The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 has a Quad HD display and provides the screen for Samsung’s new Gear VR facemask. Samsung
Samsung is serious about phablets, and its three latest announcements add compelling twists to its Galaxy Note lineup. The most straight-forward of the company’s new offerings will be the Galaxy Note 4, its latest flagship big-screened phone. Beyond that, things get much more interesting: A Note 4 doppelganger called the Note Edge with a wraparound AMOLED screen, and an Oculus-like VR mask driven by the Note 4, the Gear VR.
Samsung’s New Phlagship Phablet
The new Galaxy Note 4 runs Android 4.4 KitKat and has a 5.7-inch AMOLED display with a 2,560 x 1,440 (Quad HD) resolution; that adds up to an incredibly sharp and colorful 518 ppi screen. Its cameras also get significant upgrades. Optical image stabilization bolsters its 16-megapixel main camera, and there’s an 8X digital zoom on that shooter. To reduce pixelation on those digitally-zoomed images, Samsung says the camera uses its own special blend of HDR-like image compositing. The front-facing camera also gets a bump, with a higher-resolution 3.7-megapixel sensor and an F1.9 aperture that helps it perform well in low light. According to Samsung, it also has a 120-degree field of view, which is a much wider-angle lens than most selfie cams.
The Note 4′s removable battery is an ample 3,220mAh unit, and the company touts its “Rapid Charge” feature, which can juice the battery 50 percent in 30 minutes. Similar to the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Tab S, the phablet also has an “Ultra Power Saver” mode that the company claims can last 24 hours with just 10 percent battery life.
I can say with confidence that it feels good in the hand. The metal-framed Note 4 has a soft faux-leather back like its predecessor, but there’s no fake stitching this time around. Its S Pen also works more like a mouse on this version; you click the stylus’s side button and drag the pen across text to highlight it, and the same actions allow you to drag-and-drop onscreen items precisely. Along with the user-accessible battery, there’s also a microSD slot that lets you add up to 64GB of extra storage.
All the Note 4 specifics haven’t been revealed just yet. Samsung says it will be available with a 2.7GHz quad-core CPU (likely to be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chip, although Samsung wouldn’t comment on the specifics) and with dual quad-core CPUs like the Exynos-based Galaxy Tab S. The pricing has yet to be announced, but the phone will launch on all all four major U.S. carriers in October.
Gear VR: A Phablet-Driven Oculus Rift
Sold separately (at a price yet to be announced this fall) will be the coolest phablet accessory in world history: the Gear VR. This is an Oculus Rift-style headset that works only with the Note 4. You insert the Note 4 into the facemask, and the phone automatically enters VR mode when you dock it into the headset.
The Note 4 docks into the Gear VR headset to provide processing power and an immersive high-res display. Samsung
When docked, the Gear VR uses the Note 4 display and its processing power for full-immersion games and movies, while the headset has its own magnetometer and accelerometer to calculate movement, as well as a proximity sensor to know when it’s on your face.
Built-in lenses with a 96-degree field of view sit between your eyes and the screen, and there’s a touchpad on the headset’s right temple for navigating on-face menus. The sides of the mask also host volume controls and a menu-back button, and there’s a focus-adjust wheel on top. The whole thing clings to your face with Velcro straps.
It is much, much more immersive than you’d expect from a phablet strapped to your face. I experienced a four-part demo that included 360-degree footage of a Coldplay concert, an Avengers virtual environment, a playable space game, and mild-nausea-inducing helicopter videos that made me feel like I was floating hundreds of feet off the ground at high speeds. I’ve done similar demos with the Oculus Rift, and I’d be hard-pressed to find a difference in performance. (It’s worth noting that the display on the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 is made from the panel of a Samsung Galaxy Note 3). The fact that it was almost entirely powered by a phone and not jacked into a computer was mind-boggling, and the wireless freedom contributes to your range of motion.
For content, Samsung has inked a partnership with Oculus that will make games and movies downloadable for the Gear VR setup through the Oculus Store. Not all Oculus content will be compatible with the Note 4/Gear VR tandem; games and videos will need to be optimized for mobile in order to work.
Samsung Galaxy Note Edge: A Note 4 With an Extra Side Screen
If the Gear VR hadn’t stolen its thunder, the Galaxy Note Edge would have been Samsung’s eyebrow-raiser of the day. Its specs are essentially identical to the Galaxy Note 4, except for its unique 5.6-inch AMOLED screen, which wraps around the right edge of the phone to provide a slim, slanted side display.
The Galaxy Note Edge has the same internal specs as the Note 4, but its AMOLED screen wraps around the side of it. Samsung
When you lay the Note Edge flat on its back, it looks like the world’s shortest clock-radio—and that is actually one of the device’s use cases. The edge of the screen is sloped at about a 45-degree angle, so the bulk of the screen can be turned off while the edge displays the time and alarm settings.
You can also set it up to scroll sports scores or Tweets like a ticker, display weather information, or scroll through stocks. It basically acts as a custom notifications panel, moving that information to the side of the device so that it doesn’t hog any valuable screen real estate.
When you’re using it as you would a normal phone, that vertical side strip offers quick access to a list of your most-used apps. Some of the in-app controls handled by that edge screen are ingenious little tweaks. For example, when you’re using the camera, the slanted edge houses the shutter button and all the settings controls. It’s a much more natural setup for hitting the touch-shutter button—it now rests right under your index finger on an comfy slant—and it provides a full-screen viewfinder view.
No pricing was revealed for the Note Edge, but it’s expected to be available this fall in the U.S.
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