Note 4, the good and the bad, my thoughts so far

[LegalAmerican]

So YOU love the S Pen, and for YOU it is the killer feature. That does not mean someone who doesn't care about it should ignore the Note.

I don't hate the S Pen, nor do I hate Samsung for including it. I hate that people come into threads like this and start shooting someone down for not liking or caring about the S Pen and then telling them they should have never gotten the Note because the S Pen is the entire reason to get the Note when that isn't remotely true.

Even without the S Pen you have:

Top of the line specs
Huge screen
All day and then some battery
Multi window
Great resolution
The rest of the S features if you care about that
A good camera

The LG Flex and the Galaxy Mega can't hold a candle to the specs and finish of the Note 4, the LG G3 has a terrible screen by comparison and lesser specs, the iPhone 6 Plus is an Apple device and not everyone wants Apple nor do they want a phone BIGGER than the Note 4 with a smaller screen, the Nexus 6 was announced 4 days AFTER the primary Note 4 launch and a month after Note 4 preorders started and it doesn't even have a concrete release date yet.

I don't hate Samsung and I don't hate the S Pen. I hate people passing their opinion as fact like you did and then saying people that don't like or care about the S Pen shouldn't even get the Note and their criticisms hold no weight because of it. YOU love the S Pen and it is THE reason to own a Note for YOU, but you are NOT everyone and you don't speak for everyone.

Posted via the Android Central App

Heaven forbid I have an opinion. I don't expect you to feel the same way. I personally feel like any review of the Note that ends with "I didn't test out it's marquee feature" instantly pales in credibility to a review that utilizes the S pen to see what it adds to the experience. I love the S pen, yes. Do I use it every day? No! If I didn't care about the S pen, would I personally buy the Note? Freak no! There's other devices out there that had the research and development put into other aspects as opposed to some feature i'd never use.

I understand it's a niche deal, I understand you don't care for the pen. That's fine. I will still sleep fine tonight because people see things differently. I'm not interested in continuing to debate with you about some offense that you took because I understand that Samsung focuses on the S pen for their note line. I know the phone is great in other ways, all the other features you mentioned that it has aside from the pen are also in the Galaxy S5 (huge screen is relative- ask older iphone users) except all of the time of development for the Galaxy S5 focused on what you listed. If i'm buying a device and I know I don't want a tablet, i'm not going to buy a Nexus 7,9,10 or Tab 10.1 or anything else. If I know I would never use the S pen but I want the other features, i'd get the Galaxy S5 which is the same device but without the feature I don't like. It's fine with me if you do it differently.

 

[LegalAmerican]

Only 10 percent of note users frequently use their s - pen according to a survey. I don't use mine. I bought my Note primarily because it had all the features of the S5 and more. The more I particularly wanted was the bigger screen.

Posted via Android Central App

Correct me if i'm wrong because I certainly could be mistaken, but doesn't the Note only have a larger screen and the s pen that the Galaxy S5 is lacking? What other features would draw someone to the note? I guess maybe battery life.

And i'm not saying 100% of users use their s pen every second. I'm saying that a reviewer who reviews the Note but never thinks of the S pen is doing themselves, their review (credibility) and their readers a huge disservice.

 

[IrishFXDB]

Correct me if i'm wrong because I certainly could be mistaken, but doesn't the Note only have a larger screen and the s pen that the Galaxy S5 is lacking? What other features would draw someone to the note? I guess maybe battery life.

And i'm not saying 100% of users use their s pen every second. I'm saying that a reviewer who reviews the Note but never thinks of the S pen is doing themselves, their review (credibility) and their readers a huge disservice.

You're still missing the point. You can review the Note just fine without using the pen because it is only a part of the package, and for the majority of users it is a small part.

You said it yourself, it has all the features of the S5 and more, so if you want a bigger screen and couldn't care less about the pen, why is the Note 4 not worth getting? Why is a review of the phone less credible because they didn't use the pen? What if they wanted all the features of the S5 in a bigger screen and based on that they found it lacking? Does their review still lose credibility?

And to answer your question directly about what features draw someone to the Note... SCREEN SIZE. Why is that just not getting through to you? It is an S5 in a better built body, with better specs and a better screen, and it is bigger, plus it has the pen for the small subset of people that care about that.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Alexander Burnside]

Coming from a digital artist - although the s-pen is a major perk of the phone, it wasn't the biggest factor in my purchase.

I chose the Note4 over the s5, after having the s3 and s4 because of the bigger screen, bigger battery and mobile cpu. I actually didn't think I'd like using the s-pen(I'm quite accustomed to my Wacom tablet). It wasn't until I actually used it with a pressure sensitivity enabled drawing app that I realized how great it would be for me.

Call me devils advocate, but the fact is I'd have been happy with the phone without the s-pen, but I'm glad I'm not without it.

 

[LegalAmerican]

You're still missing the point. You can review the Note just fine without using the pen because it is only a part of the package, and for the majority of users it is a small part.

You said it yourself, it has all the features of the S5 and more, so if you want a bigger screen and couldn't care less about the pen, why is the Note 4 not worth getting? Why is a review of the phone less credible because they didn't use the pen? What if they wanted all the features of the S5 in a bigger screen and based on that they found it lacking? Does their review still lose credibility?

And to answer your question directly about what features draw someone to the Note... SCREEN SIZE. Why is that just not getting through to you? It is an S5 in a better built body, with better specs and a better screen, and it is bigger, plus it has the pen for the small subset of people that care about that.

Posted via the Android Central App

Okay let me start from scratch here.......

This particular review was good as far as what was mentioned about other phones, but the only things mentioned about the Note was when it was compared to another device that FOCUSES on something that is not a central feature on the Note. So when comparing the speakers, obviously it will seem sub par compared to a device with optimized, front facing stereo speakers. Then you compare the camera to an iPhone,. when Apple has ALWAYS spent a ton of their time optimizing their cameras' software. So obviously a Samsung product will seem subpar when the camera is the comparison. Samsung puts great cameras in their phone, don't get me wrong. But they don't optimize their software worth a dang.

Screen size again? We've already covered that so I wont touch on that anymore.

My original point was (again, since you keep forgetting) was that if you are going to base your review off comparing every other device's strongest point based on what the manufacturer focused on, then it's only fair to do the same for the Note and compare the S pen to any stylus functionality on other devices (they don't have any, so they will obviously seem subpar in comparison).

Since i've seen so many people use car analogies, I will try one here to drive home my point. You've got a review comparing a Mustang, a Camaro, and a Ram 2500 pickup. You spend the whole review saying how the Ram wasn't as fast as the other two, it didn't fit into parking spaces as well, and it was worse on gas. And then at the end, you say: "I didn't need to tow anything though, so I didn't test the Ram's towing capabilities). Now of course towing isn't the only reason to buy a truck, but it's a pretty huge focus of the manufacturer so it's therefore an incomplete review and is designed to be unfair to the truck. That's how I saw this particular review of these phones.

 

[GalaxyOnyxWitch]

Different strokes for different folks, but as long as there is no mechanical defects or any reason that I have to get this phone repaired etc then I am very happy and excited about it. More than I thought I would be.

I read a lot about quotes of "more polished" and "smoother" etc but I have to say I have no frikkin idea what people are talking about! If it's scrolling etc I know android and ios manages how they handle data processing during the scrolling part etc, but I have used an iphone 4 for 2 years before jumping on the android bandwagon and other than a bit of stuttering when loading pages while trying to scroll I have not encountered any huge difference in apps between the devices.

I think there may have been one app that wasn't optimized or something and it looked less detailed than it should but when you have an OS that caters to as many makes, models and screen sizes as android does, I think they do quite well.

I guess I just aint as danged sofisteekated as some folks to purceve th' difference!!

polished my patootie.

 

[MDMcAtee]

Nice thoughts on the Note 4....

It's a shame that they don't do something about the lousy speakers on them. With the Note 2 I had since day 1 with it, they had the best DACS for it, but fell flat on the speakers. Yes I am a audiophile and have invested $$$$$$ in both my home theaters and my 2 channel systems and can say that the Notes are lousy. Now my M8 is significantly better but even it is lacking in real world quality as compared to what I have in my home.... but it is the best as compared to anything else available.

The spen is a great feature of the phone and many use it but most don't. I didn't buy my note for it itself but as a package as most people do.

The screen is the best I have seen on them and certainly will be why most buy one. Call quality issues is because Samsung has always been behind on getting the best radios in them. Every note series has been this way.

For me if they upgrade the speakers and the radio in it it will be one of the absolute best..

 

[tech_fan]

First post, but interested in hearing thoughts from others. I got my Note 4 a few days ago and then bought a 2014 Moto X the next day because the sound quality on calls was pretty bad coming from AT&T and an iphone 5s. Here's something I tried to post elsewhere:

First, I'm on Verizon in the San Francisco area. I'm coming from AT&T and an iPhone 5s. So far, the voice quality on calls is worse for sure. Overall the phone offers a ton of features, but many things don't feel very polished. Today I bought a 2014 Moto X to compare and I'll keep one of them (thanks Best Buy!).

- External speaker on the Note 4 is poor. Tinny and distorted compared to the iphone 5s and especially to the Moto X which has a GREAT sounding speaker

- Sluggish. It's not terrible, it's actually good in terms of responsiveness but if compared to using the iphone 5s, the Moto X or my Nexus 7 tablet it is slower.

- Terrible noise reduction, smearing and over sharpening on pictures. This is fairly typical for camera phones however. I guess my expectations are too high in this area. The iPhone 5s that I had actually took very good photos though. The color quality on the Note 4 is very good, the stabilization does actually work well. The problem is when you look at any picture at 100% view (either on the phone or on a computer) you can see terrible blurring of details and smearing, and then sharpening artifacts. I might be able to excuse this in poor light but this happens in good lighting situations as well. Anyway, decent for a phone, but the iPhone 5s photos were better. The 2014 Moto X if you're interested is much worse (terrible in low light and no stabilization, I need to do some tests with it mounted to a tripod). So, the camera is somewhat of a disappointment. UPDATE: did outdoor daylight shots with both cameras Note 4 photos a little better but the surprise was that in good light the Moto X camera was almost as good and i didn't notice the smearing/sharpening issues as much as on the Note 4.

- Music. At first listen, the Samsung sound alive software does a very nice job of adding digital eq and other effects (tube amp, echos etc) and music thru headphones sounds very very good. This has been the big surprise on the phone..the sound thru headphones impressed me (at first, read on). It does not have enough power to drive a lot of headphones though. So -1 for the weak amp. I tested it with my Sennheiser Amperiors, Sennheiser HD650's, Hifiman HE-400's and Sony MDR-MA900's. No surprise that on the efficient headphones (amperiors and MA900's) it sounded the best. Oddly I took the line out into a dedicated headphone amp (Schitt Asgard 2) and it sounded terrible. Not sure what is going on here. Suffice to say when hooking headphones directly to the Note 4 I think you will be impressed. Having said that, the same headphones on the Moto X sound BETTER. The Moto X has a bit cleaner sound and a bit more power to drive the headphones.

UPDATE: Another day of listening and the sound of the Note 4 is really starting to bother me. It has a lot more distortion at 75% volume than the Moto X does. Reminds me of ipods that no matter what volume you are at, as soon as you use any eq you get noticeable distortion. It also rolls offf bth high and low frequencies sooner than that Moto X. Another day on the Moto X and the sound is really really good. The Note 4 external speaker is crappy and combined with a distorted signal from the phone itself it's just not that great. The Moto X has a very good speaker and minimal distortion coming from the electronics to make a big improvement.

- I have not played with the sPen much so won't comment on that.
- The Verizon model of the Note 4 uses a DIFFERENT size hole for the mic so many Note 4 cases will not work properly.
- Some of the navigation when using the Samsung apps just doesn't make sense when laid on top of regular Android. They need to work on their apps more.

The overall experience with the phone feels nowhere as polished as an iphone or the moto x. Having said that it does offer some really important features that those two don't - SD card memory expansion, removable battery. I'm not sure which phone I'll keep. The Note 4 just has so many bells and whistles it's very easy to get enticed by them, but the overall quality of the hardware and software just don't feel as well done as the Moto X or iphone.

My BIGGEST ISSUE is voice quality as a phone. It's just not that great so far. If the Moto X beats it here I may end up with that.

UPDATE: Well day two and no surprise the Moto X is the best sounding cell phone I've ever used. I would say the radio in it is no better than the Note, but the audio circuitry and software is much better. Having said ALL of that, I still may keep the note instead, for the following reasons -

- Expandable memory
- battery life
- sHealth of all things. I'm kind of thinking I might get some use out of it.

One other note...in bright sunlight the Moto X screen was better. I was not expecting that. All of the above are just my opinions of course.

UPDATE: forgot to mention, the delay in clicking the screen to take a pic and the pic being taken is over a second maybe even two. This is very sluggish. I made sure all other apps were closed to try to speed this up but it didn't work. The Moto X is a lot faster FWIW.

Interesting analysis.. For me, I had the Note 3 and was bugged by TW. The Note 4 had just came out and I wanted to shop more before I decided to get another Samsung. I ordered the Moto X recently and tried that out. Yes the speakers on the Moto X are cool. The UI was very basic which was a turn off so, I installed the Nova Launcher on the Moto X. You might want to try the Nova Launcher on the Note 4 to see if you like that. You can get the Nova Launcher to do a lot of things like gestures and organizing the device better. The customizations are endless.

I returned the Moto X because of the battery life and the need to tinker with the device more than the Note 3. I wound up reactivating my Note 3 and returning the Moto X. I also did not care for the non-removable battery and lack of SD card availability. You do know, that the Nexus 6 will be coming soon and that might have some options over the Moto X.

I also have heard about camera complaints on the Note 4. Some have downloaded the Google camera app and say that it has improved greatly. I also know that the Moto X camera has flaws in certain situations as well. Not sure that any one phone camera is going to be stellar.

 

[tech_fan]

Btw, another irritating thing with Samsung is that they tend to be all over the place instead of focusing on one thing and doing it right. They also tend to do things just to experiment like the useless feature of Smart Scroll or Smart stay that was removed in the Note 4.

I also would not keep a device for SHealth. It looks cool but once you peel back the onion, you will see that its very limiting and works with the highly inaccurate pedometer. I use a Fitbit and my Fitness Pal that works 10 times better hands down.

 

[Alexander Burnside]

Btw, another irritating thing with Samsung is that they tend to be all over the place instead of focusing on one thing and doing it right. They also tend to do things just to experiment like the useless feature of Smart Scroll or Smart stay that was removed in the Note 4.

I also would not keep a device for SHealth. It looks cool but once you peel back the onion, you will see that its very limiting and works with the highly inaccurate pedometer. I use a Fitbit and my Fitness Pal that works 10 times better hands down.

I can't comment on how accurate the pedometer is, but I like it - In that case, that's not pointless tech because most phones already have accelerometers and they are very useful for tracking the phone's movements. The finger scanner on the back that reads blood oxygen and pulse, however, is beyond pointless.

SHealth doesn't even use them for anything (practical). I guess that it's cool that the phone can do that, but I'd rather that feature be gone and the phone cost a little less.

 

[nugj]

One of the earlier posters commented about using the N4 for its Mobile CPU capabilities. I thought that was a terrific comment. In fact, to me the S pen is not a stand alone feature but is tied into the N4's Mobile CPU capabilities. Without the S pen you would be saddled with the same functional characteristics of any smartphone...do what you can when you can with the keyboard. I guess the point I am trying to make is that for me anyway I think the N4 will be the first "mobile device" I will own that is small enough to be pocket-able that can be a phone with real Mobile CPU capabilities. The lack of the S pen at least to me drives everything else, even the devices that are trying to be phablets right back to just being oversize smartphones.

I am willing to take a hit on music and video audio quality because to me you are just kidding yourself if you think any of these devices rise to the level of "good" in that regard with the speakers being the least consequential item. The only thing worse than listening to audio through these things using headphones or ear-buds is listening to audio through their speakers. Phone audio quality for me more than anything else is an issue of volume not necessarily quality. As long as my ears are not bleeding I am fine with it.

 

[HothTron]

If your buying the Note series and not bothering with the S-Pen, your just wasting your money on the wrong phone honestly.

 

[HothTron]

Interesting analysis.. For me, I had the Note 3 and was bugged by TW. The Note 4 had just came out and I wanted to shop more before I decided to get another Samsung. I ordered the Moto X recently and tried that out. Yes the speakers on the Moto X are cool. The UI was very basic which was a turn off so, I installed the Nova Launcher on the Moto X. You might want to try the Nova Launcher on the Note 4 to see if you like that. You can get the Nova Launcher to do a lot of things like gestures and organizing the device better. The customizations are endless.

I returned the Moto X because of the battery life and the need to tinker with the device more than the Note 3. I wound up reactivating my Note 3 and returning the Moto X. I also did not care for the non-removable battery and lack of SD card availability. You do know, that the Nexus 6 will be coming soon and that might have some options over the Moto X.

I also have heard about camera complaints on the Note 4. Some have downloaded the Google camera app and say that it has improved greatly. I also know that the Moto X camera has flaws in certain situations as well. Not sure that any one phone camera is going to be stellar.

I have NOT been happy with my NOte 3 with T-mobile at all. 3 Replacements later and I STILL have horrendous Wifi drops from all wireless networks, crud SD reading speeds, [language] poor photo quality and shoddy indoor reception

 

[HothTron]

It's a shame that they don't do something about the lousy speakers on them. With the Note 2 I had since day 1 with it, they had the best DACS for it, but fell flat on the speakers. Yes I am a audiophile and have invested $$$$$$ in both my home theaters and my 2 channel systems and can say that the Notes are lousy. Now my M8 is significantly better but even it is lacking in real world quality as compared to what I have in my home.... but it is the best as compared to anything else available.

I honestly don't know why people, especially audiophiles think buying a all in one "smartphone" and then get pissy and moany that the audio quality "sucks" Well farking duh people! Thats like asking a Honda to perform like a [language] Ferrari, it just isnt' gonna happen.

 

[nugj]

All of the designers who care what people think about the audio performance of their devices can't wait for the day when nobody has ever even heard of something called a "record" never mind having actually heard a true audiophile system built around a turntable. To get even close to that in digital media, start with a dedicated audio dac at about $20k and then a disc transport for another $15-$20K. Have not even talked about the speakers yet.

Once Vinyl totally disappears, then what qualifies as "good" will automatically take two steps down the ladder at least and at that point the depths to which you can fall will not be as great.

 

[Almeuit]

I have NOT been happy with my NOte 3 with T-mobile at all. 3 Replacements later and I STILL have horrendous Wifi drops from all wireless networks, crud SD reading speeds, [language]
poor photo quality and shoddy indoor reception

Man .. that sucks you have that many issues. I don't use an SD card so not sure on that but my T-Mobile Note 3 held wifi without a hiccup. Indoor reception wasn't even that bad. Note 4 is better but the Note 3 was still fine and I held LTE in many places.

 

[MDMcAtee]

I honestly don't know why people, especially audiophiles think buying a all in one "smartphone" and then get pissy and moany that the audio quality "sucks" Well farking duh people! Thats like asking a Honda to perform like a damn Ferrari, it just isnt' gonna happen.

Well because it wouldn't take a great deal to make them better than what is on most of them. My M8 is pretty darn good compared to everything is on the market so I'm not pissy or moany about this if you are referring to me... Lol The speakers are A reason I have mine BTW. I only hope that they do even better on the next model next spring

 

[HothTron]

All of the designers who care what people think about the audio performance of their devices can't wait for the day when nobody has ever even heard of something called a "record" never mind having actually heard a true audiophile system built around a turntable. To get even close to that in digital media, start with a dedicated audio dac at about $20k and then a disc transport for another $15-$20K. Have not even talked about the speakers yet.

Once Vinyl totally disappears, then what qualifies as "good" will automatically take two steps down the ladder at least and at that point the depths to which you can fall will not be as great.

 

[MDMcAtee]

All of the designers who care what people think about the audio performance of their devices can't wait for the day when nobody has ever even heard of something called a "record" never mind having actually heard a true audiophile system built around a turntable. To get even close to that in digital media, start with a dedicated audio dac at about $20k and then a disc transport for another $15-$20K. Have not even talked about the speakers yet.

Once Vinyl totally disappears, then what qualifies as "good" will automatically take two steps down the ladder at least and at that point the depths to which you can fall will not be as great.

Well I agree with you on this, but the Note II did have Wolfson DACS in it, so I fault Samsung for not following through with it.

BTW... I enjoy listening to my modest vinyl collection on my Music Hall mmf-7.1 through my Jolida JD9

 

[dj2big]

I'm coming from an iPhone 5S and yes IOS is much more smoother than android with touchwiz but compared to Android OS it goes toe to toe if not better IMO for that experience you have to get a Nexus