At its latest Unpacked 2014 Episode 2 event in Berlin, Samsung has officially unveiled the new Galaxy Note 4 smartphone. On top of that, Samsung has also unveiled a new, curved display variant of the Note series, called the Galaxy Note Edge.
The new Galaxy Note 4 is yet another evolution in the Galaxy Note series. Featuring the new design language found in the Galaxy Alpha, the Galaxy Note 4 retains the “soft touch” faux leather back cover, but added a totally new metal frame to further add to Samsung’s new premium line of Galaxy devices.
The Galaxy Note 4 also reintroduces a 2.5D glass display, which has a gentle curve, to aid natural swipe gestures. Beneath the glass is a 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display, which Samsung claims offers up to 20% more colours in the RGB range.
Powering the Galaxy Note 4 is either a 2.7GHz quad-core processor, or a 1.9GHz + 1.3GHz octa-core processor. This difference is also seen in the LTE network support, where it supports either LTE Cat 4 or the faster LTE Cat 6. There’s also 3GB of RAM, with 32GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot that supports up to 64GB cards.
In terms of imaging, the Note 4 is packed with a 16MP rear camera with Smart OIS, while the front is a large 3.7MP shooter with an equally large F1.9 aperture. The front facing camera also packs new selfie modes, including one that lets you use the heart rate sensor as a shutter button just by hovering your finger over it. While the front facing camera offers a 90-degree viewing angle by default, the Wide Selfie mode lets you capture an even wider audience, at 120 degrees.
In addition, the Note 4 packs a 3220mAh battery, which is barely larger than the 3200mAh in the Note 3. But, Samsung claims the battery life is 7.5% better than the Note 3, despite the sharper display. On top of that, the new Galaxy Note 4 also supports fast charging, which allows it to charge from flat to 50% in only 30 minutes.
The main focus of the Galaxy Note series is of course, the S Pen. This time around, the new S Pen is even more powerful than before, featuring twice the pressure points, allowing it to better recognise even more types of input, such as tilt, rotation, speed and pressure level. Multi Window has also been tweaked, letting you easily add, minimise and open apps using the S Pen.
On top of that, the new functionalities of the S Pen makes it even more powerful than before. You can use it just like a mouse, letting you highlight multiple items in a list simply by clicking the S Pen button and dragging across the items you’d like to highlight. It works with texts too, and you can select multiple text passages.
Finally, the Galaxy Note 4 weighs 176g and the chassis is 8.5mm thick.
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The Galaxy Note 4 will be available in four colours: Charcoal Black, Frost White, Bronze Gold and Blossom Pink. The company has announced that the Note 4 will be available worldwide starting in October. Also, the company has also introduced four new covers for the Note 4 (including an LED cover reminiscent of the HTC Dot View Case), and a new collaboration with Swarovski to further add bling to the Note 4.
In addition, the company also announced an exciting partnership with luxury pen maker Mont Blanc to introduce a range of beautiful S Pen variants as well as two real leather cases.
Besides that, Samsung has also unveiled a new variant of the Note 4, called the Galaxy Note Edge. Featuring a similar set of hardware specifications with the Note 4, the main difference here is with the curved display, which also extends to the right side of the phone – the display is similar to Samsung’s YOUM display technology that was announced last year. Samsung says that this display will be a developer’s dream, opening up new capabilities of the device to display all kinds of new information on the side strip, which is called the Edge Screen.
The Edge Screen is independent from the main Quad HD display, allowing it to display contextual information, such as camera viewfinder or new notifications; Samsung calls this a Revolving UX. With the new SDK, developers can create even more interesting applications for the Edge Screen, such as an news ticker that displays information that is tailored to your tastes.
From our initial request, it appears that the Galaxy Note Edge will not be making its way to Malaysia, as it will only be available in selected markets worldwide.
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Hands On: Samsung Galaxy Note 4 & Galaxy Note Edge
Stay tuned for more from the Unpacked event here from Berlin!
