5 also comes with the neat S-Pen, allowing us to write notes, even if the display is locked and turned off. It comes with improved sound output and the 8Mp front-facing camera has useful wide-angle capability for group selfies. Although the Galaxy Note 5 is loaded with some bloatware, some of the gimmicky apps have been removed. The TouchWiz is cleaner and simpler. Users are also able to choose themes to change the interface appearance. The Note 5 includes support for Samsung Gear 5 and there are many official cases to choose from.