Forgot to mention the battery life. Fully charged when I leave home, it's at about 20% left 8 hours later when I get off work - just playing music with the screen off.
This is another reason to go for the Note line, the battery isn't huge, but I am getting 5 hours screen on time with everything stock and auto brightness. I can stretch it to 6-7 hours if I manually keep the brightness down. And a debloated ROM could probably help out even further. I have yet to have the Note5 die on me and generally find it lasts me 1.5-2 full days of regular use.
Hey I totally get it - the sweet spot is in the upper mid range and there are a lot of great choices that are probably more than what most people need.
Also - the two device thing is kind of a silly comparison. The best device is what you have on you at any given time - some people may tote a tablet around 24/7, but I certainly won't. My iPad hasn't really ever let my home.
But in my mind you are flat out wrong on the two devices arguement. If you were talking about the camera in your pocket is the best camera out there. But with the active stylus I think you are just flat out wrong.
I don't know if either of us are wrong. My point was it's not the same thing - I'm not stating it's better or worse.
Maybe my language was too far, but the reason why I used that language is that the note does not fulfill its primary purpose if you think its primary purpose is note taking, instead of note utilization.
If you just mean note utilization, well that is why we have things called google keep with audio, list, or notes or similar apps. Having short 1 or 2 sentences notes do not need a pen, especially when it cost $300 to $400 more.
I think that is a little unfair. What we want is fast updates without many major bugs or setbacks. We have that expectation because that is the standard set by Apple for the mobile industry.
I think what Lollipop really shows us is that the Android yearly release cycle is too short for major OS upgrades. It leaves us getting major OS updates in pieces, which means a year of broken stuff.
Optimally Android would have coasted on Kitkat until what will be 6.0 was ready. Or at least until what is 5.1 was ready. But the marketing department has a say, and they say Android needs the yearly release to have a reason to rally the troops.
The combo of that 810 SoC failure and Lollipop being Android's Vista makes it trying times for Android. 2016 (and the 820) can't come soon enough.
This is absolutely false. My Nexus devices doesn't have the problem he described, and neither does a majority of cheap phones with 1GB RAM.I hate to say it, but I bet that is mostly what you dislike about the Samsung device. Almost anything running 5.0 runs like a dog.
After riding the Galaxy Train from the original Vibrant up through the S6, I'm finally done. It's mostly the memory management in their builds of 5.0+ that's done it for me. I have an $800 phone that will, more often than not, behave like a $200 phone. It has an 8 core processor and 3 gigabytes of ram, but the system (according to the "Running" tab) uses 1.7. More than half of the ram is used by the system, and STILL the homescreen of the launcher has to re-draw when I multitask between more than 4 apps. Over 600mb free, and it's killing apps left and right. I really don't know what's up with Samsung's build of 5.0.2 I do know that AT&T won't let it get fixed for months, if it can be fixed at all. Lots of other weird little quirks. One such example is that Bluetooth won't stay toggled in-calls.
Something you start noticing after using the Galaxy S6 for an extended period of time is that its memory management profile is different than most phones. Despite having 3GB of RAM to play with, Samsung seems to have opted for very aggressive memory management. If you leave something open in the background and launch a few other activities, the GS6 will probably close that first app.
The general consensus before Android 5.1 started rolling out was that this was a bug, but I don't think much has changed now. I suspect this is how Samsung wants the GS6 to work. Power users notice this kind of thing, but I bet most people won't. It might simply be something you have to learn to live with.
I've got a Zenfone 2 at half the cost of an S6 and this thing doesn't lag in the slightest from what I've seen.... I don't understand how Samsung can have batshit crazy hardware and not get a skin working well with their hardware. It's as though they don't care about software and think hardware will sell itself.
Memory management is night and day on those two devices, it's shameful. A comparison video of the two on YouTube (I forget the reviewer unfortunately) shows the S6 refreshing games every single time the reviewer jumped from app to app while the Zenfone 2 actually back grounded the game without refreshing to the start page/intro. I absolutely love the look and feel of the S6 and the camera is second to none but really Samsung should have some shame just based on that video alone.
multitasking on stock android is significantly better. The Nexus 5 has a reasonable memory management system. I can scroll on my recents list to apps and chrome tabs that were open a couple of hours ago and they are still saved i the RAM. It's primarily touchwiz.
I am not happy, the RAM managment and laggyness after just a few weeks of use is insane, memory managment is one thing, but i can't even use pandora and my fitness app at the same time. if I use the fitness app, open facebook, pandora, and then take a pic, Pandora stops and is killed, and my fitness app forgets where I was! I wish they made a dev version, I want clean Android, and the S6's camera and size!
The memory management may not be a bug but it is a usability problem for everyone. Not just power users. It's a big friggin deal that it kills apps in the notification drawer. Pebble loses connectivity randomly. Audible is killed while playing a book. It has killed my keyboard while in use. This phone is completely unusable. I bought a Fire phone on clearance because I am positive it will function better w/ cm11 than this phone. I am just f@*$ing done.
Why the heck are they shipping flagship phones with 3-4GB of RAM for then? For the sake of pumping their chests?
This is absolutely false.
I love how you throw that out there like your word is law or something. How about a little truth this morning- Lollipop DOES have a BAD memory leak and there is more evidence than just "my experience" to prove it.
Two links to prove it exists:
http://www.dailytech.com/Nasty+Memo...ering+Engine+is+Killing+Apps/article37037.htm
http://www.greenbot.com/article/286...ill-reportedly-fix-lollipops-memory-leak.html
And here is the Xposed fix for the leak (which wouldn't be needed if it wasn't a problem):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/xposed-fix-lollipop-memory-leak-t3065296
Why it maybe doesn't effect you are much as a Nexus would be on 5.1.1 which fixes some of the issues. Most Android phones running "Lollipop" (including but not just Samsung devices) are on 5.0.
Yeah the new Moto G is a great device, even the old ones.
My point is with such a small space it is not really superior to just using the onscreen keyboard. For many things it will be faster to do the onscreen keyboard, and the drawing area is too small to draw effectively since you are literally limited to such a small space.
Maybe my language was too far, but the reason why I used that language is that the note does not fulfill its primary purpose if you think its primary purpose is note taking, instead of note utilization.
If you just mean note utilization, well that is why we have things called google keep with audio, list, or notes or similar apps. Having short 1 or 2 sentences notes do not need a pen, especially when it cost $300 to $400 more.
Do note I agree with you on the importance of screen. If you want to spend money to get good specs the most important 2 are
1) Battery Life
2) Followed by Screen Quality, now Screen Quality is at such a level that for most phones the only thing that really needs improvement is brightness, battery life for various brightness, color calibration of the already good screen so its right, and cutting down on reflections with things such as laminated glass.
my smartphone is more than just a phone that runs some apps, it's my primary computer.
The iPhone 6S is tempting to me just for that reason.
I actually really liked all the Force Touch stuff shown off... But it's only going to work with Apple apps (as in the map preview will be Apple Maps) which is one of my biggest gripes with iOS (default apps). A device this advanced (and expensive) shouldn't be handicapped in such a way.
Apple apps or iOS apps? I'd expect wide usage of at least basic FT functions on all apps of note. Sure a small developer app may not, but pretty much all apps from corporations will have at least the app shortcuts within a year.