For what it's worth, my wife was about to buy the Note 5 (currently on Note 3) until we found out they removed the sd card support, removable battery, and IR blaster. Those three things were pretty high on her list of wants. I compared the specs to the Note 4, which still has all of those, and the specs/performance don't seem much different. If any of those features are important to you, may be worth looking into that one too.