I got the phone I didn’t originally expect to purchase. As I
wrote over the summer, I’ve been actively researching smart phones since I got
my Samsung Galaxy S4 in July 2013. The S4 is a great phone, though newer
flagship models have better specifications. The S4 was a huge step up from
anything I had used previously. However, already by the fall of 2013, I knew I
wanted a phone with a bigger screen.
One of my employees in New Jersey had a Samsung Galaxy Note
3, and besides its larger screen size, it had a better camera. The S4’s camera
was decent, but the Note 3’s was very good. Two other employees got the Note 4
soon after it was released, a year ago. Both were very happy with it, and I
started to consider getting a Note when I would finally be able to upgrade in
the summer of 2015.
As indicated in my earlier post, I considered many other
phones. These included Sony Xperia models, LG Flex and G varieties, and some of
the newer Chinese products. I crossed the Note 5 off my list when the first
reports in the spring of this year suggested that it would follow the example
of the Galaxy S6 and not have a removable battery or micro-SD card support. It looked
like LG might be my best bet for getting a large, high-quality screen, a good
processor, a removable battery, and a micro-SD card.
I was first disappointed that the LG G Flex 2 had a smaller
screen than the original G Flex. The latter had a monster 6” screen that was
awesome for productivity, but was low in resolution by 2014 standards. The Flex
2 had better resolution, but “only” a 5.5” screen, while I wanted larger. This
summer’s G4 also had a 5.5” screen, and while it was quite good, it wasn’t as
good as Samsung’s flagship screen. The Flex 2 had a Snapdragon 810 processor,
which has a reputation for overheating (something supposedly fixed in the
re-launched version made available this fall). This led LG to take a small step
back, and use a Snapdragon 808 in the G4.
LG did put out rumors that a “super deluxe” big brother to the
G4 would be released this fall. It was to have a 5.8” screen, metal build, and
a Snapdragon 820 processor. This finally emerged at the start of October as the
V10, and it seems quite intriguing. But the 820 isn’t finished with development
yet, and so the V10 comes with the re-launched 810, which is hopefully past its
heating problem.
Samsung avoided the whole Snapdragon overheating issue by
using its own Exynos 7420 processor in the S6 and Note 5. This is the best
processor commercially available at this writing. The 820 and the next Exynos
will probably surpass its specifications, but that will be six months from now.
Samsung traditionally releases the new Note in October each
year. Apple releases the new iPhones in September, which cuts into potential
Note sales, especially since the 6+ and now 6S+ have become available. Samsung therefore
decided to release the 2015 Note, the
Note 5, in August. I tried out the Note 5
as soon as it appeared in phone stores, and found the internet was incredibly
fast and smooth. Part of this was because the Note 5 was the first (or one of
the first) phones to come with 4 GB of RAM. This will be more common in 2016,
but the V10, which should be in stores in November, is the only other
readily-available phone with it right now.
I read critic and customer reviews on the Note 5. These were
mostly positive, and confirmed that my experience with playing with the Note 5
at phone stores wasn’t an aberration. The Note 5 is the most powerful phone
currently available in terms of having a big, bright screen (5.7”), a great processor,
and plenty of RAM to sustain them. Thus, I began to reconsider my earlier
decision to avoid the Note 5. Then, one of my employees here in Colorado upgraded
from her S4 to the Note 5, and adored her new phone. I used it a bit, to see if
it performed as well as the sample ones available under optimal conditions in
the stores. It gave the same great experience, so I was convinced that, after
all, it was the right phone for me.
I set the process in motion, and a few days ago, I became
the proud owner of a Note 5. It took a few days, because I had to wait for
Sprint to get in the larger-storage 64 GB version (which mostly offsets the
lack of a micro-SD card). I also had to wait for the specific color combination
of
Otter Box that I wanted (dark blue outer casing, with light blue inner
frame). It didn’t hurt that Sprint had an offer to get a free Galaxy Tab 4
tablet with the Note 5. The Tab 4 is a small, slightly out-of-date tablet, but
it works well as a basic web-browsing device, and is far better than the off-brand
Supersonic tablet I got as an anniversary gift from my job.
I’m enormously pleased with my Note 5 thus far. It truly is,
as many reviews have stated, a beast of a phone. Besides being large and
powerful, as I indicated above, it supports fast charging. With a cord, it
charges incredibly quickly using its own wall socket plug, or the special car
charger I bought. But it is also one of the only phones capable of high-speed
wireless charging on Samsung’s wireless charging pad. This was another factor that
led to my choosing the Note 5. The lack of a removable battery no longer
bothers me, and the fixed battery gives great life anyway due to optimizing
features built into the hardware and software. My opinion could certainly
change with time, but at this moment I highly recommend the Note 5 if you can
afford it. I’m paying a lot, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, since I
feel I have the current best of the best.
One tangential point is that I stayed with Sprint. I was a
free agent, and could have gone with any company. Verizon is usually considered
the best provider, but
Sprint is their equal in Denver, as
Rootmetrics testing
shows. Sprint tests their new processes first in Denver, and perfected LTE in
the spring of this year. They have since been rolling it out to the rest of the
country, and should be a solid choice in most urban and suburban areas by early
2016.
On a different “note,”
Sunwheels and Siegrunen is at the
printers, and should be available any day now. I’ll post an update when I get word
that the release has become official. In the meantime, sample pages can be seen
here.
