Samsung Galaxy Note 4 review: fast, big and beautiful - but the size still isn't for everyone

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Samsung created the phone/tablet hybrid category, lamentably called the phablet. Its domination of the sector wasn’t just a matter of sticking a huge screen on a regular phone. And much of the company’s domination of the category is down to the fact that it fitted its big-screeners with powerful processors, lots of memory and actually useful features.

The range is called Note, and we’re now up to the fourth incarnation. The Note 4 has a 5.7-inch display. Enormous in other words. Last year’s Galaxy Note 3 had the same screen size but this year the resolution has been seriously upgraded. There are now 515 pixels per inch. This is way more than the 326ppi on the iPhone 6 or even the 401ppi of the phone designed to steal Note sales: the 5.5-inch screened iPhone 6 Plus.

In some ways it’s just more than you need and it’s only when it comes to specific uses that you see the benefit. One is in the Oculus Rift-like headset accessory. Plop the Note 4 into the Samsung Gear VR headset and the high resolution – and fast processor – means you can see high-definition 3D up close. It’s a powerful and slightly bewildering experience, but highly recommended.

But most people won’t be buying it for virtual reality but for, you know, making calls, sending texts and so on. The Note 4 does all of these well, of course, and the screen looks spectacular to the naked eye, really winning when the display is showing text which is pin-sharp.

Samsung’s speciality is Super AMOLED (Advanced Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode), and this display has all the benefits (brightness, responsiveness) and little of the usual problem (over-saturated colours) of the technology. It looks glorious, especially at this size which is enough to make watching video immersive and attractive even if you watching a movie.

The size won’t suit everyone, of course. It is very big and will defeat smaller mitts. Some bigger phones, like the iPhone 6 Plus, go out of their way to feel smaller by being super-slim and have curvy, hand-friendly backs. The Note 4 is pretty thick (8.5mm against the 6 Plus at 7.1mm) so feels hefty in the hand. Still, the frame feels great, a classy metal edge which owes more to the company’s upmarket Galaxy Alpha than to previous phones and it looks nice. The back is also a classier finish than the Note 3 and a definite improvement.

There’s a lot crammed in here, from the 3GB RAM to a stylus, called the S Pen. This hides in the bottom edge of the phone. Pull it out and it automatically launches specific apps which the stylus can use. Such as an action memo which handily recognises scribbled numbers and dials them without your having to convert them to text. There are other special stylus apps and are worth getting acquainted with, like Image Clip which lets you draw round an image to crop and save it.

The screen on the Note 4 is big enough that you can use it to show two apps at the same time. The high-resolution display helps here, too. Not all apps support this, but it’s a neat extra.

The Snapdragon 805 processor is very fast (2.7GHz) and it keeps all those pixels moving fast. It’s a very responsive phone. And it includes most of the top-end features found on its previous flagship, the Galaxy S5. So there’s a 16-megapixel camera with optical image stabilisation to make sure that you can take shots in lower light conditions with reduced camera noise. This works well and the camera is simple to use. And the video camera shoots at the new Ultra High Definition (4K) resolution for recordings which are higher resolution than most TVs so it may be some time before you can play it back in all its glory.

There’s also the fingerprint sensor which you can use to unlock the screen, for instance. It’s efficient but lacks the simplicity of the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus’s version. And the back of the phone has a heart rate sensor so you can monitor your ticker.

Battery life on a phone this size could be a concern but it sails through a full day. And it’s a quick recharge, which is handy, too.

So should you buy it? If you fancy a big phone, there are plenty of choices from the Sony Xperia Z3 (5.2-inch screen) to the iPhone 6 Plus (5.5-inches) and LG G3 (5.5 inches). More than ever it’s important to try this phone in your hand before you commit. And remember that using a case will add to weight and size, too. But it’s fast, responsive and has a stunningly beautiful screen. If you don’t mind the weight and can grip it easily, it’s a highly persuasive choice.