Samsung experience centers within Best Buy locations just got display Note 4s today to demo. The 86th and Lex location in Manhattan had 3 Note 4s as well as an Alpha to play around with.
I'll start with the Alpha since I was able to play around with one in London earlier this week:
- It is getting no attention apparently - one phone was setup in the middle of the center, surrounded by S5s and without even the info card setup. Unless I was looking for it and knew what to look for, there's no way I would have noticed it.
- The metal frame, thinness, and smaller size make for a great in-hand feel. Seriously - it feels better than my wife's iPhone 6. It's not slippery, I can one-hand it most of the time, and the metal frame is surprisingly rigid. There's no flex to the phone anymore - something that's been part of Samsung phones for years now.
- The display is not good enough for the price. Maybe a 720p RGB-stripe would be sufficent, but small text was a touch fuzzy and non-mobile sites text weren't readable when zoomed out (in fairness I'd never try to read text that small anyway). But it's in stark comparison to the Note 4.
- Everything felt decently fast, but the default homescreens looked a bit "older" than the Note 4 with its freshened up look.
- Before the Z3 Compact, I might have recommended it as a "smaller" premium Android phone. But to truly be an iPhone 6 competitor, they need to fit in a 1080p pentile screen and a larger battery (it really is extremely thin and another mm wouldn't hurt the in hand feel at all). If Samsung created 3 flagships phones with their new design with a 1080p Alpha at 4.7", the S6 at 5.1/5.2" and the Note 4 at 5.7", they'd have a very strong lineup.
Note 4 impressions
- The metal frame makes even a bigger difference in the phone the size of the Note 4 vs the Alpha. It's extremely rigid and doesn't flex at all under normal pressure. IMO it feels and looks great. The back is actually good for me as it's not slippery, is easily removable, and can be replaced.
- The buttons all feel very precise and 'clicky' which is great. The home button also has far less lateral movement than the Note 3 (it had some annoying slack), but still isn't perfect. The Alpha home button had no lateral movement so if it's a 10 and the Note 3 was a 3, the Note 4 felt like an 8.5.
- The screen is gorgeous - using the OPO for the last month or so, I've missed the darker blacks. It's quite bright and very sharp. Bringing up the non-mobi phonearena.com website, even zoomed out, tiny text was sharp and even up close couldn't see any blurring. Fantastic display.
- In the few minutes I used it, everything felt as fast as expected. No stuttering, though I forgot to check what gestures/bloatware were turned on/off. My magazine is still there, though it loads pretty quickly now. The home screen layouts and widgets seem a bit more modern and cleaner. Some of the widgets might actually end up staying on my phone (pedometer for example). Still, I'm 90% sure I'll end up using Nova Prime.
- The only negative is the fact that Samsung (and all other Android OEMs) don't pick the right lcd_density for their larger phones. Basically you still see the same amount of content on screen as any other 1080p 5" flagship. Everything is just bigger, including navigation bars and menus. Whether it be the Note 3 or OPO, I've had to root them and adjust lcd_density from 480 to 380 so that I actually get more content on screen and things like address bars are not stupidly large. Only Apple AFAIK looks at the physical size, resolution and whatever lcd_density applies to. So with the iPhone 6 and 6 plus, you get a balance between things being bigger + displaying more content.
I'm going to pick one up anyway, but it won't become my primary phone until a root method is found.
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