An average phablet with a curved screen
The forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S6 has received an awful lot of attention for its curved screen. Amid all the hype, it’s easy to forget that it’s not the first Samsung phone with this eye-catching feature. The Galaxy Note Edge has a screen that curves away on its right-hand edge (see image), although the S6 Edge will have two curved edges.
The Note Edge’s curve is much more pronounced however, measuring almost a full centimetre. From time to time, users who are right-handed will find themselves accidentally triggering onscreen controls with their thumb. Left-handed users can turn the phone upside down and flip the interface via a software setting, but doing so means they’ll have to use a headset to make and take calls because the mic and earpiece will no longer be in the right positions.
The bar containing all your favourite apps has been moved to the curved edge. Swiping the curve from right to left lets you access other features, such as a ruler, a torch, notifications and a news and stocks ticker. The screen can even be set to act as a bedside clock when plugged in and laid flat.
Other features can be added by downloading ‘panels’ from Samsung’s app store. Most of these merely replicate the functions of traditional Android widgets and aren’t particularly convenient or useful. We weren’t won over by any of the screen’s features.
Aside from its curved screen, the Note Edge is very similar to the Note 4. Like other Galaxy Notes, it comes with a stylus. Pop it out of its slot and a dial appears on screen that lets you quickly jot down your thoughts, draw a diagram or annotate a screenshot. Samsung’s app store contains a small selection of apps to use with the stylus, mostly for painting and drawing. We used the stylus sparingly, but we found it to be more useful than the curved screen.
If you like using fingerprint readers as an alternative to a passcode to unlock your device, then you’re in luck (sort of). Unfortunately, the Note Edge’s reader is as frustrating to use as those on other Galaxy phones. It requires a slow, precise finger swipe, making it much more fiddly than the fingerprint readers on Apple’s recent iPhones.
We weren’t exactly bowled over by the camera either. It coped well with landscape shots in broad daylight, but skin tones in portraits looked smeared and artificial. Low-lit images were often too dark, too blurry or too blighted by noise.
Other hardware features are more impressive. The quad-core processor raced through our benchmark tests, and the touchscreen responded quickly to our prods and swipes. While the 5.6in screen is unwieldy if you’re using one hand, it’s bright with accurate colours and sharp text, thanks to its very high resolution.
Call quality in London’s West End on the Vodafone network was surprisingly poor. Callers sounded quiet and remote, while calls suffered from frequent drop-outs. Background noise from a busy building site made it past any filtering technology, so it remained very much audible. Battery life was a little below average compared with other phablets. It lasted 23 hours 20 minutes when we were connected to Vodafone’s 4G network and used the phone for calls, taking photos, web browsing and GPS. Continuously playing videos, the battery life lasted 14 and a half hours, which is three hours fewer than the Note 4.
We’re not convinced by the Note Edge’s curved screen. Its benefits are negligible and it drives up this phablet’s price (it costs nearly £150 more than the Note 4). If this is the best Samsung can do, then curved mobile screens will be a very short-lived fad indeed.
VERDICT: The slim benefits of the curved screen aren't enough to justify the price premium over the Note 4.
SPECIFICATIONS
5.6in 2560x1440-pixel touchscreen • 2.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 80S quad-core processor • 3GB memory • Adreno 330 graphics chip • 32GB storage • 4G • Micro SIM • MicroSD slot • Android 4.4 KltKat • 174g • 152x83x8mm (HxWxD) • One-year warranty