The Galaxy Note line has long been one of Samsung’s greatest assets in the mobile market. While other Android OEMs have made phablets before, Samsung was pretty much the first OEM to ship a high-end device in this segment. Although other Android OEMs have made phablets in the time since, Samsung continues to have a strong hold on this market.

For Samsung, unlike previous iterations of the Note family, the Galaxy Note5/S6 edge+ represents a significant change in design compared to previous generations, integrating many of the design aspects of the Galaxy S6 across the whole family. In many ways, the Galaxy Note5 resembles the Galaxy S6 in a different size. Meanwhile the Note5's companion device, the Galaxy S6 edge+, is effectively a second take on the Galaxy Note5, aiming for a design closer to a large format phone than a phablet as originially envisioned by Samsung. In this case the Galaxy S6 edge+ uses many of the design accents of the Galaxy S6 edge such as the curved display, all the while getting rid of the stylus.

Probably the easiest way to start is by looking at the basic specs. In order to make this easier, the usual spec sheet is below.

	Galaxy Note 4	Galaxy Note5	Galaxy S6 edge+
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 4xKrait 450 @ 2.7 GHz	Samsung LSI Exynos 7420 4xA57 @ 2.1GHz 4xA53 @ 1.5GHz
GPU	Adreno 420 @ 600 MHz	Mali T760MP8 @ 772MHz
RAM	3GB LPDDR3	4GB LPDDR4
NAND	32/64GB eMMC	32/64/128GB UFS 2.0
Display	5.7-inch 2560x1440 SAMOLED	5.7-inch 2560x1440 SAMOLED	5.7-inch 2560x1440 SAMOLED Dual edge display
Network	2G / 3G / 4G UE Category 6 LTE	2G / 3G / 4G UE Category 6/9 LTE
Dimensions	153.5 x 78.6 x 8.3 mm 176 grams	153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6 mm 171 grams	154.4 x 75.8 x 6.9 mm 153 grams
Camera	16MP rear camera, 1.12 µm pixels, 1/2.6" CMOS size, F/2.2 OIS 5MP F/1.9 FFC	16MP rear camera, 1.12µm pixels, 1/2.6" CMOS size F/1.9, OIS 5MP F/1.9 FFC
Battery	3220 mAh (12.397 Wh) Removable	3000 mAh (11.55 Wh) Non-removable
OS	Android 4.4 with TouchWiz (At launch)	Android 5.1 with TouchWiz (At launch)
Connectivity	2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC	2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.2, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC
SIM Size	MicroSIM	NanoSIM

The Galaxy Note5/S6 edge+ and Galaxy S6 are definitely different in size - coming in at 5.1" versus 5.7" - but there’s otherwise a great deal of similarity this time around. The Galaxy Note5 shares a number of major components with the Galaxy S6, so the big differences between the two lines this generation will primarily be due to the S-Pen and larger size, along with an extra gigabyte of RAM. However, there are still some notable differences that are worth going over, as Samsung has been able to integrate a few months of lessons learned from the Galaxy S6 into the Galaxy Note5.

Design

The first, and easiest place to start is the design of this phone. If you’re familiar with the Galaxy S6, the Galaxy Note5/S6 edge+ is pretty much identical from a functional perspective. The front face of the phone has the same earpiece, home button, front-facing camera, and various sensors. Flanking the home button will be the two capacitive buttons, which are multitasking and back from left to right. The usual Samsung logo is on top, where the display driver for the display is. The bezel retains the same texture that it does from the Galaxy S6, which causes some interesting reflection effects, especially in the sun. The display also has noticeably thinner side bezels than what we saw on the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy Note 4, which is visually quite impressive but in the absence of palm rejection is pretty close to the limit of minimum bezel size.

Along the side of the phone, the buttons, headphone jack, USB port, and speaker are all placed in the same places as the Galaxy S6, which should help if anyone is transitioning to the Galaxy Note5/S6 edge+ from the Galaxy S6. This means that the USB port is centered on the bottom of the phone, with the 3.5mm headset jack on the left side, and the speaker on the right. The volume buttons are also on the left side and are still as clicky and impressive as they were with the Galaxy S6, with no creep or mush and a clean break when the switch triggers. The power button is similar in feel and placed on the right side of the phone, high enough that you won’t accidentally activate the button when you’re picking up the phone.

The top of the phone has the SIM slot for both variants this time around unlike the Galaxy S6, which had the SIM slot in a different position depending upon which variant you got. Unlike the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy Note 4, neither variant has a port for an IR LED/receiver for remote functionality. The Galaxy Note5 also adds a port for the stylus next to the speaker.

Depending upon what phone you get, the major difference can end up being the shape of the back cover. While the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S6 both have glass for their back cover, the Galaxy Note5 has a 3D curved glass back cover much like the Xiaomi Mi Note line. This really improves the in-hand feel compared to the Galaxy S6, which felt a bit blocky. The Galaxy S6 edge+ retains the same flat back cover from the Galaxy S6, but feels a bit easier to grip than the Galaxy S6 edge which had an incredibly thin metal rail to hold on to. Both phablets will be fingerprint magnets on the back cover, but due to the use of glass it’s pretty easy to wipe off fingerprints unlike glossy plastic.

Relative to the Galaxy Note 4, the changes are definitely notable. The metal frame of the Galaxy Note 4 was a relatively angular design, with flat sides and chamfered edges. This design made the phablet feel much bigger relative to something like the Note5 or S6 edge+, thanks in part to Samsung further reducing their device thickness with this latest iteration. The back cover of the Note 4 is faux-leather plastic that peels off much like the Galaxy S2's back cover, with a removable battery and microSD slot. The display has the same buttons, but the bezel had a striped design for unknown reasons. Some people might prefer the design of the Note 4, but I suspect most people are going to prefer the design of the Galaxy Note5.

Overall, in the hand I’d still prefer the Galaxy Note5 to the Galaxy S6 edge+, but pretty much either phone has acceptable industrial and material design. I still wish Samsung would work on cleaning up the front of the phone to be a bit more cohesive, but for 2015 the design of the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ is actually quite good. Samsung has sought to distance itself from their reputation of Hyperglaze, and with this phone it’s pretty fair to say that they’ve achieved just that. Both phablets have no real ergonomic issues and are generally well-designed, although aesthetically there are some symmetry issues.

Battery Life

Battery life is undoubtedly one of the most important parts of the user experience of any mobile device. One of the major reasons why many people use phablets is to get better battery life, as the PCB size of a phablet is often roughly similar to what you’ll see in a smartphone, but the battery will be bigger to fill the available space. As a result, a phablet has a higher proportion of battery than a smartphone. This inherently means that battery size will scale faster than platform power. In order to test this metric, we use a number of different tests ranging from display-bound web browsing to SoC-bound CPU and GPU load tests. In order to eliminate confounding variables, we test all devices from the same ASUS RT-AC68U router for WiFi testing, and in strong LTE/3G reception for mobile web browsing, in addition to setting all devices to an average of 200 nits on the display.

In our first test of WiFi web browsing, the Galaxy Note5 performs identically to the Galaxy Note 4. This might be surprising because the display is the same size and resolution as the Galaxy Note 4 with a smaller battery than the Galaxy Note 4. However, the smaller battery is compensated for due to improvements in SoC and display efficiency. In particular, the move from a planar 28nm process to a 14nm FinFET process dramatically reduces power consumption on the SoC.

In LTE battery life, we see a noticeable drop relative to WiFi battery life. It’s likely that this is mostly due to the power consumption of the Shannon 333 modem present in these devices. There’s not much else to say here, but battery life is still good.

Moving past our mostly display-bound web browsing test, PCMark provides a much more balanced look at battery life as APL tends to vary a bit more with content like videos and photos instead of just webpages, and the CPU component is much more strongly emphasized. Here we can really see the Note5’s Exynos 7420 stretch its legs as it keeps a high performance level with long runtime.

In our sustained SoC-bound workloads, GFXBench shows a healthy improvement over the Galaxy S6. Although we’re unable to test in perfectly controlled temperatures, it looks like Samsung has improved the throttling behavior of the SoC as the throttling appears to be more graceful rather than sinusoidal, and the result is a pretty significant jump in runtime over most devices.

In Basemark OS II, we see a pretty significant uplift in runtime when compared to something like the Galaxy S6 or Note 4. The runtime increase isn’t just due to excessive throttling though, as the battery score shows that this isn’t just a case of throttling the CPU until the runtime is an improvement over past devices.

Overall, if you’ve read the Galaxy S6 review it’s pretty fair to say that you’ll know what to expect from the Galaxy Note5. Battery life is roughly equivalent to the Galaxy Note 4 despite the smaller battery, and due to the greatly improved Exynos 7420 SoC relative to 2014 SoCs SoC-bound cases will show pretty healthy improvements as long as you’re controlling for performance.

Charge Time

While normally battery life is the primary area of concern for a smartphone, in some cases it’s important for a phone to charge quickly. We can all claim to be perfect but one of the simplest cases for faster charging is forgetting to plug the phone in before going to sleep, so the maximum allowable charge time goes from something like 6 hours to an hour at best. As a result, a faster charger can dramatically improve practical battery life in any situation where you have limited time to charge. This can be accomplished by increasing either the current or voltage of the charger. The original quick charging standards improved charge rate through higher current, but this eventually hits a wall due to resistance in the wire. In order to increase the total amount of power delivered without increasing the thickness of the cable used voltage was increased in the case of newer standards like QC 2.0. In the case of the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+, we’re looking at the same 9V, 1.67A QC 2.0 compatible charger that shipped with the Galaxy Note 4. In order to test this properly, we log the time it takes for the phone to charge by running a timer until the charger power draw hits a point that represents 100% battery.

It probably isn’t a surprise, but charge time ends up similar to the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 4. I suspect that we’ll be waiting until QC 3.0 to be able to see significant improvements as the current standard doesn’t have particularly fine-grained voltage scaling according to cable and phone conditions. Interestingly, the wireless fast charger is actually not too far off from the wired charger as it indicates 100% around 1.84 hours into charging which is almost identical to the wired fast charger.

Display

With the rise of smartphones and tablets, the display has become one of the most important aspects of a mobile device as it’s the primary mode of interaction. However, throughout computing the display has generally had relatively little attention. People might have talked about resolution, size, and latency, but the discourse was vague at best. In order to really understand displays, it’s important to discuss a number of factors that affect display quality and the underlying design of the display. These factors range from subpixel arrangement to TFT structure and various emitter materials. With traditional reviewing methods, it’s often difficult to say one way or another whether one display is “better” than another. While simple metrics like maximum brightness can be compared in a relative manner, it’s hard to say whether one has better colors or higher static contrast. In order to test these metrics, we turn to objective measurements from devices like X-Rite’s i1Pro2 spectrophotometer and i1Display Pro colorimeter. In order to acquire the data from these devices and present it in a usable manner, we use SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5 with a custom workflow.

Under the microscope and based upon some quick viewing angle tests, subjectively the Galaxy Note5 display looks and feels like a bigger version of the Galaxy S6 display. Viewing angles for some angles feels like the display is almost painted on to the glass below, but some odd interference effects with viewing angle changes breaks the illusion to some extent. In the case of the S6 edge+, the curved edges of the display cause a noticeable shift in luminance when looking at the edge compared to the center of the display, which also causes an odd green shift which is probably due to the RGBG subpixel layout. I suspect the best LCDs will still be better at the “painted to the glass” illusion for the near future. This isn’t a huge deal, but it is a noticeable difference.

Moving on to our brightness testing, we can see that the Galaxy Note5 delivers a healthy improvement over the Galaxy Note 4 generation of AMOLED, but it isn’t quite at the same level as the Galaxy S6. It isn’t clear why this is the case, but I suspect this is related to longevity and other concerns outside of brightness. Meanwhile the use of OLED means that black levels are perfect and contrast remains solely determined by the lighting of the room and the reflectance of the display, which is similar to most other smartphones.

In our standard grayscale testing, the Note5 delivers acceptable color accuracy but it seems that the Basic screen mode tends towards a warm color balance. I suspect this helps with power efficiency, as blue in general requires more power to achieve the same level of luminance. Other than this slightly warm white balance, the grayscale accuracy doesn’t have any significant errors. This means accuracy ends up very good - certainly below our threshold for noticable errors - especially in comparison to the Galaxy Note 4 which had some noticeable problems with green tint on some units.

In our saturation test, Samsung does well enough that there’s really nothing to talk about because there's so little wrong here. You could argue that magenta is a bit warm on our review unit, but the difference is too small to be worth talking about. Error on average is going to be hard to spot unless you have a flawless reference monitor to compare against.

In the GMB ColorChecker test, Samsung continues to show a strong performance when looking at various hues that are commonly found in consumer content such as movies and camera photos. There’s a slight red shift on some of the tested hues, but the error is so minor I don’t notice that any problems here.

Overall, the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ both have an incredible display. The Galaxy S6 edge+ does have some problems with viewing angle shifts by virtue of the curved display, but this is effectively unavoidable given the subpixel layout and the radius of curvature. With this generation of AMOLED, Samsung has definitely equaled the best LCDs on the market. I suspect within the next year or two it will be inevitable that Samsung AMOLED will be clearly superior to even the best LCDs. However, without other OLED suppliers that can provide similar quality and cost I suspect OEM adoption will continue to be limited.

System Performance

While subjective judgments of performance may be possible to make when the delta is significant, when the gap gets increasingly close within the range of perceivable performance differences it becomes important to rely on more precise and accurate methods of measuring the overall performance of the mobile device. For the most part, when we’re discussing system performance the single biggest factor is often the SoC, which makes sense given that an SoC contains the CPU, GPU, video encode and decode blocks, memory bus, and DSPs. There are other aspects of the device that determine the overall perception of performance and things that can have a meaningful effect on performance, but the SoC is often the gating factor.

In order to test this we run mobile devices through our standard suite of benchmarks. In the case of the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+, there shouldn’t be too many surprises given the commonality in components with the Galaxy S6.

If you guessed that performance in these benchmarks would be similar to the Galaxy S6, you'd be right. Given the shared SoC and general commonality in components performance remains as high as it is with the Galaxy S6. In some cases we see improvements, likely a combination of changes to Chrome and changes to areas like the frequency governor to respond faster to changes in load. It's probably fair to say that the Exynos 7420 will continue to be the best SoC for Android mobile devices in 2015, although it's likely that we'll see significantly increased competition for 2016.

System Performance Cont'd

Now that we’ve covered some of the traditionally CPU-bound tests, we can start to look at tests that more strongly emphasize GPU performance. It’s worth noting here that while 3DMark is supposed to determine gaming and graphics performance, the overall score includes a CPU performance component in the form of a physics test that means it isn't much of a pure GPU test.

Overall, there's nothing really surprising about these results. The Exynos 7420 should continue to deliver great GPU performance for anyone interested in a high-end phablet or smartphone. There are some improvements in 3DMark in regards to graphics performance, but it's likely that we're just looking at newer drivers as the GPU doesn't heat up fast enough for throttling to be affecting these results.

NAND Performance

At this point, it’s probably not a surprise to know that NAND performance can have very real effects on user experience. If an OEM decides to skimp heavily on storage in order to drive the price down, it’s at least somewhat likely that the device will start to exhibit major IO pauses at some point in the device lifecycle. In order to test this, we rely on our standard storage tests which include Androbench with some custom settings to get more realistic test results along with StorageBench for iOS which is comparable to Androbench.

In the case of the Galaxy Note5 we’re still looking at a UFS storage solution similar to what was found in the Galaxy S6, but it looks like this is slightly newer as the storage is identified as a Toshiba THGLF2G8J4LBATDA chip rather than the Samsung variant that was found in the Galaxy S6. It’s unclear whether Samsung is now multi-sourcing UFS storage for their mobile devices or what distribution exists here.

Interestingly, the Note5 regresses a little bit in storage performance relative to the Galaxy S6, which is likely due to the shift to Toshiba's NAND. However, this difference is small enough that in everyday use it's unlikely that it will be noticed. Performance over time should be acceptable as well.

Software: TouchWiz UX and Edge UX

In the case of Android, one of the perennial debates has always been the role of the OEM in regards to software experience. There are some that advocate for OEMs to do the bare minimum, only providing the necessary drivers and other bring-up work to enable a Google/AOSP experience similar to what we see on Nexus devices. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some in the industry that advocate for the use of Android as a base, with significant work on the part of the OEM to introduce their own unique user experiences like MIUI. There’s a ton of room here for personal preference, so it’s necessary to try a UI before deciding that you’re going to be okay with using it for at least the next two years.

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not particularly enamored by “pure” AOSP experiences. In general, I find that AOSP is lacking in a lot of ways when it comes to out of the box experience. There are quick settings, but there’s no way to add or remove toggles. There isn’t a particularly good weather clock widget for the homescreen, and the Google Camera application is light on features to say the least. Basic features like a battery percentage display in the status bar are also missing. While there are people that want to run custom ROMs to personalize all of these things, for most people I think some additions are helpful.

 

In the case of the Galaxy Note5, we’re looking at something that tends a bit closer to a full conversion UI like MIUI. Samsung’s TouchWiz has often received a great deal of criticism, but for better or worse with the Galaxy S5 and S6 Samsung has been toning things down to be closer to Android in terms of overall design and less emphasis on the longest feature list possible. For the Note and Edge lines, Samsung continues to add new features designed to enhance the usability of the stylus and edge display, respectively.

Other than these features, the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ have effectively the same UI as what we saw with the Galaxy S6, so those interested in a deeper look at the changes in TouchWiz for everyday use should take a look at the Galaxy S6 review to learn more. For the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+, the only major changes from the Galaxy S6 are mostly in the form of a new set of icons. In practice, this isn’t really a change if you use a custom theme to try and clean up the aesthetic like any of the material design themes. The vast majority of the differences are centered on the new stylus functions and edge display functions, respectively.

In the case of the stylus functions, the Galaxy Note5 is a definite step up from the Galaxy Note 4. Samsung continues to be one of the few OEMs in the mobile sector to actually take styluses seriously, and it shows with the Note5. There is the problem of damaging the phone if you insert the stylus backwards, but the actual functionality that the stylus provides is excellent.

Although not really a part of the software, the pen itself is well designed so that the tip of the stylus has enough friction so handwriting feels natural. The latency isn’t quite at the level of pencil and paper, but lines track quite closely compared to older models like the Galaxy Note 3 or 4. Even at extreme angles the stylus tracks accurately and inking occurs exactly at the tip of the stylus where it touches the display rather than where the point of the stylus nub is. The pressure sensitivity curve is definitely fine-grained, but I feel like where the lightest possible pressure starts and where the heaviest pressure ends isn’t quite right. If I lightly graze the screen with the stylus, inking doesn’t really work unless I put some downward force to compress the tip. At the high end, it feels a bit like the force needed might be a bit excessive as any normal pencil would have a broken lead if I applied as much pressure as I did with the S-Pen to get to the highest pressure level.

The software aspect of the Note5 is also very well executed for the stylus functionality. When you first take out the stylus with the display on, there’s nothing that immediately launches on the display which helps to reduce clutter. The Air Command display only opens up if you press the side button the stylus, which opens up Air Command. By default, you get shortcuts to pretty much anything you’ll ever use with the stylus, but there’s an option to add more shortcuts if you install extra applications that take advantage of the S-Pen. If you close the menu the Air Command button will remain in a translucent icon overlaid on the display, but it doesn’t react to any touches unless you use the S-Pen and can be removed by long-pressing the button with the S-Pen and dragging it to the top edge of the display. I personally ended up turning this feature off though, as I found it easier to just always press the side button to open up the stylus shortcut menu.

With the Note5, the default applications that support the S-Pen remain. You get Action Memo, S-Note, Smart Select, and Screen Write. Action Memo and S-Note are similar, but Action Memo is more of a quick notepad rather than the full-featured notebook application that is S-Note. Screen Write allows you to directly annotate a screenshot with the stylus, and Smart Select allows you to only screenshot a part of the display that is selected with the stylus.

These apps aren’t new, but they come with new features. For example, the Note5 adds the ability to use Action Memo with the screen off is and it’s quite helpful for writing things down in the moment. Scroll capture is a part of the Screen Write functionality and is similarly useful, but I continue to question why Scroll Capture is embedded into this application instead of being integrated into the native screenshot function.

The final new feature for the stylus is PDF annotation, which is actually quite useful if you’re doing something like signing a contract in PDF form when the agreement requires a signature. More than once, I’ve had to actually print out the document and sign my name, then scan the document before sending the completed document back which is a pretty absurd waste of paper and ink.

The Galaxy S6 edge+ has none of these features, dropping the stylus in favor of the edge display. In practice, there are a few applications that exist for this display. When the display is off and the phone is flipped over, the edge will light up when calls or notifications come in. If a call is coming in and the phone is in this state, you can reject the call by holding your finger over the heart rate monitor. The color can also be set to change depending upon whether a call or text message is coming from a specific contact. The edge display can also be used as a night clock, showing the time and date along the edge of the display. It’s also possible to view some quick information along the edge of the display by swiping along the edge of the display to view some news headlines, the time, date, and weather. The final feature of the edge display is that you can swipe in on the edge of the display to open an app drawer or a quick contacts drawer.

For the most part, all of these features are forgettable. There just wasn’t any good reason to use any of these features. The edge display is a cool piece of technology, but the practical applications are almost nonexistent at this point in time compared to the stylus, which has very obvious and clearly valuable use cases by comparison. I’m trying to keep an open mind about this, but I strongly feel that the edge display is solely an aesthetic change rather than a functional one. The odd touchscreen behavior around the edge makes edge swipes difficult as well, which is also a poor user experience in my experience as Android heavily relies on edge swipes throughout applications.

Overall, TouchWiz continues to be a decent Android skin, but at its core isn’t necessarily a selling point for Samsung phones. In the past we saw that TouchWiz was amazingly performant, but in my experience the Note5 and Galaxy S6 lack a certain level of smoothness. I don’t know how to really quantify this, but using something like a Nexus 5 and comparing it to the Note5 back to back the Nexus 5 has a tendency to feel quicker and smoother for whatever reason. The stylus features of the Note5 are a selling point though, to the extent that it could make the Note5 the only option if you absolutely need a phablet with a stylus. The edge features are unfortunately not nearly as compelling, and the experience is pretty much identical to the Galaxy S6.

Camera Architecture

With any camera, it’s important to start by looking at the basic hardware before moving on to aspects like image processing quality and tertiary factors like the camera UI and camera latency. In the case of the Galaxy Note5, the same camera modules from the Galaxy S6 are used in the Galaxy Note5, so those looking for an in-depth explanation of various features can look towards our Galaxy S6 review to learn more. I’ve included the high level summary in the table below.

Samsung Galaxy Note Cameras
	Samsung Galaxy Note 4	Samsung Galaxy Note5 Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
Front Camera	3.7MP	5.0MP
Front Camera - Sensor	S5K6D1YX (1.12µm, 1/5.4")	Samsung S5K4E6 (1.34 µm, 1/4.1")
Front Camera - Focal Length	1.6mm (22mm eff)	2.2mm (22mm eff)
Front Camera - Max Aperture	F/1.9	F/1.9
Rear Camera	16MP	16MP
Rear Camera - Sensor	Sony IMX240 Samsung S5K2P2 (1.12 µm, 1/2.6")	Sony IMX240 Samsung S5K2P2 (1.12 µm, 1/2.6")
Rear Camera - Focal Length	4.8mm (31mm eff)	4.3mm (28mm eff)
Rear Camera - Max Aperture	F/2.2	F/1.9

As with the Galaxy S6, the sensor will either be a Sony IMX240 or Samsung S5K2P2 ISOCELL sensor, which are effectively interchangeable. Optics remain the same as well. In essence, the primary difference between the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 in camera will be due to changes in image processing and tweaks in other parts of the chain.

Camera UX

For the most part, the camera UI of the Note5 is shared with the Galaxy S6. In the interest of keeping things relatively short this time around I would strongly advise referring to the Galaxy S6 review for more information on the camera UI. For those that are unfamiliar with the camera, the auto mode is pretty relatively standard, with pretty much all of the necessary controls available on the left side of the phone in auto mode, and more extensive settings hidden behind the gear icon on the bottom left. The shutter and record buttons are easily accessed on the right side of the UI, as is the mode setting which contains things like manual mode and slow motion video.

The biggest change for the Note5 appears to be the addition of extra controls to the manual mode along with RAW capture. The manual mode has a minimum shutter speed of 1/24,000 seconds, and an upper bound of 10 seconds so the range is more than enough for anything you’d want to do. It appears that the white balance mode also has the ability to fine-tune the white balance now along with a number of presets, which is great news for those that really care about manual camera controls.

RAW capture is also enabled and appears to properly compensate for various lens and sensor distortions, but I noticed that for whatever reason deleting the photo associated with a RAW in the gallery doesn’t also delete the RAW photo, so if you want to delete a RAW you have to go into a file browser to delete the leftover file by hand. I noticed this behavior immediately after receiving the review unit and it still hasn’t been fixed, so I’m guessing that it won’t be resolved until an OTA update or two from now.

Other than this, we ran our standard capture latency tests for the Note5. For those unfamiliar with these tests, in essence we’re looking at the ideal case focus and capture latency when using an ISO chart and a strong studio light. This allows for shutter speeds to remain above 1/30 seconds in general and also a high contrast target to make sure that the contrast AF algorithm doesn’t fail.

As you might expect, the Note5 basically performs identically to the Galaxy S6. There is a small difference in focus latency, but this is roughly a visible difference of maybe 4 frames and likely just a matter of variance. Capture latency is effectively identical as well.

Still Image Performance

Now that we’ve discussed the basic hardware choices made for the camera and the general user experience that comes with the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+, we can start to talk about image quality. For those that are unfamiliar with our testing, we use a number of tests ranging from controlled lighting tests like the ISO chart for a pure test of resolution to some real-world testing that tends to provide a number of potential cases where the image processing or hardware isn’t quite up to scratch.

In our first ISO chart test, we continue to see that the camera is effectively able to resolve lines up to 2000 lines per picture height with relatively little distortion. However, the processing of this shot clearly shows haloing all around black lines, which is normally done to boost the perceived sharpness of the image but looks strange when zoomed in. Other than this, detail remains relatively high throughout the picture, with relatively low distortion and generally high contrast although there is some decrease in sharpness that is visible at the extreme edge of the frame. Oddly enough, it almost looks like the Galaxy Note5 slightly improves on detail when compared to the Galaxy S6, which is likely due to improvements in post-processing that have been made in the time since the launch of the Galaxy S6.

Overall, if you were impressed with the Galaxy S6's camera in daytime situations you'll probably be impressed with the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ as well. Colors are a bit more realistic and less heavily saturated, and fine detail appears to be preserved for the most part. The one complaint I have here is that the sharpening halos from post-processing are obvious at 100% along pretty much any object that meets with the sky in this kind of shot. It's worth mentioning here that attempting to process a similar photo in Lightroom gave the following results.

Once you start comparing the RAW photos, you can really see that the difference in detail is basically impossible to perceive. The differences are subtle at best, to the extent that I suspect Samsung's post-processing might be better if the aggressive sharpening halos were eliminated. In light of the differences we saw with the One M9 when comparing JPEG and RAW output, the fact that the Note5 and S6 edge+ have basically identical levels of detail to the processed RAW probably says something about just how good Samsung has gotten at post-processing in their cameras.

In HDR mode, Samsung continues to do quite well. Samsung has essentially been the best at implementing HDR properly for the past generation, and their lead continues here. The general absence of severe halos and motion artifacting is impressive. Even Apple is behind Samsung here as HDR isn't quite instantaneous with the iPhone 6 and 6s which means fast shots really have to be taken without HDR.

While we saw some subtle differences between the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy Note5 in the day, it's in low light where we really see a massive difference. Even though the camera module is basically unchanged relative to the Galaxy S6, the change in low light photo processing is huge and is enough to tip the scales when it comes to Samsung's camera performance relative to the iPhone line. Relative to the iPhone 6 Plus, I think it's fair to say that in this scene the Galaxy Note5 offers more detail when you look at the tree leaves under the light post in the center of the scene and the speed limit sign. The one remaining advantage here is that the iPhone still has some impressive photo processing tricks to make the shutter speed appear to be much faster than it really is. If you look at the car on the road, the Note5 has a pretty significant blur on this fast-moving object while the iPhone 6 Plus is almost at the point where the car has relatively imperceptible motion blur. In the interest of science, I went ahead and tried processing a RAW of this scene in Lightroom.

When you look at the processed RAW, it's pretty obvious that the Note5's JPEG processing is much better at noise suppression than what Lightroom can put out, which is impressive to say the least. Samsung has actually managed to implement low light image processing that's good enough to beat the power a full x86 PC with a TDP somewhere in the 100+W range, to the extent that I would probably say it makes no sense to process RAW photos of low light shots. The one suggestion that might make sense is to slightly reduce contrast within the photo to improve shadow detail instead of aggressively crushing near-black colors to reduce perceived noise.

Overall, the Galaxy Note5 camera actually improves upon the Galaxy S6 in low light, to the extent that I think it's fair to say the Galaxy Note5 has a better camera than the iPhone 6 Plus, Whether this lead will hold with the iPhone 6s Plus is another question entirely, but I think this firmly places Samsung at the top of the Android pile again by virtue of their improved low light performance. Of course, to be sure of this we still have to revisit video performance, which is what we'll look at next.

Video Performance

Now that we’ve taken a look at still image performance, we can look at video performance. For the most part these results should be similar to still image performance, but we’re looking at encoder efficiency, good sound recording, and effective stabilization. The Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ both have OIS in order to improve stability in video recording, and for the most part the feature set of both is similar to the Galaxy S6 when it comes to video.

Galaxy Note5

Galaxy S6

Galaxy Note5

iPhone 6

For 1080p30, Samsung has elected to use 17Mbps High Profile H.264, along with a 256 Kbps stereo audio channel encoded with AAC. If this sounds familiar, it's because this is shared with the Galaxy S6. Quality is indistinguishable. Unfortunately, it seems the same sort of jerky OIS reset effect is still present although it isn't too obvious in these videos.

Galaxy S6

iPhone 6

It probably goes without saying, but once again the Galaxy Note5 shares the same video encode settings with the Galaxy S6, with 28 Mbps High Profile H.264 encoding for 1080p60 video. In these samples you can more clearly see the issues that come with OIS in video, which is that there are instances of jerky video movement when it should be relatively smooth, even if it's shaky. The only real difference between the Galaxy S6 and Note5/S6 edge+ is that the Note5 removes a bit of the yellow tinge/saturation boost that we see in the Galaxy S6. There's otherwise relatively little to comment on here.

Once again, not much is different when comparing the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ to the Galaxy S6 other than saturation differences in some cases. The same encoder settings are also used for 48 Mbps HP H.264 with 256 Kbps AAC stereo audio.

Galaxy Note5

Galaxy S6

Galaxy Note5

iPhone 6

If you're able to read the trend, you can probably guess that the Galaxy Note5 and S6 edge+ are going to share the same encode profiles as the Galaxy S6, which is 48Mbps HP H.264. Once again, quality is effectively identical here and the changes are slim to none. This unfortunately means that the iPhone 6 still leads here as the quality of the slow motion video on the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 line weren't much good to begin with.

WiFi Performance

For the most part, it probably goes without saying that one of the cornerstones of a smartphone or phablet is mobile data. After all, without mobile data you’re effectively limited by whatever WiFi hotspot you can find, which is often limited in range. Comparatively speaking, mobile data is generally more versatile. However, in the case of most mobile devices WiFi is often used at home in order to utilize a normally lower-latency connection with generally higher throughput. Given the reality of data caps, WiFi is also often needed for things like app updates, video streaming, and possibly music streaming. As a result, poor WiFi can sink a phone. In order to try and get a basic measure of performance, we look at peak UDP bandwidth using iPerf. In the case of the Galaxy Note 5, Samsung has upgraded the WiFi chipset from the BCM4358 used in the Galaxy S6 to Broadcom’s BCM4359. This is supposed to allow connections to 2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi simultaneously, but in practice it doesn’t really look like it’s used outside of potentially faster scanning.

Interestingly, I was unable to get the download speeds that I was expecting from a 2x2 802.11ac WiFi solution despite using 5 GHz. It's possible that this is due to interference as I can't isolate the system from other WiFi hotspots in the area, but in my experience I never had any real issues with WiFi that I could notice. Reception doesn't seem to be any better or worse than other devices I've tried in recent memory.

GNSS Performance

GNSS is often critical to a mobile device these days, as a number of applications rely on highly accurate location in order to work properly. Probably the most obvious case here is going to be GPS navigation, but things like lost/stolen device location, geofencing, location-based check-ins, and other applications are all generally quite reliant on accurate location that only GNSS systems can provide. In the case of the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy  S6 edge+, we see that the GNSS module is shared with the Galaxy S6 for the Shannon modem variants as a BCM4773 GNSS location hub is present within the system.

In practice, I didn’t find much wrong with this solution. Time to first lock without any assistance data took about 30 seconds, and at the 46 second mark the maximum possible accuracy was achieved. With assistance data, a position fix was reported within 5 seconds of launching the GPS Test app. Overall, I doubt anyone will face any real problems dealing with GPS/GNSS location on these devices.

Final Words

The Galaxy Note5 is a bit of a break in form for Samsung, but in some ways it represents a return to form. To understand what this means, we can look at the various aspects that make up the Galaxy Note5 in contrast to the Galaxy S6. One of the easier places to start is the design, which shares a great deal in common with the Galaxy S6. We see a similar reflective coating under the glass, a glass back cover, an aluminum midframe, and the usual home button and thin bezels. The fingerprint scanner in the home button works about as well as you would expect and is comparable to the Galaxy S6.

The next aspect of the phone worth looking at is battery life. Here, we see that the Note5 gets a healthy bump in battery life relative to the Galaxy S6. Relative to the Note 4, battery life is basically comparable and not all that different. It seems that Samsung’s theme this year is maintaining battery life by reducing battery size and improving power efficiency. Those looking for a removable battery might be disappointed, but if you never swapped the battery in a phone like the Galaxy Note 4 there’s nothing to really worry about here. Samsung has also retained fast charging capabilities, so it isn’t nearly as important to swap batteries.

The display of the Galaxy Note5 continues to be incredible. Out of all the Android OEMs right now, Samsung is the best at display. I’m still of the opinion that the best LCDs are comparable with Samsung’s latest AMOLED panels, but within the next year or two I’m fairly confident that they won’t have any competition here. However, given the lack of second source suppliers it seems unlikely that OEMs will move en masse to OLED as strongly relying on a single supplier for any critical part of a product could easily be a disastrous mistake. The Galaxy S6 edge+ has a similar level of display quality, but the edges of the display are clearly distorted to the eye due to the subpixel arrangement used.

The SoC used continues to be the best SoC you can get in any mobile device running Android. This is likely to change next year, but given the data it’s incontrovertible that the Exynos 7420 is the fastest and most efficient SoC available in an Android device. These two factors strongly affect user experience in workloads like web browsing, updating and installing apps, and gaming. If you do any of those three things, SoC performance has a strong influence upon overall user experience for you. NAND quality isn’t quite at the same level as the Galaxy S6, but it’s more than sufficient and is unlikely to be a problem for the duration of a two year contract.

Overall, the software experience is actually quite acceptable. TouchWiz has gotten a lot better in the past generation, and any time I pick up a Galaxy S3 or Galaxy S4 I’m immediately reminded of this. However, as mentioned in the Galaxy S6 review I don’t think it’s necessarily perfect. The smoothness of the UI isn’t as amazing as some of the phones I’ve used in the past, and there are sometimes odd choices in application design like icon design. Using a Material Design theme from the theme store goes a long way to dealing with this problem, but that’s no excuse for the default theme. The Note features are useful and the single biggest reason to buy the Galaxy Note5 over another phablet, but the edge features are decidedly impractical and generally not very useful. I still think it's possible to make a better skin than TouchWiz, but I can live with TouchWiz on a primary phone.

In the camera department, on the surface nothing has changed relative to the Galaxy S6. Even if Samsung didn’t do anything for the Galaxy Note5’s camera relative to the Galaxy S6, it would still be one of the best Android cameras you can get today. However, Samsung has included a number of new features like RAW capture and improved manual mode controls. In addition, they’ve dramatically improved low light photo processing to the point that I’m confident in saying that the Galaxy Note5 beats the LG G4 and iPhone 6 Plus, but in video performance the iPhone 6 Plus is still slightly better. The Galaxy Note5 is either as good as or better than the iPhone 6 Plus for overall camera quality depending upon how strongly you want to weight video recording.

Outside of these main areas of focus, overall I like the the Galaxy Note5. In chosing to mimic the Galaxy S6 so closely it's not a bold design for Samsung and you won't find much in the way of new features, but instead what you get is in many ways a big Galaxy S6. Often because of that it's not a perfect phone - Samsung could still afford to work on polish, particularly in regards to issues like inserting the stylus backwards or RAW files that aren’t deleted - however it also does a lot well like the 5.7" SAMOLED display, the camera, and the Exynos 7420 SoC.

If you’re looking for the best Android phablet on the market today the Galaxy Note5 or Galaxy S6 edge+ is likely to be your best bet. They may not be a big jump up from the Galaxy S6, but they're still the best Android phablets you can get today. In that sense, Samsung is departing from the sort of strategy that we saw with the Galaxy Note 3 and 4 in the form of a new SoC and other improvements that came with the Note line, but like the Galaxy Note 1 and 2 these are phablet variants of their Galaxy S cousin.