Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Charcoal Black 32GB (AT&T)

Overall this is a fabulous phone. I purchased it about a month ago because I wanted the best phone on the market and the overwhelming amount of features that this phone came with made it the top contender. Pros Camera - Oh lord the camera. This is probably hands down the most amazing thing about the phone. People have literally gasped at the pictures and videos that I have taken. The image stabilization is amazing for anyone with shaky hands and the phone comes with more picture touch up features than the average user would ever need. For video there is the option to up the FPS from 30 FPS to 60 FPS which makes watching fish swim a fun experience. IR Blaster - This is probably my second favorite thing about this phone. The app that the IR blaster uses has a few annoying things about it but it makes set up a breeze so I can't complain too much. The app also has a feature where it will show you what is on TV and then automatically change the channel to that show, way better than surfing through Direct TV's guide. Overall I will probably never use another remote again because of how easy setup is Screen Size - So the pros of this are that it makes using your phone WAY easier. Have you ever had that problem where you would just rather not use your phone because scrolling through a web browser with tiny text is annoying? Yea well so did I until this phone. I am able to use this phone one handed with my right hand only because the back button is on that side. And yes I am able to text without any difficulty with one hand. The only problems that I have with reach is if I go from the home button to the top of the screen Fast Charging - Amazing. With the right amount of settings turned off you can very easily hit the advertized 50% in 30 minutes that Samsung claims, maybe a tad longer if you have a bunch of background stuff running. Battery size - Can't imagine running out of juice in a day. Worst I got to was 20% in about 15 hours of use and I was using my phone a lot that day. But fast charging almost makes this point mute because it's that fast at charging. Phone itself - So far I have had almost zero lag or freezing issues. The UI is very customizable and I've learned that if you want to change something, you probably can. The phone comes with a one handed mode which is very useful I just need to remember to use it more but It allows me to eat food and browse Facebook at the same time so I'm happy. Cons Fingerprint sensor - Great idea except for one small detail, you need to swipe. This make it nearly impossible to unlock your phone with one hand, like ever. If I were able to place my finger on the sensor like the IPhone 6 Plus then I would definitely use it but the phone is just big enough were you can use most of it with one hand and just big enough where swiping your thumb is very difficult. However using two hands changes everything and I'm able to unlock my phone on the first try 99% of the time Heart rate sensor - So this is a minor thing, mainly because I don't know how heart rate sensors are supposed to work but this one is VERY sensitive to errors. I can usually get it to work but any slight disruption in just about anything and you need to restart. When I first got the phone it took me a solid 10 - 20 minutes to get one reading so keep trying new note owners. Screen Size - I know I put this in the pro section but that's just me. I value more of a computer like experience over a mobile one so the difficulties with one handed use are overshadowed by being more productive and having better hardware ( yes that is one of the perks of larger phones ). Speaker - Dear Samsung, never put your speaker on the back of a phone, ever again. It is very easy to cut the volume of the phone down to about half if it's laying down screen up. So if you listen to music a lot get used to flipping your phone the "right" way. Notification Icon - It's always blue. My old phone was green for messages, blue for Facebook, and yellow for Snapchat. Samsung fix this for the Note 5. Overall it's a great phone and the cons I mentioned aren't that annoying to me that would warrant a four star but they might be more important to some people than others. If I didn't mention something it's probably because it's not that big of an issue. Yes the S - pen is cool but I wouldn't say buy or don't buy because of it.

A truly magnificent device. I had the Note 2, "back in the day", and a number of phones in between and I keep coming back to this phone. I ordered a LG G3 at the same time I ordered the Note 4, it was a tough call seeing how the G3 is a couple hundred dollars cheaper, but ultimately chose this, even in spite of the cost difference. Here's the simple explanation: the "Note" ecosystem is polished to a fine luster for large handheld devices and tablets... and the display is pretty great as well. I've save my thoughts on the G3 for that review but it's a great phone as well and had I not used the Note 4 I would have easily chosen it. On to the Note 4. The screen is amazing, the resolution is incredible, which you may not think you'll notice but it will eventually show itself and you'll smile when you realize it. The camera is solid, a nice quick shutter speed and it takes good pictures in most lighting situations and you can record up to 4K video - so you can FINALLY put that 4K TV that you just bought to good use :) The sound that comes out of the speaker is ok, nothing amazing but it's enough for the speakerphone to be solid and to hear music, if a little muffled. The front facing camera is actually impressive - I tend to take a lot of forward facing video so I can see myself with my son and the video always looks great. The S Pen functions at least as well as the Note 2 did, but with more thought put into it's usefulness - you get a small context window that pops up when removing the sylus, far more useful than the old "switch to this S Pen page and use stuff there", I like it but have yet to find a great use for it. The default Samsung keyboard, which is of course replaceable, is one of the better stock keyboards, I haven't switched it out for my beloved Swiftkey yet, and I don't think I will. If you're a storage buff then you'll be happy with the micro SD card slot, it adds so much functionality to a phone that it boggles my mind when a phone doesn't have it. To each their own though. I can't think of a reason not to recommend it, aside from cost of entry. Update 05-26-2015: The bluetooth audio has an intermittent issue where it cuts out, but the sound keeps playing, reminiscent of how a CD player would skip from time to time. This happens across multiple BT devices from headphones, a car and a sound box - I'm sure Samsung would fix it, but I had the same problem with the S5 I had before and the Note 2 previously, I think this is my last Samsung device and I'll be selling it once the LG G4 comes out. Caveat: a friend has the same device on Verizon and doesn't experience the issue, so it may not be a problem with the phone, but if you're curious then do a google search for it and you'll find that this is not the only Samsung phone that has the problem.