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The last time we got a Galaxy Note device for review, I declared it to be

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too big for humans and handed it off like a pair of dirty gym socks to the

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nearest Linus Media Group employee. In this case, it ended up being Luke to do

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the video for me. And yet, here we are a

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mere 2 years later, and not only have I been using the Note 5 as my daily driver

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for a couple of weeks, I might have even

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enjoyed it.

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The Master Case 5 by Cooler Master gives you the freedom to truly make your

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midtower PC case your own with a variety of modular parts and accessories. Check

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out the link in the video description to learn more. So, let's start with a

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physical tour of the Galaxy Note 5. At the back is a camera, the flash, and a

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sexy leather finish vinyl skin, courtesy of Dbrand, who provided our phone. On

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the sides are the almost perfect lock button on the right and volume rockers

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on the left. They've got great tactile feedback and are easy to feel for when

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you're not looking, but I wish the lock button was just a touch lower so that I

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wouldn't accidentally mash the volume down while pressing it. On the bottom is

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the headphone jack, the hopefully not long for this world microb charging

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port, the retractable SPEN housing, and a speaker that makes up for its poor

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positioning by being surprisingly loud without distortion. A definite calling

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card of the Note series. And then finally at the front is the stunner of a

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5.7 inch 1440p AMOLED display with

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shockingly thin bezels, a 5 megapixel selfie camera, a satisfyingly

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tactile physical home button, and a

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couple of difficult to avoid in landscape capacitive buttons for back

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navigation and multitasking. something

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that I found myself wishing I could turn off in favor of onscreen buttons like

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with the OnePlus 2 during the frequent times that I was watching videos on this

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device thanks to how gorgeous the screen

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is. And yet the physical tour somehow

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doesn't tell the whole story of the Note

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5 somehow. And I don't know how they did it but I'm not the only one who noticed.

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The Note 5 is big, but it doesn't feel

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as ungainainely and difficult to hold as

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other Fab class devices that I've played with in the past, like the One Max,

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iPhone 6 Plus, and previous Notes. And

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there's more that's different about it as well. While Samsung used to use the

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bulky size of the Note series to cram every feature under the sun and their

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fastest hardware into what we argued at the time wasn't even really a phone

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anymore. They've backpedalled on that a fair bit this time. I mean, sure, almost

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everything the S6 can do, the Note 5 can do better. It lacks a 128 gig model, but

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it's got the same Exynos 7420 octaore

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CPU and GPU. a hefty bump up from 3 gigs

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to 4 gigs of low power DDR4 RAM surely

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to assist with those uh TouchWiz multi-wind and split screen features

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that only really make sense on a large screen device like this. The Corning

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Gorilla Glass 4 topped display, I know I already said this, but it merits another

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mention. Is absolutely fantastic with

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pitch blacks, vibrant whites, and thanks to its barely existent bezels, a kind of

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like window into another place look to

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it. And it's got all the usual tech specs. NFC looking at you OnePlus AC

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wireless quick charging both on a wire and wirelessly on the Note and a

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fingerprint sensor on the home button whose speed and accuracy I didn't

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properly appreciate until I spent a couple of weeks with the ZTE Axon along

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with of course an absolutely kick-ass 16

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megapixel still 4K video rear camera

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whose lightning fast launch times, great lowlight performance, and generally

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amazing usability have contributed to a lot of captured moments of my kids that

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wouldn't have happened before I upgraded my wife to the S6 Active, which features

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the same camera. But is that good

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enough? Well, I guess there's also the S Pen. You click it and it turtles out

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kind of like Luke's lightsaber in that scene on Jabba's sailbarge. Then you

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unchath it so you can unleash your ideas, goals, and dreams or some [ __ ]

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like that. Actually, it's nothing to do with Dreams. It's just a stylus. A

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pretty good and thankfully batteryfree passive stylus, but still just a stylus.

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It's low latency, but not latency free, it's not particularly ergonomic. While

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the palm rejection really is very excellent and the software does offer

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some handy features. Uh being able to press the button on the stylus to load

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up useful cloud syncing apps like OneNote or quickly scribble on a screen

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capture stood out to me. I just didn't find myself using it much to jot down

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quick notes about like eggs I need to buy or whatever. I mean, maybe if I

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didn't type as quickly as I do on a touchcreen, or if I needed to add little

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doodles in any of the seemingly infinite number of ink colors, thicknesses, and

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pen tips, each with their own distinctive simulated writing sound, it

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might make more sense for me. But personally, the benefit of quickly

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launching a note-taking app is quickly outweighed by the relative slowness of

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writing with a pen compared to typing. But if you're like me and you don't care

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about the stylus, never fear. Just put it into the phone backwards and you'll

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never be able to get it out again. Or you could just ignore it, whatever is

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better for you. Now, we're almost at the conclusion, but I do have a couple of

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more notes. Uh, TouchWiz adds a triple tap on the home button to get a smaller

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version that's easier to reach with one hand. That's a winner for me. The uh

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smart lock with trusted Bluetooth devices still sucks so much ass that

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it'll turn your teeth brown. I was using fingerprint authentication and when I'm

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in range of a trusted device sometimes and I can't quite find the pattern, I

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actually have to press unlock, slide the screen, and finally I still have to use

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my fingerprint to unlock the freaking thing. This is something that works just

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fine on other phones. There's more good

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news though. The battery life is surprisingly good considering the anemic

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3000 milliamp battery. And um yeah, I

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don't know. I I guess okay, we can get on with the conclusion. It's like it's

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kind of an S series but bigger and ever so slightly better with a pen. And maybe

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that's my issue here. Since when is the Note series supposed to be the S series

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with a couple of minute improvements and a bigger screen? In the past, it really

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had its own identity as a as a power user phone or a productivity phone. And

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while the stylus or S Pen remains, gone

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is the removable battery that allowed creative users to stuff multi-day

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battery packs under modified rear housings. Gone is the expandable storage

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that allowed this user to equip his Note 2 with 288 gigs of storage back in 2013.

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What do we get in return exactly, Samsung? Well, for me personally, I

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guess I got a device that is ergonomically usable as opposed to one

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that feels completely derpastic. It's astounding how much of a difference a

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couple fractions of a millimeter make. Although, I think Apple is taking it one

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step too far with their modified 3 and a half millimeter jack patents. But, I

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just don't know if that's going to appease the power users who have been

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using Fablets since before it was cool.

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In typical Samsung fashion, they built an entire product category off of these

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folks. And now that it's gone mainstream, they've just left them

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hanging. I mean, they're still going to sell a metric whack ton of these anyway

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since, and I understand this, for most people, a device that requires a plastic

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duad like a fly grip just to hold it has

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zero appeal. But this is still in my

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mind the kind of short-term thinking that is exactly what keeps Samsung

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focused on selling widgets to their customers rather than building

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relationships with their customers through long-term support and

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understanding and meeting their needs the way that someone like Apple does. A

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point that was driven home by Apple's recent announcement that the iPad 2, a

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device from 2011, can now be updated to

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iOS 9. The same cannot be said about my

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Galaxy Tab 10.1 that I purchased a full year later and has received barely any

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updates at all. Okay, so putting all of that aside, when viewed in a vacuum, is

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the Note 5 a success? Yeah, it is. It's

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a beautiful masterpiece of a device. But I just had to get that last bit out of

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my system for previous Note users and anyone else who has an old Samsung

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device still running some antiquated version of Android and doesn't feel like

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Samsung puts enough effort into the long-term support of these gadgets that

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we drop what in the case of this one is an awful lot of money on. Speaking of

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spending an awful lot of money on your gadgets, why not drop an extra couple

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bucks over at dbrand.com/lininusnote5 and get a vinyl

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skin that'll protect it from incidental scratches while it's in your pocket or

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sliding across the table cuz you're Canadian and you're doing, you know,

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fabt curling or whatever the case may be. They've got a wide variety of

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different styles, all precision cut to look and feel gorgeous on your device. I

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mean, we're talking they got leather finishes, wood finishes, carbon fiber

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finishes, pretty much any color under the sun. And it's not limited to just

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phones. They've actually got skins for anything from phones to game controllers

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to game consoles to even selected notebooks. So, check it out. That's

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dbrand.com/Linus note5, which is also linked in the video description. And a

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huge shout out thanks to dbrand for hooking us up with the Note 5 and

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sponsoring this episode. So, thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked,

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you know where that button is. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit the

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to shop at Amazon, buying a cool t-shirt like this one, or with a direct monthly

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contribution through our community forum. And now that you're done doing

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all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next. So, click

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that little button in the top right corner to check out this awesome video.

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I personally think it's awesome. I'm a little biased. Where I build a wicked

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gaming rig with my three-year-old son. We had a lot of fun.