Samsung Galaxy Note5 review
Introduction
The Samsung Galaxy Note5 is the latest in the line that introduced us to the concept of a phablet in the first place. Following the Galaxy S-line's adoption of glass and metal, Samsung's taken the premium build to the Note series.
Design and build quality
The Galaxy Note5 may have kept the screen size of the Note 4, but Samsung engineers have managed to fit it in a smaller body. Most impressive is the reduction in width - 2.5mm may not sound like much, but the side bezels are as thin as they come.
The Samsung Galaxy Note5 is the first generation Note to come after Samsung parted with plastic as the main body material. The phablet adopts the overall design of the S6, but thanks to size and a few minor tweaks it's a Note through and through.
Build quality is simply superb. The innards are sandwiched between two Gorilla Glass 4 panels and an aluminum frame runs along the sides, creating a truly premium look and feel, befitting a flagship. Fingerprints are inevitable though, and glass does shatter more easily than plastic, so perhaps you should invest in some sort of protection.
A major downside to the new design is that the battery is now sealed, which may put off those used to swapping batteries. You don't get microSD storage expansion and the IR emitter is gone as well - all changes familiar from the Galaxy S6.
The S-Pen has gotten a brand new design too - it now requires a click on the top to extract it from its silo. The click serves no other function though, and we feel like it should have.
The fingerprint sensor is the improved type from the S6, meaning it doesn't require swiping, but works just by tapping. It's fast and reliable, but isn't always on, you have to wake the screen up first. It does enable Samsung Pay, if you're in the regions where the service is
supported.
Design and build quality score
4.0
Display
The Samsung Galaxy Note5 comes with a 5.7-inch AMOLED display, with a 1,440 x 2,560 pixels resolution. That comes down to 518ppi, far past the point where individual pixels can be seen with the naked eye.
An inherent property of the display technology is the infinite contrast - a result of black pixels not being lit up at all. Maximum brightness in regular surroundings is a little over average for AMOLED panels, but when you set it to Auto and expose the phone to bright light, it pushes it a lot higher, and easily into LCD territory.
Sunlight legibility benefits from the infinite contrast and low reflectivity, which coupled with the boost in brightness makes the Galaxy Note5 among the best performers in direct sunlight.
Color accuracy was a problem with initial AMOLED displays, but that's no longer the case. There are several settings, and Basic gets you possibly the most accurate color reproduction we've seen with a DeltaE of 1.1 (the threshold to call a display calibrated being 4.0). The other modes bring about minor drops in accuracy, to the benefit of more punchy output.
Samsung Galaxy Note5 review
4/
5
Oleh
Unknown
