Samsung Galaxy Note Edge

With its innovative and unique curved screen, it’s no surprise that the Galaxy Note Edge fetches a high price. But is it worth £650?

Despite its new breed of display tech, the Note Edge is thinner and lighter than the similarly-sized Galaxy Note 4 – although only by a tiny margin. The device is 8.3mm thick and 174g, but it feels a lot lighter than it is.

Samsung has stuck with the textured faux leather effect rear cover that provides good grip but may not be to everyone’s taste in terms of looks. Although the rear cover is the typical thin plastic that we’re accustomed to on Samsung phones, there is some proper metal running around the edge. This not only looks good but provides strength – it’s a shame that most of it is covered with white paint leaving just a shiny bevelled edge.

If you’re after colours, you’ll have to look to the Note 4 as the Note Edge comes only in black or white. Because of the curved right-hand edge, the power button is on the top of the phone.

The ‘next generation display’ is this handset’s unique selling point. It’s hard to explain in words, so we highly recommend watching our video review at tinyurl.com/ obfjham. The display curves around towards the back of the phone on one side, almost giving you another dimension.

The screen itself, ignoring the curved section for a moment, is in essence the same as the Note 4’s. It’s got a Quad HD (1600x2560) resolution, and uses Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology.

The curved section is easy to use, and looks good from most angles. With customisation, it can show various information, such as the time and weather or football scores. There are also app icons, which free up space on the main display, and it’s easy to scroll through the panels you’ve chosen.

In terms of hardware, the Galaxy Edge offers much the same as the Galaxy Note 4. Inside is a 2.7GHz processor and there’s 3GB of RAM, which is a healthy amount.

As you can see in our table, it performs on a similar level to the Note 4 across the board, and although it outpaces the iPhone 6 Plus in Geekbench 3, it lags behind on graphics and web browsing. The former is mainly down to the higher resolution.

Although the raw numbers are largely impressive, the Note Edge isn’t the most responsive phone from a user perspective. It’s smooth most of the time, but occasionally lags when switching between apps and quitting back to the home screen which is not what we expect from a phone of this calibre.

Two storage options are on offer: 32- and 64GB. A microSD card slot will take this up to 64GB cards.

Samsung likes to add lots of gadgetry to its devices and the Galaxy Note Edge is no exception. There’s a fingerprint scanner (still the awkward swipe gesture) and a heart rate monitor It also has 4G LTE (Cat 6) support, an IR blaster, NFC, 11ac Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.1 and MHL 3.0.

Battery life is a letdown, though. During testing, we found it will last only one day. The screen consumes a lot of power, so every time it’s turned on the battery percentage drops. Of course, it does have the potential to last longer but only if left on standby or if you use Samsung’s Ultra Power saving mode.

Photographers will be pleased that it has a 16Mp rear camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS). There’s the usual array of Samsung camera modes, including HDR and selective focus. The front camera is a respectable 3.7Mp with f1.9 for all those selfies. Performance is good as you would expect from a premium Samsung smartphone and you can also record video in up to 4K resolution.

The Note Edge runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat, with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface over the top. It’s better than previous versions with a slicker style and the Flipboard, which is a swipe away from the home screen is optional.

Finally, the Note Edge comes with Samsung’s S Pen stylus. This now has a new sensitivity level of 2048 and the ability to be used like a computer mouse (for example, highlighting text).

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Note Edge is a big and expensive device, so it might be worth waiting for the next generation before taking the plunge.