Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: A Galaxy S6 Edge+ variant with a stylus

In 2015, Samsung released the Galaxy Note 5, a phablet that didn’t have a global release. In the UK, you had to make do with the Galaxy S6 Edge+ instead, if you wanted a large Samsung phone. Of course, if you really wanted the Note 5, you could have imported it – now you’ll be able to find a limited supply of the phone through various online retailers from around £440.

At the time, I managed to get hold of one via Mobile Fun, so I’ve put it through all our usual tests to see what you’re missing out on, whether it’s worth waiting for, or whether you should just go for the S6 Edge+ instead.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: Build quality

It’s a shame that we’re not getting the Note 5 at the moment, as the build quality has been dramatically improved since the excellent Galaxy Note 4. Rather than a faux leather rear, Samsung has used a glass back and front this time round, complete with a metal frame. Essentially, the Galaxy Note 5 is the larger version of the Galaxy S6, just as the S6 Edge+ is the larger version of the S6 Edge.

The metal frame certainly lends it an air of durability, but its curved edges feel rather too slippery for me. Just like the normal S6, I don’t really feel that confident with it when I’m holding it with one hand, as the glass back provides no grip whatsoever. As a result, it can slide around on your palm very easily, and its wider frame makes it that bit more difficult to grip firmly than the S6.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: S-Pen

This is vital when it comes to using the S-Pen, the Note 5’s integrated stylus, as you’ll be holding the phone in your non-dominant hand. It’s fine if you’ve got big hands and can hold the Note 5 securely, but those with smaller hands may find it a bit more difficult to manage. I found myself being overly cautious with the Note 5 when using the S-Pen, as I worried I was going to drop it. This doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence, especially when the phone is so expensive.

This is a shame, as the pen itself is much easier to use than before. It’s been redesigned since the Note 4’s S-Pen, and is now spring-loaded so all you need to do to start using it is push down on the rear of the pen and it will pop out of its cubby hole in the bottom of the phone. Its thin, rectangular shape is extremely comfortable to hold, and it’s quick and easy to write with. Even better, the screen’s built-in palm rejection means you can rest your hand on the screen without making any accidental marks on the page.

Click the pen’s button and you’ll bring up Samsung’s newly redesigned Air Command wheel, which gives you app shortcuts to S Note, Screen Write, Smart Select and Action Memo, but you can also add two shortcuts of your own choosing, like Microsoft’s OneNote, for instance, which comes pre-installed on the handset.

This works particularly well with Screen Write (which takes a screenshot of whatever you’re looking at and lets you write on it) and Smart Select (which lets you crop and save any part of the screen), as you can then add your own personal annotations in OneNote to send to friends and family or view on the big screen when you get back to your laptop.

^ Tap the S-Pen’s button and Air Command will pop-up instantly, allowing you to access several pen-friendly app shortcuts

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: Display

There’s little difference in the screen between the Note 4 and the Note 5, with both having a 5.7in, 2,560×1,440 resolution display, providing a pixel density of 518ppi. This may not be the highest pixel density around these days, but it still provides more than enough detail for any conceivable use. The big screen and high resolution also let you take full advantage of Samsung’s Multi-Window feature, which lets you use two apps side by side.

This is particularly handy if you want to send a text while looking at Google Maps, or quickly look something up on IMDB while you’re watching a video clip, and you can adjust the size of each app to your liking on the fly, too. App support is spotty though, for example there’s Google Maps, Chrome, WhatsApp, Skype and Twitter, but no Inbox (the new Gmail interface), Keep or Netflix.

Of course, with a Super AMOLED panel, image quality is excellent. Samsung’s panels have long returned superb scores in terms of colour reproduction, and the Note 5 is no exception, covering a full 100% of the sRGB colour gamut and delivering perfect 0.00cd/m2 blacks. Its contrast levels are also super high, returning a contrast ratio of infinity:1, giving images plenty of detail along with bright, vibrant colours. As with other S6-series phones there are colour presets provided, so you can tweak how colours are shown onscreen, from highly accurate to really vivid and punchy.

The Note 5’s screen is also much brighter than the regular S6 handsets, as I measured a peak brightness of 406.85cd/m2. This is quite high for an AMOLED display, so it should be easier to use outside. However, like Samsung’s other flagships this year, the Note 5 has a hidden brightness trick. While its maximum manual brightness might only reach 400cd/m2, switching to Auto will make it shine much brighter under the right lighting conditions, such as when you’re outside in bright sunshine. With the summer months now firmly behind us, I simulated the effect by shining a torch over the Note 5’s ambient light sensor, and sure enough the screen almost doubled in brightness straight away.

Of course, this will drain the battery pretty quickly if used for long periods of time, but it’s nevertheless a really handy feature to have, as it effectively combines the best of both AMOLED and LCD screen technologies to create a brilliant, yet versatile display you can see in all lighting conditions.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: Performance

At the heart of the smartphone is Samsung’s octa-core Exynos 7420 chipset, the same chip used in the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, as well as the S6 Edge+. This has a 2.1GHz, quad-core CPU for when the phone needs to perform powerful tasks, and a battery-saving 1.5GHz quad-core CPU for less intensive work. It also has 4GB of RAM at its disposal, too, giving it the same specification as the S6 Edge+.

However, despite all four of Samsung’s flagships sharing the same SoC, I’ve seen a wide range of results across the board in our suite of benchmarks. The S6 Edge leads the way in almost every test apart from Peacekeeper, but luckily, the Note 5 isn’t far behind, as its Geekbench 3 scores of 1,394 in the single core test and 4,493 in the multicore test put it second in terms of raw processing speed. More importantly, it’s just ahead of the S6 Edge+, although the difference is so small that you’re unlikely to notice it in everyday use.

Either way, the Note 5 is exceedingly quick. Apps open in a heartbeat and Samsung’s TouchWiz interface for Android 5.1.1 feels super slick and responsive. Likewise, with a Peacekeeper score of 1,410, web browsing was silky smooth. Web pages loaded in no time at all and scrolling down pages was as quick and seamless as could possibly be.

The Note 5’s gaming performance is equally exceptional, as its 1,528 frames in GFX Bench GL’s offscreen Manhattan test equate to an impressive 25fps. It’s not quite as fast as Sony’s Xperia Z5, mind, but this is still more than enough to handle any type of game on the Google Play Store, as everything from Hearthstone to Alphabear ran perfectly smoothly.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: Battery Life

Samsung has fitted a 3,000mAh battery into the Note 5, which is the same size as the one in the S6 Edge+. However, despite sharing the same battery, the Note 5 finished our continuous video playback test almost 40 minutes behind the S6 Edge+, lasting 12h 43m with the screen set to 170cd/m2.

This makes it the shortest battery life of all Samsung’s 2015 flagship phones, which is disappointing considering its size. It’s also rather confusing, as beside the curved edge display everything else on these phones is identical. There’s some statistical variation in the test of course, but not enough to account for this much difference. It’s possible that Samsung has tweaked the firmware in the intervening weeks but even then that shouldn’t have negatively impacted the battery to such an extent in such a simple test.

That said, it’s still pretty respectable and should be more than enough to last the day under normal use. Of course, like the rest of the S6 family, the Note 5 doesn’t have a replaceable battery, but it does support fast-charging and wireless charging, making it easy to top-up when you’re on the move.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: Storage

There’s no microSD card slot, so you have to make do with the storage on the phone. There are 32GB and 64GB versions, which should be enough storage for most people, although a 128GB version would have been nice.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: Camera

The 16-megapixel camera used by the S6 family has been consistently one of the best, if not the best, sensors of 2015, and thankfully the Note 5 has one as well. While it’s a bit of a shame Samsung didn’t choose to put its new 1um pixel sensor in the Note 5, picture quality is still superb. Colours were lovely and bright in my outdoor shots, and detail levels were excellent, as the image appeared crisp and sharp right to the very edges of the frame. There was also plenty of contrast available, and no signs of noise or processing artefacts whatsoever.

Indoors painted a similar picture, as our still life was beautifully illuminated, even in poor lighting conditions and detail levels were high across the board. Samsung’s automatic smoothing can occasionally airbrush over finer textures, such as the wood grain on our posable figure, but it’s still one of the best smartphone cameras I’ve seen in the last year.

^ The Note 5 takes excellent photos, capturing plenty of detail while keeping colours crisp and natural throughout the frame

^ Even in poor lighting conditions, the Note 5 delivers rich, punchy colours and shadows show only minimal amounts of noise

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: Samsung Pay

Samsung Pay is fully supported on the Note 5, which means that you’ll be able to use it to pay for goods in-store without having to pull your wallet out. It works in a very similar way to Apple Pay, utilising the now widespread Contactless standard. Until the service launches in the UK we won’t know the transaction limits or how many banks support it. See everything we know about Samsung Pay.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: Verdict

While the stylus was a nice touch, in our experience you see a lot of people with Note handsets and rarely are they wielding it. The big draw of the Note-series then was its big screen and not it’s name-giving pen. That said, it’s a pity that Samsung didn’t bring this model to the UK, as not everyone was keen on the curved edge display of the Galaxy S6 Edge+.

The Note 5 has so much in common with the Galaxy S6 Edge+, which I think is much more comfortable and easy to hold, the Note 5 doesn’t immediately make me feel like I’m missing out on much. The S-Pen obviously makes it quite different from other smartphones on the market, but unless you’re one of its rare devotees, then the S6 Edge+ is the much better option.