The phablet market was created by Samsung four years ago at IFA 2011 when it launched the original Galaxy Note, and since then it has owned the market. Amidst dwindling demand for its smartphones, on Tuesday, the South Korean giant unveiled the Galaxy Note 4 at the very same place in Berlin, Germany.”The Galaxy Note series signaled extraordinary innovation within the technology industry. Its larger screen size and iconic S Pen technology launched a new standard in smartphone culture,” said JK Shin, CEO and Head of IT & MobileCommunication at Samsung Electronics.
“With the introduction of the Galaxy Note series, we brought the age-old culture of the pen and notepad into the digital world. The new Galaxy Note 4 introduces the most refined Note experience to-date by combining all the latest technology that users expect from the Galaxy series,” he added.
Samsung has brought its new refreshed design language to the Note 4, which has an aluminum frame like the Galaxy Alpha. But like the Note 3, it has a faux leather back cover, which can be removed by the user. It weighs 176 grams is rather thin at 8.5mm.
Withe the Note 4, the real story is in what Samsung has added in terms of hardware. It has retained the 5.7-inch screen size of the Note 3, but has given it a massive resolution upgrade in the form of a quadHD resolution (2560 x 1440 pixels). The screen panel uses Super AMOLED technology and hence should show extremely vibrant and punchy colours.
The phablet uses the fastest ARM-based mobile CPU in the market in the form of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset clocked at 2.7GHz. In markets that don’t have 4G or LTE network, Samsung will sell the Note 4 powered by Exynos 5433, an octa-core processor that has fours Cortex A15 cores clocked at 1.9GHz and the four Cortex A7 cores clocked at 1.3GHz.
In India, Samsung sells its Exynos-based devices. So it is likely that here the company will launch the Note 4 powered by Exynos processor. But in case it decides to bring the LTE version some time later just like it did for Galaxy S5, Indian consumers may get the option to buy the Note 4 powered by Snapdragon 805.
The Note 4 has 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot that supports up to 64GB of storage.
Samsung is going big on photography with the Note 4. It has a 16-megapixel rear camera, which features intelligent optical image stabilisation. This is a first for a Samsung smartphone and it will ensure a big improvement in low-light images. On the front too, Samsung has added a 3.7-megapixel camera, which has a f/1.9 aperture. Samsung says this will improve the quality of the selfies.
The phone runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat buried under Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. TouchWiz has been enhanced for multi-tasking with the S-Pen. Samsung has doubled the pressure sensitivity of the S-Pen from the Note 3, which could make feel more like a real pen. Additionally, there is a lot of new software functionality that will make multitasking easier. For instance, using a smart select feature one can select or copy multiple items just like one would do so on a PC via a mouse. It also has a dynamic lock screen.
The battery is slightly bigger on the Note 4 from the Note 3 at 3,220mAh and it features fast charging with quick charge 2.0 technology. Like the Galaxy S5, it has a fingerprint scanner in the home button and a heart rate monitor on the back next to the camera.
Samsung says that the Note 4 will be available globally in October in four colours — Black, White, Pink and Gold. Sources within Samsung said that India was likely to be among the first countries where the Note 4 would go on sale. For now there is no word on the price of the device but we expect it to cost around Rs 50,000.
