The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is an Android phablet smartphone developed and produced by Samsung Electronics. The Galaxy Note 4 was unveiled during a Samsung press conference at IFA Berlin on 3 September 2014 and was released globally in October 2014. It is the successor to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Its subsequent model, the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, was unveiled on 13 August 2015.
Specifications
Hardware
The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 features a 2560×1440 Quad HD (QHD) WQ HD Super AMOLED 5.7-inch display with 2.5D damage-resistant Gorilla Glass 4, and provides a pixel density of 515 ppi (pixels-per-inch). The Note 4 comes in two variants, one powered by a 2.7 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 chipset with Adreno 420 GPU, the other powered by Samsung’s ARMv8-A Exynos 7 Octa SoC with two clusters of four cores; four Cortex-A57 cores at 1.9 GHz, and four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.3 GHz, which is the same processor cluster sold for the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 in markets that mostly use or only have 3G (such as HSUPA and HSPA), and/or '2G', such as unaltered GSM and CDMA networks, similar to how the Galaxy Note 3 is sold. The phone has metal edges with a plastic, faux leather back. The China model is TD-LTE and TD-SCDMA Plus Network.
Both devices that use 4G, LTE/LTE-A and Hybrid 4G-LTE Networks are currently only sold in Canada, Australia, the U.S., the United Kingdom (for some carriers), Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and South Korea, which have widespread 4G LTE Markets, or are solely 4G/LTE/LTE-A dependant such as Canada and Denmark, which do not use any 3G or older networks, except for HSUPA (Used as a fall back network should the signal strength be weak due to being underground or in the middle of a building), as well as HSPA+, which is a 3G network, though considered by some to be the Original 4G. The GPU in charge in the Exynos chipset is the Mali-T760. Both variants come with 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 32GB of internal memory. Samsung touted new S-Pen features including tilt and rotation recognition but these features are either not implemented or not supported. The Note 4's back-cover has a strong resemblance to the Note 3, with a faux leather texture (although without the simulated stitching). Note 4 has a new aluminum frame design, bearing resemblance from the Samsung Galaxy Alpha. Criticism has been aimed at the lack of IP67 certification (water and dust resistance), which is present in Samsung's other flagship, the Galaxy S5.
The Note 4 also incorporates a user-removable 3,220mAh lithium-ion battery for the global model and a 3,000mAh non-removable lithium battery for the model sold in China. The phone supports Qi inductive charging.
The Note 4 features a USB 2.0 charging port instead of USB 3.0 (as was in the Note 3 and S5), in favor of a new feature called Fast Charge, which Samsung claims can charge the phone from 0% to 50% in about 30 minutes and from 0% to 100% in less than 100 minutes. It features some unique sensors such as a UV sensor and heart-rate monitor, oximeter, among other, more common sensors.
The Note 4 also includes a stylus pen seamlessly incorporated into the design.
Software
The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 originally shipped with Google's mobile operating system, Android, specifically KitKat 4.4.4, with its user interface modified with Samsung's custom skin named TouchWiz Nature UX 3.0. The Note 4 contains most of the original Note's software features and functions, but also adds more significant upgrades from the predecessors, such as a new multitasking interface, expanded S-Pen functions, gestures, and refreshed menus and icons.
The device can be updated to Android 5.0.1 Lollipop in many regions, bringing a new, refined UI, and new runtime. This version has been criticized for poor battery life. A further update to 5.1.1 is available, depending on the wireless carrier.
Most Note 4 devices can also be updated to Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, bringing Android features like Android Doze (a feature introduced in Marshmallow that saves battery life) and greater control over app permissions to the device. The Note 4 TouchWiz UI was also improved featuring new stock app icons and also features new S Pen features (Most from the Galaxy Note 5) like the new Air command and Screen off memo. However, the UI is still very similar to the previous UI and slightly similar to the S6 UI, but most of TouchWiz UI resembles the original UI for the Note 4.
Camera
The main (rear-facing) camera is a 16 MP autofocus camera, featuring Smart OIS (Optical Image Stabilization + software image stabilization). It has 4K video recording at 30 fps and 1080p video recording at 30 fps and 60 fps (Smooth Motion) and also it has 120 fps slow motion video recording in 720p resolution. The secondary (front-facing) camera is a 3.7 MP camera with an f1.9 aperture that can record 2560×1440 QHD videos and capture wide-angle pictures.
Sales
Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was released around the start of October 2014, and was available in most major markets by the middle of October. The first regions to receive the device were South Korea and China where it gained huge popularity. In the first month only, the Galaxy Note 4 reportedly sold 4.5 million units, which is a little less than its predecessor, the Galaxy Note 3, which was able to report 5 million sales in the first month after release. Samsung says that sales of the Note 4 were lower than those of the Note 3 at launch because the Note 4 was initially unavailable in some major international markets due to manufacturing issues, delaying release until early November in markets including the United Kingdom and India.
Plug-in for Samsung Gear VR
Only Snapdragon chipset variants of the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, sold by US mobile carriers and other European carriers, may be plugged into the Samsung Gear VR headset, which was created in partnership with Oculus VR.
Reception
When the Note 4 was released in late 2014, DisplayMate measured the performance of the display and said it was the best performing smartphone display ever tested and raised the bar for display performance. Note 4s were used to film Cai Lan Gong, the world's first feature film shot with a smartphone at 4K resolution.
Successor
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (branded and marketed as Samsung Galaxy Note5) is an Android phablet smartphone developed and produced by Samsung Electronics. The Galaxy Note 5, along with the Galaxy S6 Edge+, was unveiled during a Samsung press conference in New York City on 13 August 2015. It is the successor to the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. The phone became available in the U.S. on 21 August 2015. The Note 5 is not found in high street retailers within Europe.
Issue
Many users reported that their Snapdragon Note 4 phones failed to boot with the error of "mmc_read failed". Some of them are reporting that the problem only occurs after the OTA Marshmallow update, but the other said that even without the update, they also got the same error. Related with this boot error, the same affected phones may freeze and eventually reboot after the screen locked, and in severe cases, reboot randomly during usage. A workaround of preventing the CPU from going into deep sleep is available. A class action lawsuit against Samsung about the eMMC problem in the United States is available.[1]
Batteries are being recalled for overheating risk.
See also
- Comparison of smartphones
