Samsung Galaxy Note 5
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,923 words · ~9 min read
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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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I personally think it's awesome. I'm a little biased. Where I build a wicked
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