Galaxy Note Edge Review: A Screen That Gives 110%
First, Samsung made phones bigger. Now it’s making them busier.
Starting today in the U.S., Samsung is selling a variant of the Galaxy Note 4 phablet called the Galaxy Note Edge, distinguished by a 5.6-inch screen that cascades over its right side. It’s one big curved display, but the effect is equivalent to adding a second tall and skinny touch screen where you’d normally grip the phone. Your thumb gets a screen of its own.
Giving 110% can sometimes be too much.
The Note Edge may appeal to Android lovers who enjoy customizing their phones. With the side screen, you get 160 precious new rows of pixels to add a launchpad for apps or a Times Square-like news ticker. Some people may find creative uses for the space, for instance by personalizing it with a pencil-thin animated picture. The unusual design certainly attracts attention.
But to me, the Note Edge ends up being yet another distraction in the arms race for our attention. I’m glad Samsung is experimenting with new designs, but the Edge just tacks on new territory to an already cluttered phone landscape.
I don’t object to the physical form. Thumbs are the most important digits for operating smartphones, and the curved edge was built for thumbing. Holding the Note Edge phablet is more comfortable than you might think, at least if you’re right handed. The right-edge screen has a bezel at the bottom where your thumb can rest. And if you do inadvertently brush the screen, Samsung’s multitouch system can usually differentiate it from an intentional tap.
(If you are left-handed, you can flip the Note Edge upside-down, though your volume and power buttons are then in the wrong locations.)
While Samsung conquered the engineering feats required to make the screen curve, it needs better ideas about what to do with the extra real estate. The Note Edge feels like an experiment, and Samsung says it’s hoping outside developers will be inspired by the design to come up with uses for it.
Flicking the edge to the left or right swipes through a series of panels that operate independently from the rest of what’s happening on the screen. You can use these slim panels to launch apps, get alerts, show a ruler or even play games. Samsung says the extra screen allows you to have “interruption free” notifications and access to important information, because you don’t have to leave your main app to use them.
I found the shortcut access to my favorite apps handy, though Android hardly lacks for other customizable spots to stash apps. Still, too often the edge panels just meant more icons, text and pictures flashing or tempting me to fiddle with them.
Who really wants trending Twitter topics crawling sideways along their phone while they’re trying to surf the Web, take a call or compose an email? You can make these screen panels go dark by tapping in the middle of the screen, but then your phone is instantly the same as the already worthwhile—and $100 cheaper—Galaxy Note 4.
The best use for the edge screen is what Samsung calls night clock mode. It offers a faint read-out of the time along the curved edge that you can see when your phone is laying flat on your nightstand. This saves you from having to pick up your phone or activate a bright screen that might disturb your eyes or others.
Night clock works because it uses the new form factor as an opportunity to take a new look at how we use the lock screen. Too much else about the Edge’s new software just clutters the existing phone experience, instead of seizing the opportunity to simplify or reinvent it.
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