Samsung Note 4 reviews are out - Amazing battery life and performance despite 1440p screen

[LAwLz]

I think this should settle the "1440p will ruin battery life" debate once and for all.

Today the NDA for the Galaxy Note 4 was lifted and the reviews are great.

 

So far I have only read the Anandtech and the GSMArena review but both of them are showing great battery life. In fact, the battery life is even better than the Note 3 despite the very very minor bump in battery capacity.

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of the display, we already had a really good review of it from DisplayMate but now we also have a pretty good one from Anandtech. The results are looking very good.

White point temperature is very very good. Grayscale accuracy is average although far better than the Note 3.

Samsung's SAMOLED screens have a pretty bad reputation of being far too saturated. Saturation is now under control, and in fact better than all other Android smartphones that Anand have tested. The only ones having better saturation (in terms of accuracy) is the iPhone 5C, 6, 6+ and the Nokia Lumia 630.

And what about color accuracy? In terms of color accuracy the Note 4 has an average DeltaE of 2.4100. For comparison, the precalibrated Asus ProArt monitors has a deltaE of 2.2 (lower is better). The Note 3 had a deltaE of 4.6200. The Note 4 actually has a lower DeltaE than the iPhone 6+ (2.6746) but not as good as the regular iPhone 6 (1.7645).

 

 

The last big upgrade about the Note 4 is that it now feels premium as well. The Verge said "For the first time ever, you can't call this Samsung phone 'plasticy'" which is nice for those of you who cares about that.

 

Personally I think this is the only phone, other than the new iPhone, that have really excited me. All other phones released this year have been really "meh". With that being said, the Nexus 6 is rumored to be announced today so I don't think it's worth pulling the trigger just yet. Also, Snapdragon 810 is not too far into the future and I suspect that will be a beast.

 

Reviews:

Anandtech

GSMArena

The Verge

Linus Tech Tips

[Sidiox]

quite impressive, but it do is a large phone so it ofcourse has a large battery. I wonder how such phone would have preformed with a 1080p screen (which in my opinion still is enough)

[qwertywarrior]

thank you for source ..............

[BallGum]

I think this should settle the "1440p will ruin battery life" debate once and for all.

Today the NDA for the Galaxy Note 4 was lifted and the reviews are great.

So far I have only read the Anandtech and the GSMArena review but both of them are showing great battery life. In fact, the battery life is even better than the Note 3 despite the very very minor bump in battery capacity.

{style_image_url}/attachicon.gif Battery life.png

That's good to hear. To play devils advocate though I would argue that there are too many variables to conclusively say that 1440P doesn't hit the battery life. Perhaps improvements to efficient battery use were made elsewhere (such as the CPU or OS) that cancelled out the impact 1440P made?

[Sauron]

Still way to expensive for me to consider it. Especially with the nexus 6 on its way.

[LAwLz]

That's good to hear. To play devils advocate though I would argue that there are too many variables to conclusively say that 1440P doesn't hit the battery life. Perhaps improvements to efficient battery use were made elsewhere (such as the CPU or OS) that cancelled out the impact 1440P made?

Oh definitely. The GPU in the 805 is far more efficient and that by itself pretty much cancels out the impact of the higher resolution. Improvements to the modem, the SAMOLED screen itself and software then pushes the battery life even further.

The question is, should we really sacrifice screen quality for longer battery life? The Verge reported that he managed a day and a half of very heavy use and that it would easy be able to go 2 days with "normal use". On top of that it only takes half an hour to charge from 0 -> 50%, or ~100 minutes to charge from 0 -> 100% (using the cable, the optional wireless charging takes longer) is it worth it?

Longer battery life is obviously better, but at this point I'd rather have a 1440p screen and 2 days worth of battery life instead of a 1080p screen and 2.2 days worth, especially since it charges so fast anyway.

[BallGum]

Oh definitely. The GPU in the 805 is far more efficient and that by itself pretty much cancels out the impact of the higher resolution. Improvements to the modem, the SAMOLED screen itself and software then pushes the battery life even further.

The question is, should we really sacrifice screen quality for longer battery life? The Verge reported that he managed a day and a half of very heavy use and that it would easy be able to go 2 days with "normal use". On top of that it only takes half an hour to charge from 0 -> 50%, or ~100 minutes to charge from 0 -> 100% (using the cable, the optional wireless charging takes longer) is it worth it?

Longer battery life is obviously better, but at this point I'd rather have a 1440p screen and 2 days worth of battery life instead of a 1080p screen and 2.2 days worth, especially since it charges so fast anyway.

Yeah I agree completely. If battery life is greater than 2 days of medium / heavy use then personally I'd have no issue at all. What I really don't want to see are phones that van barely last a day anyway having higher end displays slapped on them purely for numbers.

[totjup5]

The screen itself may not be impacting the battery life, but the increase in gpu workload because of it will. They probably still could have achieved better battery life with a 1080p screen.

[TroubleKlef]

Samsung is heading in the right direction to finally surpass the iPhone.

 

Screen: Excellent

Hardware: Excellent

Camera: Excellent:

Battery Life: Excellent

Build Quality: Good

Software: Good

 

Just needs to improve on that plastic back and tone down touchwiz or get rid of it entirely and you pretty much have the best phone in the world.

 

Although I've heard reports that graphical performance on the Note 4 is severely underwhelming. It could be due to that 1440p screen.

[Guest]

Love the Linus Tech Tips link.

I have to admit that I used to find Linus' voice a bit annoying, but the video really changed that.

[jaggysnake57]

nice....shame about touch wiz

[dizmo]

The new Note definitely is a nice phone. I've watched a few reviews on it, and the pen seems like it gained a whole lot of useful features this time around.

You might know this since you're interested in the phone, if I were to put a launcher like Nova Prime on it, do I lose functionality of the S Pen?

The pen is the hugest draw for me. If I'd get a phablet, it'd have to have more than just a massive screen.

 

 

quite impressive, but it do is a large phone so it ofcourse has a large battery. I wonder how such phone would have preformed with a 1080p screen (which in my opinion still is enough)

The battery isn't really much larger than you'd find in a G2, or some of Sharps much smaller phones.

 

That's good to hear. To play devils advocate though I would argue that there are too many variables to conclusively say that 1440P doesn't hit the battery life. Perhaps improvements to efficient battery use were made elsewhere (such as the CPU or OS) that cancelled out the impact 1440P made?

I don't think that's really the point. It shows that 1440p can be had with little to no impact on battery life compared to a current crop 1080p phone.

 

The screen itself may not be impacting the battery life, but the increase in gpu workload because of it will. They probably still could have achieved better battery life with a 1080p screen.

Probably, but if the GPU is powerful enough it likely wouldn't have been a great deal.

[LAwLz]

You might know this since you're interested in the phone, if I were to put a launcher like Nova Prime on it, do I lose functionality of the S Pen?

I don't have a Note so I can't test it. I did however just test installing Nova Launcher on my Galaxy S 4 and I did not seem to lose any Samsung feature. For example the dual window thing still worked so I don't think Nova Launcher would remove the S Pen functionality.

I can't promise anything though.

[Techhog]

Doesn't make a difference to me. I don't care about if battery life is still good or not; I care about how much better battery life and performance would have been without pointlessly increasing the resolution.

[Techhog]

The new Note definitely is a nice phone. I've watched a few reviews on it, and the pen seems like it gained a whole lot of useful features this time around.

You might know this since you're interested in the phone, if I were to put a launcher like Nova Prime on it, do I lose functionality of the S Pen?

The pen is the hugest draw for me. If I'd get a phablet, it'd have to have more than just a massive screen.

Launchers don't cause you to lose S-pen functionality; ROMs do.

[BallGum]

The new Note definitely is a nice phone. I've watched a few reviews on it, and the pen seems like it gained a whole lot of useful features this time around.

You might know this since you're interested in the phone, if I were to put a launcher like Nova Prime on it, do I lose functionality of the S Pen?

The pen is the hugest draw for me. If I'd get a phablet, it'd have to have more than just a massive screen.

The battery isn't really much larger than you'd find in a G2, or some of Sharps much smaller phones.

I don't think that's really the point. It shows that 1440p can be had with little to no impact on battery life compared to a current crop 1080p phone.

Probably, but if the GPU is powerful enough it likely wouldn't have been a great deal.

Oh no, I wasn't looking at it from a consumers perspective, more of a ...scientific curiosity I suppose

Although, if we do go back to a consumers perspective; it would still be cool to see how much of an impact 1440P actually had and how an identical phone but with a 1080P screen would fare.

[xtroria]

Having seen the phone itself and played with it for several minutes, HOLY CRAP THE SCREEN! IT'S GORGEOUS! (Yes it's that good )

 

The metal frame also feels awesome, kinda reminds me of 5s's edges

[Victorious Secret]

If this had been launched one month ago, it would've been mine. I tend not to wait for tech and just buy whatever is on sale when I go shopping but good on Samsung for this.

I thought the Note 3 was a very great device to use and it's nice to see that the Note 4 continues that trend. Though idk if I could stomach even bigger screens going forward. I thought 5.5 was already bordering the usable side of things for a phone.

[kamiyo]

Glad to see that the resolution makes a minimal impact on the device's battery life.

The display looks gorgeous (I've seen a sample model in a T-Mobile store), and as expected of phones nowadays, it runs very smooth.

Gotta give it to Samsung this round, their Note 4 is quite nice. I still personally would avoid purchasing Samsung devices, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend it to others. My dad actually ordered a Note 4 for his Verizon line, so I'm excited to play around with it for a little while when he gets it. I think they've made a very nice improvement of the device since the Note 2.

[Psykomantis00]

Is the battery still removable? I might have to go with the note 4 over the 6+ just because of battery life. I'd hate to have to change ecosystems again, but zerolemon is godmode. 

[StingBull]

Note series phones are pretty much the only series of phones that excite me in Android now.

[LAwLz]

Is the battery still removable? I might have to go with the note 4 over the 6+ just because of battery life. I'd hate to have to change ecosystems again, but zerolemon is godmode. 

Yes the battery (and the whole back) is removable.

The back is pretty much the same as the Note 3, but with the fake stitching removed.

[Tonylu1595]

Lol I would replace the battery with something like a 6,000 mah battery for 25 dollars or add something like the Zerolemon 10,000 mah battery case.