Galaxy Note Edge - a big failure or the next step in smartphones evolution?

After several experiments related to sizes made by Samsung in the previous years with different smartphones, in 2014 a new one was did with Galaxy Note Edge, that brought to public an edge curved screen. At first look it's very similar to Note 4 and you can name it a Note 4 Edge, but it's far away more than what it seems to be...

The main purposes of the edge screen are to bring more functionality to this phablet, a quick access to the main functions (that can be highly customized), and to save the battery power for some common apps. If we count the premium materials used for building this phablet, then we can consider it a Galaxy Note 4 Premium that has the potential to extend it's user interface with an edge screen that can help people to do more activities in a shorter time.

If we're watching to Note Edge from the above point of view , then it sounds great, but... in real life (in practice), usually things are at least a little different! So, there are many people who are considering Galaxy Note Edge a big failure! They don't consider the edge screen as an additional interface that was designed to help them to do more tasks in a shorter time - actually they find it useless!

My personal opinion is that a smartphone is a success or a fail accordingly to the people who are holding it in their hands. I'm sure that a business man will say that Galaxy Note Edge is the biggest successful innovation made in the smartphones industry, while a bimbo definetly will find it useless. Anyway, for me it's clear that Note Edge is a premium smartphone designed for business class, and in that case this phablet will not record a huge volume of sales, like the previous models...

What's your opinion? Write it here!

3 Inactive Features of Galaxy Note 4 you Need to Know

This is one of the best smartphones in the world, and even if a huge advertising campaign budget tried to broadcast the most important and impressive feature of Samsung Galaxy Note 4, many of these are still inactive and even unknown by most owners of this phablet...

The main reasons for several features of Note 4 are delivered inactive by the manufacturers are related to performance and lifetime battery. Each time you'll activate a new feature, it means your smartphone will need more processing powers, more RAM and more energy power. So, Samsung delivered this phablet with limited active features, that are considered as an optimum way to interact with the gadget accordingly to the needs of the most people (and usually, the activated features exceeds the common needs of most of us).

But for some people, some inactive features (sometimes considered as hidden features) are very useful, especially when the time for doing some tasks is critical, or we need an advanced functionality related to S Pen, photo/video camera, communications, etc.

So, I consider that next 3 inactive features are a must:

- Handwriting for S Planner: Settings > S Pen > Direct Pen Input;
- Caller Information: Settings > Calls > Show Caller Information;
- Air View: Settings -> S Pen -> Air View;

Also, very interesting seems to be for selfies the tapping the heart rate monitor, that will help you to take a clear selfie, and the Snap Note feature, that allows you to extract the text from a picture and save it into a personal note.

ps: these tips are available for Samsung Galaxy Note Edge, too..

When we'll get Android 5.0 Lollipop?

A few days ago Samsung Galaxy S5 devices from South Korea received a new update, so they got Android Lollipop installed, but in most countries the existing users are very nervous in expecting the Lollipop OS. Many rumors started to arrive from everywhere, but no source offered some certain release dates for each country or mobile carrier.

That's happening because it would be a high failure to offer the update to all countries in the same day - what would happen if one or a few major Lollipop bugs would cause big troubles? What would happen if a bug would block 30% of smartphones on first two hours after turning on your smartphone? Or... what would happen if the SMS function of your mobile phone will start sending a few tens of SMS messages from hour to hour (the mobile carriers stability would be seriously threatened).

So, that's one of the main reasons for smartphones get the new Android update at different days and not for all models in the same time: to be sure that all runs well, how it was planned, and to keep the customer satisfaction at high levels... Anyway, while in Europe the update will come until the end of 2014 for Samsung Galaxy S5 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4, in United States the update is expected in first half of January, 2015 (In US people are very demanding, and every minor bug could be a big trouble for Lollipop related to customer satisfaction).

Related to the new enhancements of Android 5.0 Lollipop, there are some improvements for battery life,  the fingerprint recognition was enhanced, several native applications was redesigned, the smartphone performance was increased, new lockscreen notifications was introduced, etc.

Galaxy Note 5 Specs - What's Your Wishlist?

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was released several months ago and it seems it's a phablet that is placed too far away beyond most expectations of fans, even of critics... So, it's just a matter of time since almost all people will start questioning themselves about the future specs of next version of this smartphone.

It's useless to start speculating the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 specs while Galaxy S6 will not be released, but we can build a specs wishlist based on most technology innovations related to CPU, GPU, RAM, storage, card slot, photo/video camera, communication standards, display, etc.

So, Note 4 already has a Snapdragon 805 CPU, and it's expected (september, 2015) to get at least a Snapdragon 808 CPU (with Adreno 418 GPU) in order to keep a stable and not overheated gadget. To keep the trend of its main competitors it's possible for Note 5 to get the 810 version from Qualcomm, but with the same problems related to that CPU... Also, the most probable Note 5 will have 4GB of RAM.

It's display will be about the same size (or maybe with 0.1 to 0.3 more inches), a new technology needs to be implemented for better performances in the field of "colors"; it might be for the first time when Samsung will bring to markets a smartphone that will includes a smartphone with 128GB internal memory storage version (so we could have 3 versions: 32GB/64GB/128GB); it's not expected an improvement for the card slot in order to upgrade the memory storage with 256GB microSD memory cards; primary camera will increase between 3Mpx to 5Mpx and the secondary camera up to 5Mpx (here are expected innovations in video performances to increase the number of frames per seconds - 256fps? - it's less probable). Also, a bigger battery will be required and that means a bigger weight for next Samsung Galaxy Note 5...

Some publications speculated a compatibility with 5G communication standard, but I think it's 99% impossible because this standard is expected to be implemented around of 2020.