After first introducing the phone back in September, Samsung is finally launching the Galaxy Note Edge smartphone in the United States on Nov. 14. The device will be offered by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular.
What makes this phone different from the Galaxy Note 4 is the screen that wraps over the right side of the device. The main screen has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 plus 160 pixels for the side screen. The idea here is to provide important information on the side screen like app notifications, email alerts and so on without interfering with what's going on in the main screen.
Out of the box, the side screen includes controls for the camera and S Note pen, a ticker board, a night clock, Quick Tools, Express Me and more. Samsung also released an SDK that grants access to the side screen, allowing developers to take advantage of this new space.
As we pointed out in September, the phone's screen is definitely interesting, but will it be truly useful? The good news here is that the side screen is customizable, such as changing its wallpaper or adding a message like "Hands off! This is my phone!" The whole purpose of this side screen, according to a Samsung rep, is so that users can get to their apps and items faster.
In addition to the unique screen, the new phone includes Android 4.4 "KitKat," a quad-core processor clocked at 2.7 GHz, 3 GB of memory, 32 GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot (up to 128 GB), a 16MP camera on the back and a 3.7MP camera on the front. Connectivity includes dual-band Wireless AC, NFC, Bluetooth 4.1, an IR LED for using the phone as a remote control, and GPS.
The specifications show that the phone also has a large number of sensors including gesture, accelerometer, proximity, a finger scanner and more. Samsung indicates that the S Pen is much more precise than previous generations, and it features mouse-like abilities such as drag and drop, cut and paste, and so on. Apps optimized for the S Pen include Multi Window, Screen Write, Image Clip and Smart Select.
The Galaxy Note Edge also includes Samsung's Knox security platform so that customers can use the same phone both in the work environment and at home. There's also Multi Window for allowing users to interact with multiple applications separately, and Adaptive Fast Charging, which allows the phone to charge 50 percent in 30 minutes.
The Samsung Galaxy Note Edge will be offered in Charcoal Black and Frost White when it launches later this month. Will the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge capture the hearts of consumers nationwide or will the phone end up like Amazon's Fire Phone?
Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
Sabrent debuts 5GB/s Rocket Nano 2242 Gen 4 SSD — a good fit for Lenovo Legion Go, laptops, and NUCs
AMD takes CPU market share from Intel in desktops and servers, but Intel fights back in laptops
Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT
