**** The Official Note 5 thread ****

Beautiful! That looks so much better than the Z5. I'm sure the '5' in Z5 must refer to the diameter of the bezel in kilometres.

I'd be tempted to forgive the battery / sim thing for looks like that, were it not for the inevitable impact on residuals.
 
First thing I did when I got to Canada a couple of weeks back... go looking for a Note 5. Second thing I did, got my brother to film the unboxing with my LG G4 in the hotel room and upload it before we checked out!


First thing I did when the plane touched back down at Heathrow on Saturday was check I got 4G... which I did! Phew!
 
I think someone told me EE and Three will do 4G. Would be interested to hear from someone that can try and O2 or Voda SIM.
 
Participant said:
Beautiful! That looks so much better than the Z5. I'm sure the '5' in Z5 must refer to the diameter of the bezel in kilometres.

I'd be tempted to forgive the battery / sim thing for looks like that, were it not for the inevitable impact on residuals.
Click to expand...

While I agree the bottom bezel is bigger than the top on the Z5, let's not beat around the bush because they both have pretty big bezels and there's not a huge margin of difference between them side by side:

jch3a8f8.jpg


When I had the Note 3 I often wished that there was a bit more bezel below the soft buttons as the way I grip the phone when out and about I would sometimes accidentally press one of the soft buttons as my thumb would rest in that area for an ideal holding position, and when watching a video or reading a page or something this was sometimes an issue.
On the Z3 the gap is there and because there's no soft button to worry about, my entire thumb can rest on the bezel with full grip of the phone. It's also quite handy when taking pictures as I can use the camera button gripping the bottom of the phone like a compact.

I don't think there's any excuse for the bezel to have increased from Z3 to Z5 at the bottom, though, but it's not something I'd be losing any sleep over.
 
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But what's the purpose of the bezel on the Z5? On the N5, its purpose is to accommodate the soft / hard buttons and not waste screen space. On the Z5, is its purpose to accommodate people that can't stop accidentally pressing the soft keys?

Your comparison totally ignores the impact on wasted screen space in apps. It's not like the Z5 has front facing speakers to mitigate the huge waste of space bezels, either.
 
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Well nobody knows, all Xperia phones have had "bezel" - Perhaps it's Sony's design language for Xperia smartphones? Perhaps it's that and to serve a use as a means to better grip the phone? It is after all designed to be used in all manner of activities, so having that extra grip is always handy.

The teardown shows that there is half a PCB taking up that area: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=28535742#post28535742

So that accounts for some of the reason as far as internals go.
 
the_chicco said:
From http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note5-7431.php

This is the American version of the Note 5 (non Dual SIM)

4G bands LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 17(700), 20(800) - N920A

My version (the DUOS / dual SIM) lists this as the supported LTE networks (this was pulled directly from the eBay specifications from the phone I got)


4G LTE FDD Bands: B1(2100), B2(1900), B3(1800), B4(AWS), B5(850), B7(2600), B8(900), B12(700), B17(700), B18(800), B19(800), B25(1900), B26(800), B28(700)MHz
4G LTE TDD Bands: B38(2600), B39(1900), B40(2300), B41(2500)MHz

lfvUAwVh.jpg


So I think the long and short of it is if you want the full LTE spectrum get the Single SIM version (if I am reading the above correctly, someone correct me if I am wrong)
Click to expand...

That USA version will give full UK LTE support as it supports bands 3,7,20:

KboAbas.jpg


Your one does not support B20 otherwise I would have ordered one.
 
the_chicco said:
Ok first impressions. I am blown away from the screen seriously. Whilst its not a massive upgrade from the N4 it is definitely noticeable, colours literally jump out from the screen and side by side you can see the depth of colour, saturation, etc. The whole phone feels a lot more polished and far 'snappier'.
Click to expand...

Initial view on battery life?
 
Mine is an N920W8 and apparently covers GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS850 (B5), UMTS1700/2100 (B4), UMTS1900 (B2), UMTS2100 (B1), LTE2100 (B1), LTE700 (B17), LTE850 (B5), LTE700 (B13), LTE1700/2100 (B4), LTE1800 (B3), LTE2600 (B7), LTE1900 (B2), LTE700 (B12), LTE2300 (B30)
 
Cosimo said:
Initial view on battery life?
Click to expand...

I was quite worried. I bought it on the second day of my holiday (first morning in Canada) and was to use it as my main camera for the two week trip. I barely managed more than around 6 hours before I was down to 30% battery, but then I was hammering it hard.

Since returning home it seems to be 'normal'. I still hear people saying it has epic battery life, but it doesn't seem to beat the G4 for me so far. Not even particularly close I wouldn't say. (I found the G4 to have pretty epic battery life mind you. 1 hour listening to podcasts and it was still 100% for example)
 
The downside of having a none removable battery I guess when your on holiday taking a lot of pictures and cant replace it or put in a bigger one.
 
Definitely. But I did have a fairly small 14,000mAh portable battery I would just connect up from time to time.

Also, having only 32GB caught me out, like I never thought it would... but then again, everything was backing up to OneDrive whenever I got WiFi (which in North America is any time you sit down somewhere) so I just started deleting earlier photo's and video's. (Google Photo's also backing them up for that matter)

So actually the argument about needing more storage didn't really hold up in this extreme test. The Cloud made the difference like it should.
 
AndyCr15 said:
Definitely. But I did have a fairly small 14,000mAh portable battery I would just connect up from time to time.

Also, having only 32GB caught me out, like I never thought it would... but then again, everything was backing up to OneDrive whenever I got WiFi (which in North America is any time you sit down somewhere) so I just started deleting earlier photo's and video's. (Google Photo's also backing them up for that matter)

So actually the argument about needing more storage didn't really hold up in this extreme test. The Cloud made the difference like it should.
Click to expand...

It would have to be 64GB for me so I presume that getting a 32GB wasn't out of choice? How is TouchWiz and lag?
 
Whats the 4G performance like without Band 20? which I believe is the 800 MHz signal which is supposed to be the strongest of the 3 signals. Im on EE which has good coverage in my area.

Thanks
 
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