The long awaited announcement of the new Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was predictably made last week at IFA Berlin and then Samsung Canadian made it quite clear that the Galaxy Note 4 would find its way to Canada “later this year.” Not that we had any doubts that the Galaxy Note 4 would make its way to Canada…it’s always nice to hear the official word. We are happy to announce that today, several of the Canadian carriers have committed to adding the Note 4 to their arsenal of devices – TELUS, Koodo, Rogers, SaskTel, Bell, Wind Mobile and Videotron – with a launch possibly slated for early October.
The Galaxy Note 4, like all of Samsung’s recent devices, is nothing revolutionary when it comes to design changes…simply an evolutionary upgrade from the previous Galaxy Note 3. The Note 4 is even more refined and elegant looking, as well as offering a better ‘feel’ when you hold the device. Most of this is because Samsung finally incorporated a metal frame – not only metal, but a sculptured metal, adding even more of an elegant flair to its looks. Thankfully, they stuck with the faux leather backing and stitching rather than using the ‘dimpled’ effect on the Galaxy S5 – somehow the grain of leather looks better to me.
Samsung upped ante in three important areas – the display, processor and camera. The screen size of 5.7-inches remained the same, but it jumped from a Full HD display of 1080p to a QHD display with 1440p and 515 Pixels-Per-Inch (PPI). Samsung included the best processor that they could – a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 clocked at 2.7GHz…still 32-bit, but a screamer none-the-less, especially in the GPU department, so if you are a gamer or heavy video user, you will be in for a real treat. The same 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage were carried over from the Note 3…and there is a microSD slot to add an additional 64GB of storage. The other big news is not that the main camera jumped from 13MP to 16MP, but that Samsung finally added the long overdue OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) – they also made a nice improvement on the Front-Facing Camera (FFC) as it was jumped up to 3.7MP with a wide angle to capture better selfies.
The other features are an improved S-Pen and software – the fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor came over from the Galaxy S5 and they also added a UV sensor as well…useful or gimmick, you make the call. Please hit us up on our Google+ Page and let us know if the Galaxy Note 4 is on your radar and what you think of it…as always, we would love to hear from you.