At an event in Delhi on October 14, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was launched for a whooping price tag of Rs 58,300 (best price). It will be made available from October 17 in offline and online market places, incidentally same day iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is supposed to hit the Indian stores too.
At the launch event, I spent some time with Samsung Galaxy Note 4 which comes with soft-textured back cover like recent Samsung devices and a metal rim. In a nutshell it doesn’t have any extraordinary design element which one can flaunt, especially keeping in mind the price tag.
Galaxy Note 4 is 8.5 mm thick and weighs 176 grams. It is quite comfortable to hold and operate. The phone comes in four colours – white, black, pink, and grey.
The Note 4 is armed with a 5.7 inch Super AMOLED Display with Quad HD resolution, compared to full HD resolution of the earlier Note 3. The display also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Similarly, Samsung has bumped up the front camera to 3.7 megapixel (Note 3 has a 2 megapixel front camera) and has armed it with F1.9 lens. The Note 4 has also been armed with a 16 megapixel rear camera and it now comes with Optical Image Stabilisation feature against 13 megapixel unit of Note 3.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is powered by a 2.7 GHz quad core processor. Besides, it has 3 GB RAM, 32 GB internal storage, and expandable storage slot for up to 128 GB micro SD card. As expected, this phablet comes with Android 4.4 KitKat version.
Samsung has fitted a 3220 mAh battery in this phone which should offer long working hours. Besides, Note 4 is said to have improved charging mechanism that claims to charge the Galaxy Note 4 from zero to 50 per cent in around 30 minutes.
The Galaxy Note 4 comes with a single SIM slot offering 4G connectivity. Besides, it has dual Band WiFi, WiFi Direct, WiFi Hotspot, DLNA, Bluetooth 4.1 LE with A2DP, NFC, Infrared Port, and Micro USB 2.0 port that also acts as a MHL port so you can connect it with HDMI televisions. You can also use this USB port to connect it with external storage devices. Like all Note phablets, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 4 too comes with S Pen functionality.
Now let’s jump to first time user experience and start with display. As mentioned above, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 has a Super AMOLED display with Quad HD resolution (2560 x1440 pixels) with a Pixel density of 515 pixels per inch. As obvious as it sounds, you will love every second while working on this display, especially while watching videos or playing games.
Now let’s talk about its camera capabilities which is in the top of any prospective smartphone buyer’s list. But note that it is not our final verdict on Note 4’s camera quality. The Note 4 has a 16 megapixel rear camera with Optical image stabilisation feature and a 3.1 megapixel front one which has a Wide-Angle selfie mode.
I took few snaps using both the rear as well as front camera in an area with good lighting and lot of people movement. In auto mode, close and long shots clicked via the rear camera were great and detailing was clear and crisp. Selfie camera or front camera also didn’t disappoint me. Not only the front camera managed to click great solo pictures but also the group selfies were worth posting on social media.
Coming to its processing power, there wasn’t any doubt from the onset itself about the Note 4’s capability and as such it didn’t flinch a bit when we threw a bunch of tasks like browser, camera, gallery and calendar apps at the same time.
Regarding connectivity I am not sure how 4G will work on Samsung Galaxy Note 4 as the service is still not available in the national capital but all the remaining connectivity features like 3G, Bluetooth, NFC etc are expected to give good results.
Now let’s talk about the new and improved S-Pen which has a physical button and comes with features like air command, smart select and share, and photo note. While using the S-Pen I had to do couple of trails before I got the hang of it. Once I was out of trial mode it was a smooth sailing for activities like Air command where I didn’t have to touch the screen physically with stylus to initiate desired action as I had to just hover S-pen over the screen. Using the stylus you can copy and paste content, and can write that too in two new styles – calligraphy and fountain pen, or scribbling on a photograph.
About performance I can cannot comment at the moment as I need to use Note 4 for a considerable amount of time to pass a judgement or share my views.
All in all Samsung Galaxy note 4 has all the elements that are desired from a top end smartphone and even during our brief interaction with the device I didn’t find anything alarming. But, this smartphone comes with a price tag which majority of Indians will not be excited about. It is definitely a premium device but not a value for money proposition.