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The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is no longer the new kid on the block, so it’s not surprising to start hearing rumors of its successors. We all believe it’s coming, but we have no idea what Samsung will look to bring. GSMArena claims to have accurate info on the display.
According to a leak of theirs, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 could be coming with a 5.7-inch 2560 x 1440 display. If you haven’t been paying attention this is the same resolution that the Samsung Galaxy S5 Prime is rumored to be shipped with. It’s not surprising that Samsung would look to introduce the high-res display on a line of smartphones they typically push the bar with.
Perhaps more interesting is that Samsung decided not to increase screen size this time. The Samsung Galaxy Note has grown by .2 inches with each release, so perhaps it says something about Samsung believing that bigger is not always better.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 was a sensible upgrade, because while the display size increased — from 5.5 inches on the Note 2 to 5.7 inches on the Note 3 — the overall size of the phone was about the same. 5.7 inches could be seen as their new sweet spot going forward.
Unfortunately there’s nothing else to take away from this one, but we’re sure more details will come running along in due time. For now, we’re just waiting for Samsung to announce the upgraded version of the Samsung Galaxy S5.
If they could just make the bezels a teeny bit narrower that would be the sweet spot (or at least my personal maximum given the physical + capacitive buttons). I dont have any issues handling the Note 3 other than using it one-handed with a case. What I’d really like to see, however, is an eventual Note 5 or so with 5.9″, LG-style bezels and virtual buttons throughout.
Also, what about the rumors of the Note 4 having a “completely” new formfactor this fall?
It would be nice if they would trim down the bezels all around and include front facing speakers. I don’t have a problem holding my Note 3 but making it a bit smaller wouldn’t hurt.
Best part of this? It’s going to remain at 5.7″ and not go into Mega territory
Come on, in Just for the note 3 in November
This is being voice dictated so please excuse any errors. I am a note 3 owner and look forward to seeing what the next version offers. I will say that I will not buy another phone with a bottom or rear facing speaker. I am NOT asking for a big cumbersome dual speaker setup I am only asking that you get rid of the front ear piece speaker and move the back speaker to the front in its place. It is plenty loud enough, although I think the clarity could be improved a bit.I’m not sure why the Samsung engineers haven’t been smart enough to figure out this is the best place for the speaker ergonomics. Also the best place as far as energy consumption, as one has to turn the speaker up much louder to hear it when it is not front facing. This applies for YouTube, speakerphone while using the phone and everything else.I would love to see 4 GB of RAM and I would also like to see even longer battery life or at least an option to upgrade the battery even if it means a little more thickness. I would also like to see the removal of the physical home button and the installation of another capacitive button. Something with a gentle oval ripple that marks its position.I would also really really like it if Samsung would improve the sensor and/or sensor size to do something to fix the mediocre indoor and low light photography. And I am being kind in using the word mediocre as far as low light photography. If I am throwing in the kitchen sink I would like to see a 64 gigabyte option and of course the higher definition screen would be welcome as well.
I hope it has on screen buttons. It will significantly reduce its size.
Why on screen buttons? I don’t get that trend and I never have. I want off screen ones so I have more screen real estate. I really hate on screen buttons with a passion.
Actually, off screen buttons will probably use nearly the same amt of screen space that the on screen buttons would use. Just that onscreen would be “slicker”.
No, it would just mean a larger bezel. Not less screen real estate.
because it looks more attractive to many, and in theory allows for a smaller bezel, and the size of the buttons / their existence / their layout / how many exist is customization in many situations.
Plus to many times capacitive buttons can just make a phone look like an old phone… kind of how when you see an android phone with the old 4 capacitive button layout vs the current 3… you go “damn that looks old n cluttered”
But they haven’t shrunk down the bezel on the phones with onscreen buttons vs off screen buttons. Prime example is the HTC One vs HTC One M8. The bezel hasn’t shrunk or gone away just the screen real estate. Until they get rid of the bezel, I say keep the touch buttons. I think the phone look good with the touch buttons. They could have the home button not be a physical push button and make it a touch (capacitive) button. If you don’t like the way Samsung design their phones, then go to another company. I have tried the on screen buttons and I don’t like them. It is just a waste of screen space when you have a bezel you can put the buttons on.
I said theoretically… an opposite example would be the g2 having smaller bezels than the gs5. I think phones look better without buttons, and if the HTC had gotten rid of the HTC logo bar i think the phone would have looked perfect.
I dont like the way samsung designs their phones, and I do go to other companies. I’m not saying design is the only thing that matters, and I have/still am considering a gs5 (love the water resistance idea), but hardware and software design are some factors i consider.
You have the right not to like them and a right not to buy phones with them, but i was explaining why some people do like them. If the buttons can be hid at will it doesn’t feel like a waste of space to many. Especially on a 5+ inch phone.
Yes, you did say in theory. I wouldn’t be opposed of the on screen buttons if they extend the screen all the way to to bottom of the phone with no bezel and made the screen longer (instead of the 16:9 aspect ratio). For an example take the Note 3 as it is now and make the screen longer to get rid of the bezel. I do wish they would get rid of the physical home button and had the phone like their older phones like the Note, Galaxy S, and S2 (Sprint version). Where they just had capacitive buttons and not the physical home button. The capacitive buttons disappear and only light up when you touch the screen. They are in the bezel area and I think is a good use of the bezel and they can add the speakers there too. But the speakers can be designed to be on the very edge of the phone too so they can have very very little to no bezel too if that ever happens. But for now because they do have those bezels, I rather them put capacitive buttons on that wasted space then put it in the screen.
The LG G2 has the same sized bezel at the bottom as the Galaxy Note 3. I have looked at them side by side before. I was glad LG got rid of the physical home button on the front because they were looking like Samsung phones did for a little while. I was using the HTC because they basically had the same phone but one with on screen buttons and one without. So you can compare directly with the same phone.
Yes, Samsung does need to do a better job on their phone design. I do like the back of the Note 3. I think that flux leather touch was nice. It has a good grip and doesn’t leave fingerprints easily. The new design I seen for the Note 4 Samsung has a patent for looks nice. If they do use that design we will see. It did have the 3 sided Flexible OLED unbreakable display.
The GS5 I think was a big miss with that back cover. I also think it was funny how everyone was slamming Samsung about having the same phone design as the GS4. But most of the other companies did the same thing this year with their phones and I didn’t hear people complain about them doing it…lol
On the bottom the g2 n note are similiar but the top is more, isnt it possible that the some of the needed bezel on the bottom for buttons pushed the other circuitry up higher so the top bezel of the note has to be larger? If you are one with bezel OCD then wouldnt that top bezel of the note annoy you?
HTC is a special circumstance because they decided to include other features on the front of their phone, as has Sony.
I think the problem was because most people were staisfied with the designs from other companies, they werent satisfied with the gs4 design… well they weren’t satisfied with the gs3 design… so they are annoyed that the design still hasnt really changed.
But again, bezel seems to be one the most important thing to you, bezel is not the most important thing to other people. And even if it is, the phone with the least amount of bezel has on screen buttons, so that’s why some people like it. Some people also like the freedom, the customization, and the design of onscreen buttons. Everybody has preferences, but the OP asked why do people like onscreen buttons, and that’s why they do.
I will not shrink the size of the phone. They are still going to have that bezel on the bottom. For an example look at the HTC One vs the HTC One M8. They have the same amount of bezel space but the M8 now has less screen real estate because of the on screen buttons even with the screen size bump up. Why not use the wasted space that is on the bezel and put touch buttons on it instead of using screen real estate? Until they make the screen go all the way down to the bottom of the phone with no bezel, I say keep the touch buttons.
Nice Samsung Galaxy Note 4
Nice resolution bump, but I don’t think I’ll be upgrading from my Note3 to the Note4 (or even the Note5), for two main reasons:
1) I’m sick of PHYSICAL BUTTONS — they’re a waste of bezel space, and moving parts fail, get gunk in them, etc. They’re also not configurable, and don’t rotate as you change the device orientation. Samsung even puts awkward home buttons on most of their TABLETS(!) which makes even less sense than on a smaller phablet, since you’re changing orientation all the time.
2) Turns out I rarely ever use the WACOM PEN, so I’m not going to pay a premium for it again, and without one it means more space is available inside the phone for other more useful components.
LG is probably my next “phablet” upgrade, as they seem to be doing things right lately.
Non-configurable in what way? Just curious, like out of the box or even with a third party launcher? Being able to bring up different apps from certain button clicks makes it configurable to me but I’m not sure what you mean.
I would like to see a Note 4 WITHOUT physical buttons though. Although the Note 3’s used bezel space can be shrunk it’s still not as wasted as HTC’s.
On-screen buttons are configurable (depending on the ROM) in that you can configure how many you want, how big big/small they are, how they’re spaced, how they look, how they behave, and what they do. Physical buttons are much more limited in that respect.
e.g. If I had on-screen buttons I wouldn’t be stuck with Samsung’s old menu/home/back button setup, and could instead setup back/home/recentapps, or others.
Ah! Ok, of course. I understand that view. Yeah, I’d love to be able to do that. I would need to retrain myself if I’m able to configure my button layout differently than what I’ve been used to on the Note and S series phones. On other android devices I’ve found myself trying to hit a back button that wasn’t there. Damn Samsung, they got me trained well.
There is people like me that don’t like on screen buttons but prefer physical buttons … Options to choose is better. I remember when I got my galaxy nexus I was so excited about the On screen buttons for like 2 weeks until I got fed up with the amount of screen real estate I was losing and yet they marketed it as a 4.65 inch screen … More like 4.3
Buttons disappeared when watching videos, and now in the modern age disappear for a growing list of games.
I’m not certain on this, but I think physical buttons are the exact opposite of a waste of bezel space (at least with current packaging capabilities). From what I’ve observed, there are packaging constraints that limit how much of the front of the device can be screen, so you’re getting more usable screen real estate with physical buttons. This is a layman/market observation, not an engineering one. I’m happy to hold onto physical buttons until the technology is available to fill the front of the device with nothing but screen.
I like the physical buttons. There is going to be a bezel there anyways so why not use it instead of taking up screen real estate. I did like it better when they had the 4 touch buttons like on the Note 1, Galaxy S, and S2. Look at the HTC One compared to the HTC One M8. They still have that big bezel there on the M8 but now have less screen real estate because of the on screen buttons even with the screen size bump. The only way I would say have on screen buttons is when they have basically no bezel. If the screen goes all the way down to the bottom of the phone with no bezel then I would say have on screen buttons. But until then keep the physical so I can have all the screen real estate.
515 PPI? Damn Note 4, I see you stuntin…
Strut, Note 4. Blind them with dat PPI.
I love my note 3 and will make the jump to note 4, I’m glad it’s same the same size I can hopefully use my case protector from the note 3, 10,000 milliamp battery is wishful thinking.
I just hope they retain the 480DPI (XXHDPI) setting on the Note4. To really get the most out of a Note3 screen, you have to root it, set the DPI to 400 and then use xposed or something similar to set all the non-scaling apps (like the phone app) back to 480 DPI. Non-rooted users are stuck only being able to adjust the font size.
For the record, the Note3 has a 383 DPI, so 400 DPI is actually closer to its real resolution than the stock setting of 480 DPI.
Having the 2560×1440 display of the Note4 set to 480DPI would be similar to having a Note3 with 1920×1080 set at 400 DPI.
I cannot freaking wait for this beast! The Note 3 pushed the envelope with USB 3.0, 3 GB Ram, 4k recording, dual camera mode, ect.. I’m hoping they continue this with Note 4. With talks of a new design this phone will be amazing.
I would like to see the Note 4 have a 6 inch screen. It doesn’t have to get much bigger then the Note 3 just shrink the bezel down even more. I was hoping when the Note 3 came out it would have a 6 inch display. I think 6 inches would be big enough and wouldn’t have to get any bigger. If you want bigger then get a Mega. But on that note, they need to make the Galaxy Mega with the same specs as the Note and not a huge downgrade like it is now. Even make a Galaxy Note Mega. I would buy a Galaxy Note Mega with a 6.5 inch screen display with the Flexible OLED unbreakable display. I want a big screen but I don’t want to buy a tablet to have to carry around too. I only have so many pockets and between car keys, house keys, wallet, and phone, I have no room for a tablet. Also if I were to buy a tablet, I would get the 10.1 size or 12.2 size. So I couldn’t just carry it everywhere I go like I can with my phone. I use my phone like a computer all the time and also watch Netflix and YouTube. If you don’t like the size of the Galaxy Notes, then you should buy the Galaxy S series. There is a one handed operation if the screen is too big for you at times. It works really well and very easy to swipe in to it. I have learned how to reposition my hand and never had a problem. I don’t have huge hands either. Also never had any problems with the phone fitting in my pockets. I do have plenty of room still for the phone to get bigger. No girly skinny jeans here. If they made the Galaxy Mega with the same specs or higher then the Note 3 and with a pen I would have gotten that phone.
I do hope they have the Flexible OLED unbreakable screen this time. I have been waiting for it since they said it might come on the Galaxy Note 2. I’m sure people would love that the screen will not break if the phone is dropped. The 3 sided display would be different and cool but I just want the screen not to break.
For everyone that says they need to put on screen buttons instead of the physical home button and the 2 touch buttons. I ask why use up screen real estate when they have a bezel at the bottom of the phone they can use? Until the screen goes all the way down to the bottom of the phone with very little to no bezel, I say keep the buttons. Now I would say they can get rid of the physical home button and put a touch home button in its place. For those of you that say the bezel will shrink if they have on screen buttons. I say BS on that. Prime example is the HTC One vs HTC One M8. The bezel size is the same on both phones but you have less screen real estate on the M8 because of the on screen buttons even with the screen size bump. Just like people say the phone are thinner with non removable batteries then with removable batteries. I have proved them wrong on that. The only phone that is thinner then Samsung removable battery phones is the IPhone. All other non removable battery phones are the same size or thicker then the removable battery phones. I would like to see Samsung to continue to have removable batteries on their phones too.