Samsung's Unpacked Event saw the foreseen release of two larger flagship phones - the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge 6 Plus.
Galaxy Note 5
The Note 5 is just about everything you could ever want a premium phablet to be.
A large 5.7 inch Quad HD (2560x1440) Super AMOLED display, a new and improved spring-loaded S-Pen that can be removed from the device with a single click, and the same sleek glass and metal design that we saw on the Galaxy S6.
While the phone's most noticible and arguably best feature, this design does have some flaws. First, the phone is incredibly slippery in the hand. The same issue of not being able to remove the back for expandable storage and to remove the battery that was seen on the S6 and S6 Edge are present on both of these new phones.
Samsung placed the Exynos 7420 chipset into this device with an octa-core CPU, a quad-core Cortex A57 clocked at 2.1GHz as well as the quad-core A53 clocked at 1.5GHz. The chipset also has a Mali-T760 MP8 GPU clocked at 772 MHz and 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM for speed and efficiency.
The battery, while unfortunately not being removable, is 3,000 mAh - plenty large for every day use. With a capacity that large and Samsung's adaptive fast-charging and the ability to charge wirelessly, you should be able to get through at least a day of medium to heavy use with ease.
The rear facing 16MP shooter on this updated S6 Edge features f/1.9, OIS, phase detection auto-focus, and is capable of taking 4K video and slow motion video. The front-facing camera is a simple 5MP camera that is also equipped with f/1.9.
Another very useful feature for anyone who relies upon writing down notes or even a student who needs to write something down quickly before they forget it comes with the new S-Pen. When clicked and removed from the phone, the display will activate and allow you to write a quick note - then as soon as you put it back, it will save whatever you have written and turn the display back off. Quite handy.
Galaxy S6 Edge Plus
If you were to describe it as a Note 5 with curved edges, you would be in no way correct. But is that a bad thing?
With the exact same specs as the Note 5 that are gone over above, the S6 Edge Plus is nearly parallel to the Note 5 other than the fact that it gives up the S-Pen for curved edges.
These curved edges do exactly the same thing they did on the normal S6 Edge, allowing you to swipe to see you favorite contacts and more - but they have a new feature as well. After swiping to see your favorite contacts, you can swipe once more to reveal a customizable list of favorite apps - essentially an app-drawer that you don't need to go to the homescreen to use.
Other features that both these phones include are new colors, black sapphire, white pearl, and gold platinum being available for both devices while green emerald is specifically for the Edge Plus. Additionally, you are able to directly to YouTube from the cameras on both of these handsets.
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Lesley Warren is a writer for the VAVEL USA Technology section. Follow him on Twitter at @Lesley_Dublyu.
