The first note I won't buy? (all discussion about lack of microSD and removable battery must go here)

[dcstuntman]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

Devil's advocate question for all:
If Incipio makes a case for the Note5 with battery and micro SD card slot that supports 128GB would you come back?
The S6 edge version is $90

Here's the link:
Samsung Galaxy S6 Battery Case | Galaxy S6 Cases | Incipio

No, still not interested.

The USB-OTG solution is what I thought Samsung should have done internally if the normal SD support really wasn't there as they claimed due to the file system. (Not needing storage for apps - just data/files/media.

The extra battery adds bulk and weight to the phone, and doesn't give the same benefits that a spare does (easily replaceable when worn out, instant 100% power.) Or simply the fact that the removable back allowed innovative front covers that were attached to a new back-plate... meaning to add a wallet case or s-view cover only added thickness to the front of the device.

 

[21stNow]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

Devil's advocate question for all:
If Incipio makes a case for the Note5 with battery and micro SD card slot that supports 128GB would you come back?
The S6 edge version is $90

Here's the link:
Samsung Galaxy S6 Battery Case | Galaxy S6 Cases | Incipio

I like that another company made this option available for customers. However, it doesn't entice me to buy a $700 phone and feel that I need to add ~$100 accessory in order for it to have the things that I "want", especially when these things used to be included in the device. I did something similar once over 10 years ago (at lower prices) and really don't want to do it again.

 

[wvtarheel]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

I've also heard the sd card reader on those incipio cases is very finicky. Amazon reviews back that up.

 

[monsieurms]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

Here's a nice summary. The headlines:
--Great screen
--Better Camera
--Still great stylus
--Wrongheaded approach that is unnecessary in removing features that belong in a phablet, particularly SD card
--Not enough changesto make Note 4 users excited
-- "But you also get an S Pen with the great-looking Note 4, which is now less expensive and does most of the same things."

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Preview | PCMag.com

 

[syspry]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

Here's a nice summary. The headlines:
--Great screen
--Better Camera
--Still great stylus
--Wrongheaded approach that is unnecessary in removing features that belong in a phablet, particularly SD card
--Not enough changesto make Note 4 users excited
-- "But you also get an S Pen with the great-looking Note 4, which is now less expensive and does most of the same things."

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Preview | PCMag.com

If you're not part of the SD camp, that means your two main improvements will be the camera and display. But that only applies if you're a Note 4 owner. Aside from the users who feel they must have an SD card I'd argue this is the best Android ever made now. There's not a single box other than the SD/remov. battery debate I can think of that this phone hasn't ticked. There's also one thing PC mag neglected to mention in their Note4-5 comparison and that's support: The 5 will go EOL later than the 4.

 

[monsieurms]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

If you're not part of the SD camp, that means your two main improvements will be the camera and display. But that only applies if you're a Note 4 owner. Aside from the users who feel they must have an SD card I'd argue this is the best Android ever made now. .

Well, I think many of us in this thread are in fact "4" users. The "5" may well be a better display and camera, but the analogy I made in an earlier post (and a hyperlinked article on "good enough" phones) holds true: my Note 4 display is already rather awesome. And I love my camera. Is there something better? I guess so. (Everyone says so.) But what I have is more than good enough--and that's probably true even if the supposed upgrade didn't take away two of my 3 biggest feature demands. SO, on the whole, I think Note 4 users can shrug for the moment and not worry about it. And if I were a "3" user who needed SD cards, the "4" would be a pretty good upgrade path now, and a cheaper one.

 

[rushmore]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

If you're not part of the SD camp, that means your two main improvements will be the camera and display. But that only applies if you're a Note 4 owner. Aside from the users who feel they must have an SD card I'd argue this is the best Android ever made now. There's not a single box other than the SD/remov. battery debate I can think of that this phone hasn't ticked. There's also one thing PC mag neglected to mention in their Note4-5 comparison and that's support: The 5 will go EOL later than the 4.

I could not really tell a difference with the Note 4 and Note 5 display, but 100% trust Anandtech and Display Mate with their reviews. The Note 4 display looks super-amazing, so I guess I can not tell the difference with super-duper-amazing. The Note 5 itself looks very nice, but very slippery. A case would seem a default requirement- negating the very nice look.

 

[rushmore]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

I've also heard the sd card reader on those incipio cases is very finicky. Amazon reviews back that up.

It is not really the case, since secures solidly to the S6 usb connection that is connected to the micro usb. The problem is OTG itself is not treated the same in Android as far as resources for directory integration for media or app data like sd. Polling from apps to the chipset and ram addresses is the issue. OTG is fine for movie watching or continuous data transfer, but apps do not treat it like sd storage. Media database management uses sd0 (internal) and sd1 (external) as defaults. Some apps can be set to look at OTG, but "forgets" the relationship as soon as undocked (sd does not).

Part of the reason for this is the connectivity. SD is designed to mainly remain docked and OTG is not (and shared for charging), so the adoption of app integration for Android and apps is not there. Apparently it is no better with Android M that apparently does adopt sd more into the framework. I say "apparently", since like Lollipop, beta releases had card right permissions that went away with the public release.

 

[rushmore]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

If you're not part of the SD camp, that means your two main improvements will be the camera and display. But that only applies if you're a Note 4 owner. Aside from the users who feel they must have an SD card I'd argue this is the best Android ever made now. There's not a single box other than the SD/remov. battery debate I can think of that this phone hasn't ticked. There's also one thing PC mag neglected to mention in their Note4-5 comparison and that's support: The 5 will go EOL later than the 4.

Only because Samsung might want it to for Note 5 sales help Not seeing how a device with more practical features will go EOL sooner from a consumer standpoint. Heck, I will keep mine for years as a fancy central remote control device My guess is the changes to the Note 5 will result in a sales spike for the Note 4 that will make it run out of new devices sooner than normal.

 

[tadpoles]

I think it's a very very very very eentsy bintsy tiny minority of people that are hung up on the battery and SD card thing. Right now, I'm part of that miniscule minority. Fortunately, I have a Note 4 so I have more than enough time to either get on board with what Sammy has offered or find finda another solution. For me, it'll likely be the former. All this really does, when I think about it, is give me more of an excuse to upgrade devices sooner.

How much truth is there in that the Note 5's battery is LiPo and will take many times more charge cycles before degradation than the Note 4's LiIon?

from my old nexus 5

 

[PinkLipstick]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

I just purchased my Note 5 today, so far so good. I was a little skeptical about getting it due to the lack of expandable storage until I came across shopmeenova.appspot.com. They have expandable Micro SD readers. I think it supports up to 128gb (I think). Not a bad buy for $12.00. Only thing is, it may take a while before you receive it. I plan on making a purchase tonight. Problem solved! There is also a YouTube video that shows how it works. Search for: expandable (removable) storage on the Samsung Galaxy S6.

As far as the battery goes, I will just keep using the portable battery charger that I used for my S5.

 

[L_E_O]

The card business is far too huge and correlates directly with the growth of Android devices to be just .01 of a percent. The card business would be stagnant and there would not be hundreds of millions in investments with fitting more storage in micro sd and faster sd releasing early next year.

The mix is at least 15% to fit the marginal growth of micro sd storage. The Note 5 will be a good litmus for this estimate. I think people that want the storage will move on and Samsung's changes are not going to lure hardly any iPhone users- that is unless they can still use all their apps media and iTunes. Most Apple users actually like iTunes and only Android ex-patriots tout the freedom of drag and drop.

Notice please I do not speak in absolutes or impose my standard on others, not unlike some folks posting here in the name of the Incredulity Police

I'm jumping in late here and missed about the middle 10 pages, and I think you're mostly right, but this particular topic can't directly be correlated to the growth of Android. Said growth is mostly attributed to the variety of inexpensive, budget phones. Said phones in previous years tended to come in low storage (8 & 16 GB) models, and an micro SD card option was a relatively inexpensive way to increase that storage. There's your SD card growth. Sure... Galaxy S and Note users also bought them, but I'd agree that percentage is relatively small in the grand scheme of micro SD card usage.

I think they'll sell more Note 5s than Note 4s or Note 3s, but that won't be enough to sway folks away from thinking it's because of the removal of these 2-3 features. . The majority of Note users simply wanted a big-screen phone, and it was the only game in town. Now there are similarly spec'd, jumbo screen alternatives at half the price. That's what will cause the sales figures to be unimpressive... not the one percenters moving on over this stuff.

P.S. Love the last line, and I'm really not trying to do that. I just really don't get the outrage. Perhaps that does make me an honorary Incredulity Deputy after all

 

[Kelly Kearns]

For the 4 user, the spen upgrade is also a good thing.

 

[Kelly Kearns]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

I could not really tell a difference with the Note 4 and Note 5 display, but 100% trust Anandtech and Display Mate with their reviews. The Note 4 display looks super-amazing, so I guess I can not tell the difference with super-duper-amazing. The Note 5 itself looks very nice, but very slippery. A case would seem a default requirement- negating the very nice look.

I had the 4 and 5 next to each other a bit ago, thr 5 looked much better.

 

[L_E_O]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

If you're not part of the SD camp, that means your two main improvements will be the camera and display. But that only applies if you're a Note 4 owner. Aside from the users who feel they must have an SD card I'd argue this is the best Android ever made now. There's not a single box other than the SD/remov. battery debate I can think of that this phone hasn't ticked. There's also one thing PC mag neglected to mention in their Note4-5 comparison and that's support: The 5 will go EOL later than the 4.

Mostly agreed. After using it since around 9 AM, I'd even have to begrudgingly concede the vaunted Touchwiz improvements. There are these types of subtle things that just won't ever show up in a review. Those 2-3 mm in width? For me at least, it just so happens to be the difference needed for one-handed usage. The finger print reader? Sure... the Note 4 has it, and it's 'OK'. The one on the 5? It's straight money. It has literally worked every time I've tried it today, not to mention it's faster and easier to use. There are other little usability tweaks that I just stumble across through using the phone.

The point is that it's not just the list of features that the 5 has that the 4 didn't. It's also the totality of all the features they both have that the Note 5 just seems to do better and get right. To me, even minus the 2-3 they removed, the rest adds up to "upgrade please".

P.S. Not trolling here, but the Note series has almost always been a "meh... faster, stronger, slightly better xyz" upgrade year-to-year, right?

 

[mavrrick]

Actually I would say the difference between the note 1 and note 2 was huge in a few ways. Between 2 and 3 was pretty decent to, but not as dramatic. 3-4 is mostly about curved display and minor improvements and improved materials (metal frame). 4-5 is about 64 bit platform, what samsung thinks is improved materials and slight improvements across the board.

I would say each generation has been less of a improvement.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[dcstuntman]

Re: The first note I won't buy?

Only because Samsung might want it to for Note 5 sales help Not seeing how a device with more practical features will go EOL sooner from a consumer standpoint. Heck, I will keep mine for years as a fancy central remote control device My guess is the changes to the Note 5 will result in a sales spike for the Note 4 that will make it run out of new devices sooner than normal.

I'm one who typically re-purposes older devices if I can. Until recently I was still using my Motorola Droid X in a dock in the kitchen using it as a wifi home phone (using Google Voice and another app.) Regularly took it on vacation as well, using it to control the Roku we bring with us.

My son just got his first phone, LG G2 and I was surprised to see it had an IR blaster (and surprised it had Lollipop.) He's already found a use for it in controlling the basement TV which we lost the remote to some time back (and the cheap universal remote can't be programmed to do much more than turn it on and off... we use a Harmony remote for the living room.) I plan to keep my Note3 around as well if my next phone lacks IR... probably in my camera bag... nice using it to remote fire my dSLR when needed along with the many other times I've found use for it. And with the pen could always be used as digital notepad/sketchbook. But quite honestly, it still is quite capable and not feeling very long in the tooth.

I'm thinking more and more that Samsung saved me some $$$ this time around. Whereas I had already planned to buy the the 5 six months ago... the reduced feature set made me look long and hard at what I have (Note3) and determine if I really NEED to upgrade it. Right now, the answer is no.

(Seriously, if the Note5 had been exactly the same as the 4 and only change was slight upgrades to camera and processor, I would have bought it.)

 

[dcstuntman]

Actually I would say the difference between the note 1 and note 2 was huge in a few ways. Between 2 and 3 was pretty decent to, but not as dramatic. 3-4 is mostly about curved display and minor improvements and improved materials (metal frame). 4-5 is about 64 bit platform, what samsung thinks is improved materials and slight improvements across the board.

I would say each generation has been less of a improvement.

Posted via the Android Central App

I got into the note line on the 3... I always wanted the pen. What finally got me to do it is that with the 3... they added the ability for the pen to work on the haptic buttons.... seems like a small touch... but for pen users, that was a significant improvement I thought.

 

[monsieurms]

I think it's a very very very very eentsy bintsy tiny minority of people that are hung up on the battery and SD card thing.

The poll on AC yesterday had 8% of respondents saying removable batteries were their single most important feature; and 11% saying SD cards. You could only vote for one, so I presume that's separate groups of unique users. That latter category (SD) garnered 676 votes at that time. (I forget what the battery was). That says nearly 1 in 5 has as their most important feature something Sammy just ditched. Those are minorities--but combined or individually they are hardly insignificant or unnoticeable in a crowded marketplace.

 

[L_E_O]

The poll on AC yesterday had 8% of respondents saying removable batteries were their single most important feature; and 11% saying SD cards. You could only vote for one, so I presume that's separate groups of unique users. That latter category (SD) garnered 676 votes at that time. (I forget what the battery was). That says nearly 1 in 5 has as their most important feature something Sammy just ditched. Those are minorities--but combined or individually they are hardly insignificant or unnoticeable in a crowded marketplace.

And what percentage of overall Samsung Galaxy users voted are reflected by Android Central regulars who vote in polls? If you're reading this, you're already a percentage of a percentage. Even more so if you're actually posting. So yeah... vocal minority for sure. Maybe not unnoticeable because it's vocal group, but nowhere near loud enough to alter design plans that will probably contribute more to the bottom line.