Galaxy Note 4

[Atomic Walrus]

Now that people have these things in-hand, can someone comment on direct sunlight readability? I'm completely sold on the idea of Wacom digitizers in everything, but performance in sunlight is a major issue where I live (sunny about 90% of the year, even winter, and I'm saying zero cloud cover). I end up using my phone outdoors quite a lot and I'm not sure I could give this up even for a digitizer. An iPad Air, for example, is unusable for me in these conditions.

At Best Buy I used a flashlight directly on the light sensor combined with Auto brightness mode to force the display into "sunlight"/"boost" mode (which also cranks the gamma and washes out the display, but I understand that's just part of increasing visibility).

What I saw was that it was almost as bright as the display on my 5S, but still not quite. I believe Anandtech's 460 nits in "boost" mode is accurate. Considering that I feel the 5S is just bright enough for use in direct sun I'm concerned that the OLED display won't be sufficient and I'm looking for real world impressions.

 

[beavo451]

I was outside in shade and it was very good at the full "normal" brightness. I went out into direct sunlight and it was just as readable with the boosted brightness. Much better than my iPad mini retina or my wife's iPhone 5.

 

[jamezr]

I have been quite impressed with my Note 4 so far. I kinda new what to expect as I had played around with one at BB a few times.
What has surprised me so far is the speakers. They are very good! Loud with quality sound.

 

[Zwhaler]

Now that people have these things in-hand, can someone comment on direct sunlight readability? I'm completely sold on the idea of Wacom digitizers in everything, but performance in sunlight is a major issue where I live (sunny about 90% of the year, even winter, and I'm saying zero cloud cover). I end up using my phone outdoors quite a lot and I'm not sure I could give this up even for a digitizer. An iPad Air, for example, is unusable for me in these conditions.

At Best Buy I used a flashlight directly on the light sensor combined with Auto brightness mode to force the display into "sunlight"/"boost" mode (which also cranks the gamma and washes out the display, but I understand that's just part of increasing visibility).

What I saw was that it was almost as bright as the display on my 5S, but still not quite. I believe Anandtech's 460 nits in "boost" mode is accurate. Considering that I feel the 5S is just bright enough for use in direct sun I'm concerned that the OLED display won't be sufficient and I'm looking for real world impressions.

I remember somewhere reported that if you switch the Note 4 to automatic brightness it can bring the display up to 750 nits in sunlight, much higher than full brightness without automatic. Is this sufficient for sunlight outdoors?

 

[AppleRobert]

No need to pinch myself to wake up from a dream I was having all this time trying the Note 4 while in BB and liking the device alot.

It is only going to continue to get even better what with Android 5 on the way.

We done good! Enjoy.

 

[MRU]

I have been quite impressed with my Note 4 so far. I kinda new what to expect as I had played around with one at BB a few times.
What has surprised me so far is the speakers. They are very good! Loud with quality sound.

What colour did you get ? White / Black ???

 

[mclld]

How much hell do you guys who always buy these new devices get from your spouses?

 

[Atomic Walrus]

I remember somewhere reported that if you switch the Note 4 to automatic brightness it can bring the display up to 750 nits in sunlight, much higher than full brightness without automatic. Is this sufficient for sunlight outdoors?

It would be, but it's not true. It goes to 460 nits in auto in full sunlight (up from ~350). My in-store test of this feature agreed with Anandtech's results (the 460); The screen got significantly brighter, but not as bright as my 5S (~500 nits).

750 nits would be so bright that there'd be no question you were holding the brightest display ever made in a consumer device. My guess would be that this result, if it's not a measurement error, is a result of OLED using an ABL system not unlike a plasma TV. This would mean that the total power usage is capped and that the display can hit higher peak brightness when most of it is dark.

This might mean you could get really good results going to an inverted mode (white text on black background). Again that's why I'm hoping to get some real world feedback, because there are a lot of potential variables beyond the stats (the screen's ability to handle reflections, etc).

 

[sotorious]

Guys touchwiz is driving me nuts! I thought people said there is no lag!!!!! if i dont get used to this quick i might have to return this if my eye does not get used to it, or it will drive me bonkers.

 

[Oohara]

What color did you guys get, still on the fence between black and white...

I'm hoping someone will get it in gold and show it here... Still harbouring this dream that it'll look awesome and actually more silver-ish on the front and then could change the back cover to black...

 

[jamezr]

What colour did you get ? White / Black ???

I got the black...i thought it blended in the better than the white.

I will post some picture later today. I really like the direction Samsung it taking with the design of the Apha and Note 4. TW is a little different too. It is much more responsive than on my GS5. It looks different as well. TW seems to use less resources as well. Right now it is using 1.4GB of the 3GB ram available. Not bad......

 

[Markyboy81]

How much hell do you guys who always buy these new devices get from your spouses?

Lots!

Guys touchwiz is driving me nuts! I thought people said there is no lag!!!!! if i dont get used to this quick i might have to return this if my eye does not get used to it, or it will drive me bonkers.

Have you tried enabling developer mode and then turning the animations/transitions off? Seems to work better. I have also experienced some lag, or rather slight stuttering.
I've also changed the runtime to ART to see if this slightly speeds things up. Make sure you've got plenty if battery left when you do this as it drains like hell while optimising apps and gets very very hot!

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Have you tried enabling developer mode and then turning the animations/transitions off? Seems to work better. I have also experienced some lag, or rather slight stuttering.
I've also changed the runtime to ART to see if this slightly speeds things up. Make sure you've got plenty if battery left when you do this as it drains like hell while optimising apps and gets very very hot!

Did you notice an internal storage used difference?

 

[Markyboy81]

Did you notice an internal storage used difference?

I'm unsure now as I don't know how much I had before as overnight it was synchronising my flickfolio account. I'm down to about 17gb now with system memory at 7.3gb

 

[The Game 161]

Guys touchwiz is driving me nuts! I thought people said there is no lag!!!!! if i dont get used to this quick i might have to return this if my eye does not get used to it, or it will drive me bonkers.

That's odd, got zero lag on here.

 

[jamezr]

Guys touchwiz is driving me nuts! I thought people said there is no lag!!!!! if i dont get used to this quick i might have to return this if my eye does not get used to it, or it will drive me bonkers.

I have no lag on my N4....exactly where do you find the lag?

 

[Oohara]

Guys touchwiz is driving me nuts! I thought people said there is no lag!!!!! if i dont get used to this quick i might have to return this if my eye does not get used to it, or it will drive me bonkers.

Disabling S Voice was a must at least on the Note 2, you might wanna try that.

 

[sotorious]

Lots!

Have you tried enabling developer mode and then turning the animations/transitions off? Seems to work better. I have also experienced some lag, or rather slight stuttering.
I've also changed the runtime to ART to see if this slightly speeds things up. Make sure you've got plenty if battery left when you do this as it drains like hell while optimising apps and gets very very hot!

I have not trier that yet. May have to.also thats what I ment by lag stuttering. Like the text message area when scrolling up gets all stuttery

----------

I have no lag on my N4....exactly where do you find the lag?

Mainly scrolling I guess I'll call it stuttering. In the tapatalk, messaging app list goes on. Also anytime a picture I'd in there that's when it hangs hard

 

[jamezr]

I have not trier that yet. May have to.also thats what I ment by lag stuttering. Like the text message area when scrolling up gets all stuttery

----------


Mainly scrolling I guess I'll call it stuttering. In the tapatalk, messaging app list goes on. Also anytime a picture I'd in there that's when it hangs hard

Sorry you are having trouble with that. I just tried Tapatalk and taking a picture then finding it in the Gallery app and it did not stutter for me.....

 

[Tsepz]

Got my Note 4 on Wednesday nite and have been thoroughly enjoying it, battery life is simply outstanding, I'm getting just over 7hours on screen time daily. I can take it off charge at 6am, go to work where it connects to WiFi, it syncs both my work and personal Email, both work and personal calender, I listen to music via headphones on it for around 1hour in total, check Twitter, Instagram and Facebook regularly, use WhatsApp on and off throughout the day, make 1 or 2 calls etc...and by the time I get home at around 5pm it still has around 55% to then be used for heavy web browsing until I go to bed at around 10:30pm, by the time I get to bed still have around 35-40% battery, pure madness! Much better than my GS4

 

[MRU]

[/COLOR]
Mainly scrolling I guess I'll call it stuttering. In the tapatalk, messaging app list goes on. Also anytime a picture I'd in there that's when it hangs hard

Sorry you are having trouble with that. I just tried Tapatalk and taking a picture then finding it in the Gallery app and it did not stutter for me.....

Yeah no stuttering on my Alpha in any of those when scrolling, could it be carrier specific firmware / bloatware causing the issue ?

For reference : post your firmware numbers & carrier is carrier branded so people can compare.

 

[The Game 161]

Battery life is stunning

3 hours, 30 Mins on screen time with 52% left

 

[sotorious]

Yeah no stuttering on my Alpha in any of those when scrolling, could it be carrier specific firmware / bloatware causing the issue ?

For reference : post your firmware numbers & carrier is carrier branded so people can compare.

T mobile and I got s voice and a handfull of other apps disabled

 

[Bishope1999]

I'm loving this phone so far, makes my GS4 laughable in comparison. I'm honestly seeing no lag on the Note 4. Neither before or after the T-Mobile firmware update. Got the black version. No chance I'm buying another phone next year lol. The GS4 was $620 last year, $825 for the Note 4 this year. That's enough spending on phones until 2016 lol


Did a little unboxing a few days back. Since I bought this phone from T-Mobile and I was going to use it on MetroPCS. I had, what I though would be issues at first. T-Mobile didn't want to cancel my line until the "20 day buyers remorse period" was over. Regardless that I told them that I didn't want their service. They said they were sorry, but couldn't close my account until 20 days ...... At night I just had to open up the phone, call metroPCS, give them the IMEI #. I installed the MetroPCS sim card and the phone worked without any problems. On November 3rd I have to call T-Mobile to get my T-mobile account closed.

I messed up quite a bit on the unboxing video, I was really off on somethings lol, but I gave the video to my friend so he can upload it on his channel. So many things to learn about the Note 3 that I was a bit lost lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZb1XwuV9tU&list=UUgM26wgbc8nzVLtfZm_bm3g


Quick question. Does anyone know how to disable night mode on the Note 4? Every time I'm in a lower light area, the little moon icon goes on. On my GS4, I would have to select night mode, but I can't seem to find a way to disable it on the Note 4.

Battery life is stunning

3 hours, 30 Mins on screen time with 52% left

Same here, I'm getting close to about 5 hours and 30 minutes total of on screen time with a lot of 4K video recording, Asphalt 8 gaming, web browsing, social media and some video play back. I'll probably get more screen on time when I ease up on the 4K recording. My GS4 would barely get pass 3 Hours and 30 minutes of screen on time.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

I'm loving this phone so far, makes my GS4 laughable in comparison. I'm honestly seeing no lag on the Note 4. Neither before or after the T-Mobile firmware update. Got the black version. No chance I'm buying another phone next year lol. The GS4 was $620 last year, $825 for the Note 4 this year. That's enough spending on phones until 2016 lol

Same here. No lag at all before or after the update. I'm also rooted and applied plenty of tweaks already. No lag before or after root.