Touchwiz Adds Triple Tap to Home Button for Easier Reach with One Hand

Touchwiz has made some significant changes to its user interface, and one of the most notable features is the addition of a triple tap on the home button. This feature allows users to access a smaller version of the interface that's easier to reach with one hand, making it perfect for situations where you're using your phone with one hand. As someone who values convenience and ease of use, this feature has won me over, and I'm glad Samsung included it in the Note 5.

Smart Lock with Trusted Bluetooth Devices Still Sucks

Unfortunately, despite the improvements made to Touchwiz, some features still leave a lot to be desired. For example, Smart Lock with trusted Bluetooth devices is still a bit of a letdown. When I'm in range of a trusted device, sometimes the fingerprint authentication doesn't work properly, and I have to press unlock, slide the screen, and finally use my fingerprint again. This process feels clunky and inefficient, especially when compared to other phones that handle this feature seamlessly. It's frustrating when features like Smart Lock don't live up to our expectations.

Battery Life is Surprisingly Good

One of the most pleasant surprises I've had with the Note 5 is its battery life. Considering the phone has an anemic 3000 milliamp hour battery, I wasn't expecting it to last as long as it does. However, it seems that Samsung has managed to squeeze out some decent performance from this tiny battery.

Conclusion: The Note 5 is Kind of an S Series

In conclusion, the Note 5 feels like a slightly improved version of an S series phone. While it's bigger and has a pen, I'm not convinced that these changes are enough to make it feel like a proper Note device. Gone are the days when the Note had its own unique identity as a power user phone or a productivity tool. Now, it seems like Samsung is trying to shoehorn the S series into the Note's design.

The Stylus or S-Pen: What Happened?

One of the most notable absent features from the Note 5 is the stylus or S-pen. It's astonishing how much of a difference having this feature makes, but at the same time, I think Apple is taking it too far with their modified three and a half millimeter jack patents. As for Samsung, they seem to have abandoned the stylus, which was a key part of the Note's identity.

The Power Users Who Have Been Left Hanging

Samsung built an entire product category around the power users who love using phablets before they were cool. However, now that these devices are mainstream, it seems like Samsung has left them hanging. The fact that they're still selling a large number of Note devices despite this is puzzling, and I think it's a result of short-term thinking rather than building relationships with their customers through long-term support and understanding.

The iPad 2 is Getting iOS 9 Updates

In contrast to the Note 5, Apple has recently announced that the iPad 2 can now be updated to iOS 9. This is a testament to Apple's commitment to providing regular updates for its devices, even for older models. Unfortunately, this means that users who purchased their Galaxy Tab 10.1 last year have received barely any updates at all.

Vinyl Skins from Dbrand.com

If you're willing to drop an extra couple of bucks on your Note 5, I highly recommend checking out dbrand.com. They offer a wide variety of vinyl skins for phones, game controllers, game consoles, and even selected notebooks. Their products are precision cut to look and feel gorgeous on any device, and they come in a range of styles, including leather finishes, wood finishes, and carbon fiber finishes.

A Shout-out to dbrand.com

I want to extend a huge shout-out to Dbrand for sponsoring this episode and hooking us up with the Note 5. Their vinyl skins are top-notch, and I'm excited to put them to good use on my device. If you're interested in getting your hands on some cool skins or supporting us directly through our community forum, be sure to check out dbrand.com.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe last time we got a galaxy note device for review i declared it to be too big for humans and handed it off like a pair of dirty gym socks to the nearest linus media group employee in this case it ended up being luke to do the video for me and yet here we are a mere two years later and not only have i been using the note 5 as my daily driver for a couple of weeks i might have even enjoyed it the master case 5 by cooler master gives you the freedom to truly make your mid-tower pc case your own with a variety of modular parts and accessories check out the link in the video description to learn more so let's start with a physical tour of the galaxy note 5. at the back is a camera the flash and a sexy leather finish vinyl skin courtesy of dbrand who provided our phone on the sides are the almost perfect lock button on the right and volume rockers on the left they've got great tactile feedback and are easy to feel for when you're not looking but i wish the lock button was just a touch lower so that i wouldn't accidentally mash the volume down while pressing it on the bottom is the headphone jack the hopefully not long for this world micro b charging port the retractable s pen housing and a speaker that makes up for its poor positioning by being surprisingly loud without distortion a definite calling card of the note series and then finally at the front is the stunner of a 5.7 inch 1440p amoled display with shockingly thin bezels a five megapixel selfie camera a satisfyingly tactile physical home button and a couple of difficult to avoid in landscape capacitive buttons for back navigation and multi-tasking something that i found myself wishing i could turn off in favor of on-screen buttons like with the oneplus 2 during the frequent times that i was watching videos on this device thanks to how gorgeous the screen is and yet the physical tour somehow doesn't tell the whole story of the note 5 somehow and i don't know how they did it but i'm not the only one who noticed the note 5 is big but it doesn't feel as ungainly and difficult to hold as other phablet class devices that i've played with in the past like the one max iphone 6 plus and previous notes and there's more that's different about it as well while samsung used to use the bulky size of the note series to cram every feature under the sun and their fastest hardware into what we argued at the time wasn't even really a phone anymore they've backpedaled on that a fair bit this time i mean sure almost everything the s6 can do the note 5 can do better it lacks a 128 gig model but it's got the same exynos 7420 octa-core cpu and gpu a hefty bump up from 3 gigs to 4 gigs of low power ddr4 ram surely to assist with those uh touchwiz multi-window and split screen features that only really make sense on a large screen device like this the corning gorilla glass 4 topped display i know i already said this but it merits another mention is absolutely fantastic with pitch blacks vibrant whites and thanks to its barely existent bezels a kind of like window into another place look to it and it's got all the usual tech specs nfc looking at u1 plus ac wireless quick charging both on a wire and wirelessly on the note and a fingerprint sensor on the home button whose speed and accuracy i didn't properly appreciate until i spent a couple of weeks with the zte axon along with of course an absolutely kick-ass 16 megapixel still 4k video rear camera whose lightning fast launch times great low light performance and generally amazing usability have contributed to a lot of captured moments of my kids that wouldn't have happened before i upgraded my wife to the s6 active which features the same camera but is that good enough well i guess there's also the s pen you click it and it turtles out kind of like luke's lightsaber in that scene on jabba's sail barge then you unsheath it so you can unleash your ideas goals and dreams or something like that actually it's nothing to do with dreams it's just a stylist a pretty good and thankfully battery-free passive stylist but still just a stylus it's low latency but not latency free it's not particularly ergonomic and while the palm rejection really is very excellent and the software does offer some handy features uh being able to press the button on the stylus to load up useful cloud syncing apps like onenote or quickly scribble on a screen capture stood out to me i just didn't find myself using it much to jot down quick notes about like eggs i need to buy or whatever i mean maybe if i didn't type as quickly as i do on a touch screen or if i needed to add little doodles in any of the seemingly infinite number of ink colors thicknesses and pen tips each with their own distinctive simulated writing sound it might make more sense for me but personally the benefit of quickly launching a note-taking app is quickly outweighed by the relative slowness of writing with a pen compared to typing but if you're like me and you don't care about the stylus never fear just put it into the phone backwards and you'll never be able to get it out again or you could just ignore it whatever is better for you now we're almost at the conclusion but i do have a couple of more notes touchwiz adds a triple tap on the home button to get a smaller version that's easier to reach with one hand that's a winner for me the smart lock with trusted bluetooth devices still sucks so much ass that it'll turn your teeth brown i was using fingerprint authentication and when i'm in range of a trusted device sometimes and i can't quite find the pattern i actually have to press unlock slide the screen and finally i still have to use my fingerprint to unlock the freaking thing this is something that works just fine on other phones there's more good news though the battery life is surprisingly good considering the anemic 3000 milliamp hour battery and uh yeah i don't know i guess okay we can get on with the conclusion it's like it's kind of an s series but bigger and ever so slightly better with a pen and maybe that's my issue here since when is the note series supposed to be the s series with a couple of minute improvements and a bigger screen in the past it really had its own identity as a as a power user phone or a productivity phone and while the stylus or s-pen remains gone is the removable battery that allowed creative users to stuff multi-day battery packs under modified rear housings gone is the expandable storage that allowed this user to equip his note 2 with 288 gigs of storage back in 2013 and what do we get in return exactly samsung well for me personally i guess i got a device that is ergonomically usable as opposed to one that feels completely derptastic it's astounding how much of a difference a couple fractions of a millimeter make although i think apple is taking it one step too far with their modified three and a half millimeter jack patents but i just don't know if that's going to appease the power users who have been using phablet since before it was cool in typical samsung fashion they built an entire product category off of these folks and now that it's gone mainstream they've just left them hanging i mean they're still gonna sell a metric whack ton of these anyway since and i understand this for most people a device that requires a plastic doodad like a fly grip just to hold it has zero appeal but this is still in my mind the kind of short-term thinking that is exactly what keeps samsung focused on selling widgets to their customers rather than building relationships with their customers through long-term support and understanding and meeting their needs the way that someone like apple does a point that was driven home by apple's recent announcement that the ipad 2 a device from 2011 can now be updated to ios 9. the same cannot be said about my galaxy tab 10.1 that i purchased a full year later and has received barely any updates at all okay so putting all of that aside when viewed in a vacuum is the note 5 a success yeah it is it's a beautiful masterpiece of a device but i just had to get that last bit out of my system for previous note users and anyone else who has an old samsung device still running some antiquated version of android and doesn't feel like samsung puts enough effort into the long term support of these gadgets that we drop what in the case of this one is an awful lot of money on speaking of spending an awful lot of money on your gadgets why not drop an extra couple bucks over at dbrand.com linus note 5 and get a vinyl skin that'll protect it from incidental scratches while it's in your pocket or sliding across the table because you're canadian and you're doing you know phablet curling or whatever the case may be they've got a wide variety of different styles all precision cut to look and feel gorgeous on your device i mean we're talking they got leather finishes wood finishes carbon fiber finishes pretty much any color under the sun and it's not limited to just phones they've actually got skins for anything from phones to game controllers to game consoles to even selected notebooks so check it out that's dbrand.com linus note 5 which is also linked in the video description and a huge shout out thanks to dbrand for hooking us up with the note 5 and sponsoring this episode so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know where that button is but if it was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at amazon buying a cool t-shirt like this one or with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum and now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out this awesome video i personally think it's awesome i'm a little biased where i build a wicked gaming rig with my three-year-old son we had a lot of funthe last time we got a galaxy note device for review i declared it to be too big for humans and handed it off like a pair of dirty gym socks to the nearest linus media group employee in this case it ended up being luke to do the video for me and yet here we are a mere two years later and not only have i been using the note 5 as my daily driver for a couple of weeks i might have even enjoyed it the master case 5 by cooler master gives you the freedom to truly make your mid-tower pc case your own with a variety of modular parts and accessories check out the link in the video description to learn more so let's start with a physical tour of the galaxy note 5. at the back is a camera the flash and a sexy leather finish vinyl skin courtesy of dbrand who provided our phone on the sides are the almost perfect lock button on the right and volume rockers on the left they've got great tactile feedback and are easy to feel for when you're not looking but i wish the lock button was just a touch lower so that i wouldn't accidentally mash the volume down while pressing it on the bottom is the headphone jack the hopefully not long for this world micro b charging port the retractable s pen housing and a speaker that makes up for its poor positioning by being surprisingly loud without distortion a definite calling card of the note series and then finally at the front is the stunner of a 5.7 inch 1440p amoled display with shockingly thin bezels a five megapixel selfie camera a satisfyingly tactile physical home button and a couple of difficult to avoid in landscape capacitive buttons for back navigation and multi-tasking something that i found myself wishing i could turn off in favor of on-screen buttons like with the oneplus 2 during the frequent times that i was watching videos on this device thanks to how gorgeous the screen is and yet the physical tour somehow doesn't tell the whole story of the note 5 somehow and i don't know how they did it but i'm not the only one who noticed the note 5 is big but it doesn't feel as ungainly and difficult to hold as other phablet class devices that i've played with in the past like the one max iphone 6 plus and previous notes and there's more that's different about it as well while samsung used to use the bulky size of the note series to cram every feature under the sun and their fastest hardware into what we argued at the time wasn't even really a phone anymore they've backpedaled on that a fair bit this time i mean sure almost everything the s6 can do the note 5 can do better it lacks a 128 gig model but it's got the same exynos 7420 octa-core cpu and gpu a hefty bump up from 3 gigs to 4 gigs of low power ddr4 ram surely to assist with those uh touchwiz multi-window and split screen features that only really make sense on a large screen device like this the corning gorilla glass 4 topped display i know i already said this but it merits another mention is absolutely fantastic with pitch blacks vibrant whites and thanks to its barely existent bezels a kind of like window into another place look to it and it's got all the usual tech specs nfc looking at u1 plus ac wireless quick charging both on a wire and wirelessly on the note and a fingerprint sensor on the home button whose speed and accuracy i didn't properly appreciate until i spent a couple of weeks with the zte axon along with of course an absolutely kick-ass 16 megapixel still 4k video rear camera whose lightning fast launch times great low light performance and generally amazing usability have contributed to a lot of captured moments of my kids that wouldn't have happened before i upgraded my wife to the s6 active which features the same camera but is that good enough well i guess there's also the s pen you click it and it turtles out kind of like luke's lightsaber in that scene on jabba's sail barge then you unsheath it so you can unleash your ideas goals and dreams or something like that actually it's nothing to do with dreams it's just a stylist a pretty good and thankfully battery-free passive stylist but still just a stylus it's low latency but not latency free it's not particularly ergonomic and while the palm rejection really is very excellent and the software does offer some handy features uh being able to press the button on the stylus to load up useful cloud syncing apps like onenote or quickly scribble on a screen capture stood out to me i just didn't find myself using it much to jot down quick notes about like eggs i need to buy or whatever i mean maybe if i didn't type as quickly as i do on a touch screen or if i needed to add little doodles in any of the seemingly infinite number of ink colors thicknesses and pen tips each with their own distinctive simulated writing sound it might make more sense for me but personally the benefit of quickly launching a note-taking app is quickly outweighed by the relative slowness of writing with a pen compared to typing but if you're like me and you don't care about the stylus never fear just put it into the phone backwards and you'll never be able to get it out again or you could just ignore it whatever is better for you now we're almost at the conclusion but i do have a couple of more notes touchwiz adds a triple tap on the home button to get a smaller version that's easier to reach with one hand that's a winner for me the smart lock with trusted bluetooth devices still sucks so much ass that it'll turn your teeth brown i was using fingerprint authentication and when i'm in range of a trusted device sometimes and i can't quite find the pattern i actually have to press unlock slide the screen and finally i still have to use my fingerprint to unlock the freaking thing this is something that works just fine on other phones there's more good news though the battery life is surprisingly good considering the anemic 3000 milliamp hour battery and uh yeah i don't know i guess okay we can get on with the conclusion it's like it's kind of an s series but bigger and ever so slightly better with a pen and maybe that's my issue here since when is the note series supposed to be the s series with a couple of minute improvements and a bigger screen in the past it really had its own identity as a as a power user phone or a productivity phone and while the stylus or s-pen remains gone is the removable battery that allowed creative users to stuff multi-day battery packs under modified rear housings gone is the expandable storage that allowed this user to equip his note 2 with 288 gigs of storage back in 2013 and what do we get in return exactly samsung well for me personally i guess i got a device that is ergonomically usable as opposed to one that feels completely derptastic it's astounding how much of a difference a couple fractions of a millimeter make although i think apple is taking it one step too far with their modified three and a half millimeter jack patents but i just don't know if that's going to appease the power users who have been using phablet since before it was cool in typical samsung fashion they built an entire product category off of these folks and now that it's gone mainstream they've just left them hanging i mean they're still gonna sell a metric whack ton of these anyway since and i understand this for most people a device that requires a plastic doodad like a fly grip just to hold it has zero appeal but this is still in my mind the kind of short-term thinking that is exactly what keeps samsung focused on selling widgets to their customers rather than building relationships with their customers through long-term support and understanding and meeting their needs the way that someone like apple does a point that was driven home by apple's recent announcement that the ipad 2 a device from 2011 can now be updated to ios 9. the same cannot be said about my galaxy tab 10.1 that i purchased a full year later and has received barely any updates at all okay so putting all of that aside when viewed in a vacuum is the note 5 a success yeah it is it's a beautiful masterpiece of a device but i just had to get that last bit out of my system for previous note users and anyone else who has an old samsung device still running some antiquated version of android and doesn't feel like samsung puts enough effort into the long term support of these gadgets that we drop what in the case of this one is an awful lot of money on speaking of spending an awful lot of money on your gadgets why not drop an extra couple bucks over at dbrand.com linus note 5 and get a vinyl skin that'll protect it from incidental scratches while it's in your pocket or sliding across the table because you're canadian and you're doing you know phablet curling or whatever the case may be they've got a wide variety of different styles all precision cut to look and feel gorgeous on your device i mean we're talking they got leather finishes wood finishes carbon fiber finishes pretty much any color under the sun and it's not limited to just phones they've actually got skins for anything from phones to game controllers to game consoles to even selected notebooks so check it out that's dbrand.com linus note 5 which is also linked in the video description and a huge shout out thanks to dbrand for hooking us up with the note 5 and sponsoring this episode so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know where that button is but if it was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at amazon buying a cool t-shirt like this one or with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum and now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right corner to check out this awesome video i personally think it's awesome i'm a little biased where i build a wicked gaming rig with my three-year-old son we had a lot of fun\n"