The Galaxy Note 5 is the best productivity device Samsung’s ever made, but the new phablet hasn’t arrived to market without its share of criticism. Of the criticisms out there that I can think of (the so-called stylus flaw, glass construction, lack of removable battery, no microSD card slot, removal of the IR blaster, etc.) that have been shouted loudly on the Web, there is one in particular that has continuously been echoed among tech enthusiasts and Samsung Note faithful in general: that is, the Galaxy Note 5 is not, as the Note 4 was, designed for power users. Rather, Samsung has reduced the Note 5 to yet another average consumer product – and “power users,” as the critics have called themselves, must look elsewhere for a powerhouse productivity device.
Nothing in life is perfect (neither is any smartphone), which means that criticisms will always result. I am not naïve enough to believe that Samsung’s best smartphone this year is perfect. At the same time, however, it is my belief (and only mine) that this particular criticism doesn’t do justice to what Samsung has implemented in its latest device and, when the criticism is examined, it won’t hold up.
The problem with the criticism starts with the label “power users.” What is a power user? A “power user” is someone who uses his or her device to its greatest extent. Someone who uses his or her device as a daily driver and does so more than the average on-screen user time of 3-4 hours per charge, could, in theory, qualify as a power user. Someone who uses the battery for all it’s worth (lots of brightness, maximum even, keeps Wi-Fi and/or LTE on constantly, reads tech news or websites, posts to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.) qualifies as a power user. Someone who takes lots of photos or screenshots and consumes his or her 32GB or 64GB Galaxy Note 5 local storage, then transfers the content to 100GB of Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage, meets the definition of a “power user.”
Where then, did the “power user” become relegated to only a subset of the user population that prioritizes microSD card slots and removable batteries in Samsung smartphones? Sure, it could be argued that these individuals are power users, but the idea that removable battery and microSD card advocates are the only power users in existence is rather arrogant, dishonest, and without merit. It assumes that the only power users in Samsung’s user base are microSD card and removable batteries advocates, when there are other power users within the customer base that never carried removable batteries or made use of their old smartphone’s microSD card slot.
When you examine Samsung’s latest, it’s clear that the Galaxy Note 5 is still for power users. Samsung designed the device for “multitaskers,” the company said in its announcement, as opposed to the multimedia-consuming Galaxy S6 edge+. Every consumer is not a multitasker, which means that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 stands out for “power users,” as the Note line always has.
And for the multitasker, Samsung has incorporated a 5.7-inch, Super AMOLED display with a 1440p (Quad HD) resolution for web browsing, posting, and multimedia consumption; a 5MP front camera for the selfie-crazy user who’s always on social media; and a 16MP back camera for the photographer who can’t take just one pic. The Galaxy Note 5 features the Korean manufacturer’s homegrown, octa-core Exynos 7420 processor – and octa-core processors are not for average consumers.
The raw power of the octa-core processor, not the “goldilocks” dual-core processor for average users (as the iPhone continues to propagate), gives testimony to the fact that Samsung is still committed to the power user. And the S Pen stylus continues to improve, being more like a true ballpoint pen than at any other time in the Note lineup’s history. The power stylus user wants a true-to-life ballpoint pen to use constantly, and Samsung has delivered that in as sleek a form as possible.
The 100GB of Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage bears witness to the power user who wants to live in the current tech trend of cloud storage. Yes, with 132GB or 164GB of total storage (local + cloud), Samsung is being emphatic that the Note 5 is intended for power users. And even with its Galaxy S6 edge+, as with the Note 5, Samsung incorporated 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM (the new industry standard, not the DDR3 RAM of yesteryear), which the average user doesn’t need for multitasking,– so, if anything, Samsung’s devices are designed more for power users than average users. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 will crush the phablet competition when it comes to multi-core tasks (which happens to be the crowning indicator for power usage). The Note 5’s battery has already proven to be more durable than that of its predecessor. If Samsung only cared for the average user, why not make the battery even smaller to match that of the Galaxy Note 2, for example?
Whether microSD card and removable battery advocates agree or not, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 is still for power users. The Korean manufacturer has made some changes in the name of technological progress, but it has never forgotten the user base for which the productivity beast was designed. Someone who only has a 32GB or 64GB Note 5 may not have a microSD card slot, but the “power user” doesn’t die because these things are removed. In their place, fast wireless charging and cloud storage have arrived – for the better.
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