The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Review
by Joshua Ho on October 15, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Android
- Mobile
- Galaxy Note 4
Battery Life
Battery life is one of the most important aspects of any mobile device, especially because the battery is what defines mobility to begin with. As a result, it’s important to test battery life in a meaningful manner. This requires a repeatable test with standardized conditions, and a range of scenarios that stress different aspects to get the full picture. Most importantly, for tests that have the display on we calibrate the display to 200 nits to ensure that the test doesn’t penalize brighter displays. In the case of the Galaxy Note 4, we see about a 3% gain in battery capacity, so most of the battery life gains should come from higher efficiency.
Our first test is the WiFi web browsing test, which loads a given set of web pages in a loop, with special emphasis taken in order to ensure that the test doesn’t penalize faster SoCs, which would have significant effects on our results. As one can see above, the Galaxy Note 4 has a noticeable uplift in battery life when compared to the Galaxy S5 and lasts significantly longer than the Galaxy Note 3. It doesn’t last quite as long as the iPhone 6 Plus, but few people should have issues getting through a full day of intensive use.
On LTE web browsing, a similar story plays out as the Galaxy Note 4 is able to keep up with the competition and delivers the massive improvement that we’ve generally seen from the transition to Snapdragon 801 and 805.
While the web tests are well-worn by now, we’ve added two additional tests to the battery life suite in order to get a better picture of SoC-bound battery life. To this end, we use an infinite loop of T-Rex on-screen to replicate a GPU-intensive scenario and Basemark OS II’s battery life test to simulate a CPU-intensive scenario.
In the case of the Basemark OS II test, we see that battery life under a sustained task ends up a bit lower than we expect, which seems to suggest that in CPU-bound tasks the Note 4 doesn't have much better efficiency when compared to the Galaxy Note 3. This seems to be self-evident, as the CPUs are quite similar and the process technology used is largely similar when comparing the two devices.
In GFXBench's endless rundown test we see that the Galaxy Note 4 trails behind in battery life when compared to the GS5 LTE-A, but looking at the end of run FPS it’s quite clear that the Galaxy Note 4’s larger surface area makes it possible to achieve greater performance.
Overall, battery life is quite good on the Galaxy Note 4. It’s a massive leap forward when compared to the Galaxy Note 3, but a relatively small one when compared to the Galaxy S5. Once again, we see that most of the benefits in battery life will come from scenarios where power draw isn’t strongly influenced by the display.
Charge Time
As a part of the overall battery life story, it's important to consider the time it takes for a battery to fully charge. If a phone's battery charges slowly then scenarios where charge time becomes crucial will severely hurt real-world battery life. For example, if one forgets to charge their phone at night, the rate at which the phone will charge the battery is a strong influence upon actual battery life. In order to test this, we measure power draw from the time that the device under test is plugged in until it reaches a given level of power draw that indicates that the battery is fully charged.
As one can see in the graph above, the adaptive fast-charge mechanism really works, although I don't see a huge benefit when compared to the Galaxy S5's charge time which was already incredibly fast. In the case of the Galaxy Note 4 it seems that it switches between a 9V, 1.64A mode and a 5V, 2A mode as needed, and most of the benefit would come from the first 50% or so of charging as power drops rapidly as the battery approaches full charge.
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KuyaMarkEduard - Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - link
WOW! great decision Beck2050... hopefully I can also have my own Note 4 in the near future...KuyaMarkEduard - Saturday, October 18, 2014 - link
want to see the fairest and most unbiased review of both? go here:http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note_4-revi...
and
here http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_6_plus-review...
KuyaMarkEduard - Saturday, October 18, 2014 - link
Now, guess what, instead of making the truest, the fairest and the most unbiased reviews posible, you know what?, there webmaster is now getting busy of blocking my comments! Well if you do that, I shall keep on signing-up new account for each and every comment I'm going to post... Would you like that?cj100570 - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
Wow! The comments on this are a hodgepodge of hillbilly hilarity and backwoods stupidity!DIYEyal - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
Great article, I found a typo:page 3:
"transition to Snapdragon 801 and 805"
Should have been "transition from 801 to 805"
Heartdisease - Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - link
This is not a review. At least not an honest one. It is more a compare contrast the iPhone 6 + with a lot of facts omitted. Anandtech is becoming very very biased to the point I don't think I can trust the information here. The display is equal to the iPhone 6 + ??. Laughable. It has been measured to be the best mobile display ever made, setting new benchmarks in most categories.http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_Note4_ShootOut_1...Yeah equal to the iPhone 6 + display sure.
"the Galaxy Note 4 provides a very accurate calibration to the Adobe RGB standard, which is rarely available in consumers displays, and is very useful for high-end digital photography and other advanced imaging applications."
Donkey2008 - Wednesday, October 29, 2014 - link
**Butt hurt Android fan alert**Fidelator - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
No video playback loop battery test? Hmm I wonder why you wouldn't show us a test where AMOLED would be the one to ace it... Much like LCDs ace the web browsing battery test due to the white backgrounds, that's a really important part of the review lost there, I'll just assume the note crushed most of the competition (6 Plus) in that test and you didn't want to show that.And this is coming from someone who usually buys phones with LCDs because of the burn in issues, the battery test was unfair
akdj - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - link
I'm not sure of your reality, but I don't know a whole lot of folks enjoying 'video' all day on their phones. Tablets, sure if you're traveling, hanging out, or 'doing your own thing'. But most folks aren't gonna sit around for 20 hours watching moviesPlentry of 'props' were given to AMOLED...& not just with the N4 review. Each iteration and improvement to AMOLED has been recognized.
If all of you folks crying 'bias', and you've found sites that are correct with their measurements, why are you still here? It's ridiculous, this cult following of OEMs or a smartphone OS, it's laughable
These tests are objective. They (each author doing mobile reviews) continue to prelude their measurements with their dissatisfaction with the testing protocols and options available --- but they're what's available TODAY to objectively measure performance
A life spent cheerleading for an operating system on a mobile phone is a life wasted. Buy what works for you and get on with it. This 'comment' section is the funny place these days
Apple's kicking ass right now for a reason. Samsung is building some incredible handsets, as are LG & HTC, Sony and Motorola. Competition is good for everyone and as an owner of a business, I use a Note 4 specifically for business
I own an iPhone 6+ as my daily driver. Still have a Xoom and the original iPad too. If you don't 'get it' yet, you will. They're ALL incredible devices and a couple hundred points here or there when we're discussing measurements in the tens of thousands --- there's hardly a way to discern the way it's going to work for you, what you do and things you enjoy.
If you're an idiot like me and can't decide, get both. Anyone in this comment section beating down the iPhone is wrong. Blaming the author as a biased Apple joker is pretty low, especially as extensive as this review is ...and the amount it cost YOU to read it!
I love my Note 4, owned the first and the third as well. He's right. It's a Big leap forward in design. You guys making up the bullshit battery statistics crack me up too. MOST usage on a phone is done on white or a lightly colored display with dark text for contrast. Text. Call. Surf. Read, edit a photo, video, audio in a DAW...but if BOTH can run movies for ten hours plus, WHO CARES!
No right minded person would spend that kinda time watching blockbusters on a 5.7" display. Games and emails, magazines and media, social networking and docs, spreadsheets or presentations ...NONE are tests AMOLED is going to 'ace'
leonhk1 - Wednesday, October 29, 2014 - link
Hi,I have stock of Brand New Samsung GALAXY Note 4 for sale, sealed in box with warranty.
Price: $500 per unit
MOQ: 1 unit
Bonus : Buy 2 get 1 free.
Serious Buyers should contact for more details
E-mail: megas83@yahoo.co.uk