If you think this review of the Galaxy Note 4 is going to be biased, that is totally understandable. But it seems that quite a few people enjoyed Samsung Tomorrow’s most average editor’s first review of the Galaxy Note 4. So, thanks to you, that I was given the task of reviewing the Galaxy Note 4… again (only minimal sarcasm).
Before we start, let’s make sure that we avoid talking from an in-depth technical perspective, or any perspective in that matter, such as how the Quad HD Super AMOLED adaptive display can reproduce over 90% Adobe RGB, 3,686,400 pixels and has a response times as fast as a millionth of a second.
Instead, let’s stick with the perspective of the average Joe and talk about apps.
First of all, as much as I love to download apps, I enjoy deleting them just as much. However, it always feels like downloading apps is much easier than deleting them. Luckily enough, the Galaxy Note 4 that I’m using to review has already been passed around the office like a fresh edition of your favorite comic book, so there were plenty of apps I already wanted to delete. I’ve found out there are two ways you can delete/disable apps on the Galaxy Note 4: an easy way and the pro way.
Here’s the easy way.
Select ‘Apps’ on the Home Screen
Click the icon on the upper right corner with three buttons laid out horizontally.
Select Uninstall/disable apps
Select the apps you wish not to use anymore with the ‘-‘ icon.
Now here is the pro way. As a word of caution, using the pro way should be done carefully, because you don’t want to accidently delete any critical system related apps that can bring trouble to your phone. If you are 100% confident of what you know and doing it like a pro, go ahead and use this method.
Select ‘Apps’ on the Home Screen
Find the ‘Settings’ icon then go to ‘Application Manager’
Here you have four options – ‘Downloaded’ ‘SD Card’ ‘Running’ and ‘All’ – which you can browse by swiping to the right.
Select the apps you wish not to use anymore and disable or delete.
OK, since we got that cleared up, it is time to play. However, I realized that the person who used the Galaxy Note 4 before me did not charge it. It only had about 6% battery left. Therefore, immediately, I thought of the Ultra Power Saving Mode.
Ultra Power Saving Mode changes the screen to black-and-white, and operates only several essential apps while turning off all the non-essential services on your phone to prolong battery life.
As fancy as it sounds, activating Ultra Power Saving Mode doesn’t require much effort. Just go to the settings, select Power Savings, and then select Ultra Power Saving Mode.
As you can see with the Ultra Power Saving Mode of the Galaxy Note 4, 6% means 18 hours.
Since I checked out Ultra Power Saving Mode, the temptation of testing out the fast charging was unbearable. For those of you who aren’t aware of the fast charging, the mode charges about 30% faster.
To use this mode, you have to use the charger that comes with the device or specific chargers (DC 9.0V 1.67 A or DC5.0 V 2.0A). And to activate it, all you have to do is simply check off the box for ‘fast charging’ on the setting.
So first I had to drain the battery out. This was actually harder than I thought it expected it to be, because it took so long to drain it out.
To activate the fast charging, all you have to do is check the ‘Fast charging’ box, turn the device or display off and plug in the charger.
Although it isn’t one of my most frequently used apps, I was intrigued by the ‘Voice Recorder’ app. While one of my colleagues was talking about how Galaxy Note 4’s voice recorder has been enhanced, I was thinking, ‘what can you actually do with the voice recorder to enhance it?’ So naturally I had to try it out.
OK, so here is the thing. The Voice Recorder app of the Galaxy Note 4 comes with 4 types of mode: Normal, Interview, Meeting and Voice memo. You can either swipe through the modes on the screen or click the icon on the bottom right. Following is a description of each mode:
•Interview mode (2-directional recording): The microphone is sensitive to sounds from 2 directions, and both the top and bottom of the device pick up an equal amount of sound
•Meeting mode: This detects the direction from which sound is coming from (up to 8 sources of sound). After recording, tap the speaker icons to exclude or include certain sound sources when listening to your recordings.
•A selective playback capability enables users to select and listen to voices from specific direction after recording in Interview or Meeting mode.
• Voice Memo: This mode (speech-to-text) records your voice and simultaneously converts it to on-screen text. (maximum recording time is 5 minutes)
Galaxy Note 4 actually houses multiple microphones and an improved speakerphone. Not only do they help to cancel noise better, they adjust volumes automatically for better voice quality, especially when you are in a loud environment.
Another cool thing is the voice memo mode, which converts speech to text.
Pretty cool, right?
So that is it for the second segment of the unofficial review of the Galaxy Note 4. As I said before, we have plenty more to come with the Galaxy Note 4. We at Samsung Tomorrow are actually planning on bringing you more in-depth articles as well, so stay tuned!
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