Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/09/04/ifa_2014_samsung_unpacked_2_presentation_galaxy_note_4_note_edge_gear_vr_gear_s/

PHABBA-DABBA-DOO! Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Edge, Gear VR – feast your eyes

The New Mobile Culture – show report

By Bob Dormon

Posted in Personal Tech, 4th September 2014 01:06 GMT

IFA 2014 So what is a rock band doing on stage at Samsung’s Unpacked 2 mobile event, the prelude to its showing at IFA 2014 in Berlin? As the enormo projections above them show the keyboard solo being played on a Galaxy handset, all becomes clear... sort of.

Soundcamp Samsung’s new realtime music solution

Soundcamp: Samsung’s new realtime music solution in action

OK, so the band was plumbed into various synth apps and even guitar amp emulation from third party vendors tapping into "Soundcamp, Samsung’s new realtime music solution". Harder to fathom though, was the live nine-piece string section that later appeared behind them.

Still, if we stick with the phones, then the message that Samsung's DJ Lee, President, Head of Sales and Marketing (IT and mobile comms) would later convey seems to ring true. He said, "In the internet of things era, the smartphone will be the hub of human interaction." And judging by the state of the said 'things' that’s not too wide of the mark in terms of the consumer experience.

Samsung Galaxy Note Edge screens

Samsung Galaxy Note Edge can scroll through multiple screen strips with a swipe

Yet in announcing the new Galaxy Note 4 and the inventive Galaxy Note Edge – with its swipeable margin display that can be anything from a news ticker, an app dock, camera controls or even media player transport buttons – the emphasis was not so much on winning fastest, biggest, brightest battles but on functionality.

It seems Samsung, like some of its rivals has woken up to battery anxiety and other user gripes. Consequently, the Note 4 and Note Edge appear to be all about refinements.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 gets a better S Pen and more intuitive Multi Window control

This all sits rather well with what Samsung calls The New Mobile Culture. No, this isn't the gunge inside your smartphone’s power socket but Lee’s vision of the next generation of applications and functionality that we’ll have in our hands very soon. He said, "Your mobile experience in our [sic] daily lives will never be the same." I guess we probably already knew that, we’d just never heard it said out loud before.

Announcing the availability of an SDK for the Note Edge today, the product itself remains in the distance, however, it will inherit a good deal of its functionality from the Note 4 which hits the streets in October. The emphasis in the presentation was on design, multitasking, S-Pen and camera.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 fast charging

Some battery life improvements but if you can't make a big impression, fast charging is a workable compromise

At 176g and 8.5mm thick the Galaxy Note 4 sports a 5.7-inch 2560x1440-pixel Super AMOLED display that’s now tougher than its predecessor, more responsive and has better viewing angles and even achieves a battery duration improvement of around 7.5 per cent over the Note 3. Not a massive amount, but worth having all the same. Fast charging is also part of the package with a 50 per cent top up taking around 30 minutes.

Samsung’s Multi Window has been made more accessible too and appears in the Recent key listings. The Multi Window modes go from full screen to Pop-up, to Split or Icon views, which have their own merits depending on what you're trying to achieve.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 S Pen as a mouse

Adding mouse style functionality makes sense in some applications

Talking up the S Pen, nobody was convinced by European Marketing Director Rory O’Neill’s statement that "The pen is mightier than the finger or thumb," but granted it does have its uses on the Note at times. Samsung has been working on making the S Pen seem more natural to use, doubling the pressure levels to 2048 and enabling the pen to function as a mouse with multiple selections at once.

Yet Samsung evidently wanted to make a point about its pen power and the surprise appearance of Mont Blanc VP Jens Henning Koch. He went on stage to introduce "fine writing to the digital world" with the Pix and e-StarWalker "screenwriters" that feature six virtual pen nibs for stylised writing.

Mont Blanc Pix and e-StarWalker screenwriters

Mont Blanc Pix and e-StarWalker screenwriters

Selfie conscious

Weary of pushing up the pixel count on its phone cameras, Samsung has been working on making the most of what it has got and has come up with a some crowd pleasing functions. Students will certainly be smitten by Snap Note. Who needs to write when you can take a pic of the tutor's scrawl on the blackboard? Then you make tilt corrections, trace the text and insert it into a note which can be annotated.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Snap Note

Snap Note: for when jotting things down with an S Pen seems too much of an effort

If Snap Note sounds more like work than fun, then Wide Selfie is a crowd pleaser in more ways than one, as it can take a 120-degree shot. It is activated from a button on the back of the handset to offer a broad field of view that captures more than just a fuller figure.

Assuming these features will be found on the Galaxy Note Edge, what you get on this future phablet is a curving of the display along the right edge enabling this separate strip of screen information to be viewed from the side too.

Samsung Galaxy Note Edge promo pic

Samsung Galaxy Note Edge promo pic: so which hand do you use to hold your handset?

You can flip strip modes with your thumb which is fine if you hold the Edge in your right hand, which is how all the promo pics appeared. So what’s wrong with this picture? Nothing if, like me, you happen to be a left hander, as holding and thumbing the handset in the right hand works very well with an S-Pen in the left hand.

I sense there will some gnashing of teeth among the left brain thinkers out there who buy into the Edge when it arrives though. So Samsung, is the pen really mightier than the thumb? Which side of the brain came up with this design, I wonder?

Samsung Galaxy Note Edge camera

The Galaxy Note Edge showing camera controls easily accessible from the right thumb

Samsung has been busy with brain teasing of a different sort, teaming up with Oculus to create its own Gear VR headset that responds to movements in less than 20ms. It takes advantage of the Note 4’s rapid response AMOLED hi-res screen and, combined with the headset’s own internal optics, delivers a 96-degree view which, to the wearer appears, as if it was a 175-inch mega screen from 2 metres away.

Samsung Gear VR headset

Gear VR headset made with Oculus takes advantage of the Note 4's AMOLED display clarity and responsiveness

Oculus CTO John Carmack appeared in reality and talked of how Samsung’s low-level access to the hardware platform enabled an enhanced experience on a mobile platform with guaranteed clock rates and graphics drawn with “multiple context prioritised GPU threads”.

This allows the main world to be drawn at very low rates. The second higher priority thread gets to update the screen very quickly to respond to head tracking, "closing that loop of how you move, to what you see".

Samsung Gear VR headset

It maybe great to view for short periods but VR headsets remain unwieldy accessories

The trouble is, you still look like you should be swimming or skiing when you wear the Gear VR and the 176g of the Note 4, plus all the other headset chicanery, puts quite a lot of weight on your bonce. There’s no doubt VR can be fun, but its strap-on execution is somewhat unconvincing.

To a certain extent, the new Gear S has similar problems related to chunkiness, but Samsung has teamed up with Swavorski to add bling to the wristband. It’s an appealing way of disguising the standard Gear S which looks like it could be an offender tagging device.

Interestingly, the new Gear S has its own Sim card, a you can use it much like a phone, although initially it still needs to be paired to one of 20 Samsung Galaxy handsets.

Samsung Gear S Swavorski wristbands

Bling bracelets: Gear S Swavorski wristbands

DJ Lee’s remark that our daily lives will never be the same points to a New Mobile Culture of the near future, but if the Unpacked 2 intro is anything to go by, you can’t help but notice that making music on mobiles has been going on for years among iOS users, so the future appears to be a moveable feast depending on which platform you use.

So are Samsung’s refinements on some levels simply playing catch up and on others paving the way? We won’t have long to wait to find out, as Cupertino will be unpacking its own hubs of human interaction next week. ®