The upcoming and oft-rumoured duo of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ have gotten a somewhat-official unofficial hands-on ahead of their announcement on August 13 at Samsung Unpacked in New York. Courtesy of a retail representative posting via reddit, joelrtaveras shared a quick rundown of what it felt like to handle the devices in their current pre-production form, and user in00b shared a set of pictures of this leaking pair to complement.
Needless to say, the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is going to be paramount to Samsung’s success in the latter half of 2015, especially given people’s reaction to the removal of the ability to swap batteries, and expand the device’s internal storage using MicroSD cards. The Note 5, according to the post by joelrtaveras, does not feature an SD card slot, as does the all-but-confirmed S6 edge+. As much of a letdown as the lack of features that once made Samsung king of many people’s pocket and purse is, the post mentions how the Note features a tapered glass panel on the back, to make holding the behemoth easier and more comfortable compared to its dual-edged launch partner.
What’s also something to pay attention to is that the Galaxy Note 5, according to the posting, does feature the auto-ejecting S Pen we caught wind of a while back. It’s clarified as being spring-loaded, likely functioning like an Sd card slot, where you push in until it clicks then it sticks out enough to pull out to use. The feature makes sense, especially when the phone features the S Pen being completely flush with the bottom edge of the device so as not to interrupt the aluminium outer band.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+, on the other hand, got some further clarification thanks to this rather in-depth leak. It looks like the Galaxy S6 edge+ will not only be larger in size, looking like it’ll feature the rumoured 5.7-inch QuadHD display, but it also seems to have gotten an improved set of internals. DroidFeed notes that the S6 edge+ might also feature beefier internals than the spring flagships that share its name. The edge+ will apparently use the increased physical space in its chassis to house a larger battery, as well as an upgraded processor and the larger display and its curved edges.
Something small, at least for the time before launch, is the actual experience of the device, and we were given a quick bit of that. Apparently, the Note 5 does feature the highly-rumoured 4 gigabytes of RAM to finally allow users to have enough RAM to have Touchwiz not interfere with the experience of having a few apps open at the same time. Sadly, according to joelrtaveras, the Note 5 had, upon checking right after booting up, about half of the RAM available and free. So, it looks like the Note 5 will have just as heavy and intensive an overlay as ever, though much of the extra RAM consumption will likely be on behalf of the various S Pen-specific apps and functionality. With so much known about these devices, all that remains is the proof of battery capacity, and whether the Galaxy S6 edge+ will in fact feature improved specifications over the spring flagships from Samsung earlier this year, though we might learn just that between now and the event on the 13th.
