Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Announced. Here Is Why You Might Want To Give It A Miss.

The most anticipated smartphone from Samsung is official now. But the chances are that you might not like Samsung Galaxy Note 5 at all.

Samsung did a lot of changes to its flagship phone series and launched Samsung Galaxy S6 in the earlier part of this year. People have been looking for a fresh design from Samsung and they got that. But at a price. The Galaxy S6 looks great but it compromises on a lot of features the Samsung flagship phones are popular for.

The Reason Behind The Insane Popularity Of ‘Samsung Galaxy Note’ Series

The original Samsung Galaxy Note was the first phone featuring a large display which got sold like hot cakes. Let me tell you that the Note series was never about compact form-factor and all the phones under this series were difficult to operate with one-hand. I am deciding to not use the word ‘unwieldy’ for such great phones.

The phones under the Galaxy Note series have always been in huge demand due to their below mentioned features:

• Superb Camera: The Galaxy Note series is known for its imaging prowess. In fact, it always leads the way when it comes to photography and video shooting. So if you want a great camera phone, and don’t have a tight budget then the latest Samsung Galaxy Note is the way to go.
• Gorgeous Display: Note series is always equipped with the best AMOLED display that Samsung has ever produced.
• Removable Battery Providing Great Battery Backup: The Galaxy Note series had always held on the removable batteries even if the competition decided to do away with the support for removable batteries for making the phones thinner and thinner. Note series has always had an excellent battery backup but the company still had removable batteries in the phone, just in case the consumer might want to switch batteries while on a long-trip or a trek.
• Support For Expandable Memory: Support for expandable memory via microSD card slot has always been an inherent part of the Samsung Galaxy Note series even if the phones supported internal memories as big as 64 GB.
• Excellent Performance:  I’ve never seen a ‘Galaxy Note’ series phone whose performance was not up to the mark. They pack the best of the hardware and almost always run on the latest Android OS customized with TouchWiz UI on top of it.

Here Is Why You Might Want To Give Galaxy Note 5 A Miss?

Samsung followed what it did in the Galaxy S6, and Galaxy S6 Edge and decided to have no support for removable battery and expandable memory in the Galaxy Note 5.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 also doesn’t have an IR port which lets you use your smartphone as a universal remote.

These are one of the biggest pain points that I have found in the Galaxy Note 5. I do believe that the exclusion of these features in the Note 5 might have a huge impact on its sales. I will certainly not go for the Galaxy Note 5 and would also advice you to either wait or go for Galaxy Note 4 if you’re die-hard Samsung fan.

Does Choosing Galaxy Note 4 Over Galaxy Note 5 Make Sense?

If you have deep-pockets and don’t care about the value-for-money then you should always go for the latest device in the market. But if you want the best bang for your hard-earned bucks, then follow the comparison below:

Hardware	Samsung Galaxy Note 5	Samsung Galaxy Note 4
Chipset	Exynos 7420	Snapdragon 805
CPU	1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 Quad core + 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57 Quad-core	Quad-core 2.7 GHz Krait 450
GPU	Mali-T760MP8	Adreno 420
RAM	4 GB	3 GB
Memory	32/64/128 GB; External- None.	32 GB, External- up to 128 GB via microSD card.
Display	5.7″ 2K Super AMOLED, Gorilla Glass 4	5.7″ 2K Super AMOLED, Gorilla Glass 4
OS	Android 5.1.1	Android 5.1
Camera	Primary- 16 MP, AF, LED Flash; Secondary: 5 MP	Primary- 16 MP, AF, LED Flash; Secondary: 5 MP
Battery	Li-Po 3000 mAh (non-removable)	Li-ion 3220 mAh
Connectivity	EDGE, HSDPA, Bluetooth v4.2, WiFi with WiFi Direct, USB Host, GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS	EDGE, HSDPA, Bluetooth v4.1, WiFi with WiFi Direct, USB Host, GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS, IR port
Dimensions	153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6 mm	153.5 x 78.6 x 8.5 mm

After going through the above hardware comparison, it becomes clear that the Galaxy Note 5 only packs incremental upgrades over the Galaxy Note 4. Technically, the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 should be better than the Galaxy Note 4 in all aspects, however the differences might not be groundbreaking at all.

Now given the fact that Samsung releases only 1 Note series  phone in a year, it becomes evident that the phone will ace its predecessor at least in a few departments, if not all of them.

Out of the many things that will be better in the Galaxy Note 5 would be its camera, better display, and speed of operation.

On the other hand, the Galaxy Note 4 also scores more than decent scores in these departments. So it is up to you whether you would like to spend thousands of rupees just for staying on top of the technology curve.

Expected Price

There is no word on the official price tag of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, but we are expecting the basic version with 32 GB memory to be priced around Rs. 50,000, and 64 GB model at Rs. 55,000 approximately. More information would be available on 21 August upon its official launch in the local market.

What are your thoughts about the Galaxy Note 5? Would you spend more than Rs. 50,000 to buy it?