Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is nearly a year old, and its replacement is said to be Samsung Galaxy Note 7, not a Galaxy Note 6. Here's what we think of the current-gen S-Pen-equipped Android phone.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is a large phone that's either a game changer or deal breaker for longtime fans of the Android phablet, now that it has a premium look and feel.

• Buy Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (32GB) at Amazon Marketplace for £479.99

Its 5.7-inch display, super-fast processor, improved camera and S Pen stylus are joined by a new, glass-and-metal design that reflects the solid construction of last year's Samsung Galaxy S6 and the newer Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge.

That makes it a huge leap over last year's Galaxy Note 4, which backed the phone in cheap, textured plastic. Samsung's build quality is finally fit to compete with the aluminum iPhone 6S Plus, Huawei Mate 8 and Nexus 6P.

The Galaxy Note 5 S Pen returns with new Air Commands

All of this comes at a cost, however. There's no microSD card slot for expandable storage or removable battery to swap out, like on the Note 4, LG G4and the Samsung Galaxy S7, and the new sealed-shut glass design is slippery. The feature is expected inside the Note 7, however.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is among the best phones in the world, but it isn't for everyone who can't grip a two-handed phone, or its compromises in the name of style.

Release date and price

The Note 5 may not be for everyone simply because it's currently only available in the US and Canada in the Western world. It launched in the US on AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular on August 21, 2015.

It never came to the UK or the rest of Europe. Samsung instead focused on the Galaxy S6 Edge+in the UK. For now, anyone outside of North America who wants a new phone with a stylus is out of luck until the Note 7 launch.

Its price remains competitive, even with its fancy new design, thanks to a price drop from a high of $249 on two-year contract in the US. It now costs $49 on contract via Verizon and Sprint. AT&T Next plans start at $24.67 a month for a 30-month duration, while the full retail Note 5 price is $696 at Verizon. It'd likely have cost £600 in the UK if it launched, the same as the Note 4 price.

Design

The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has the same basic shape as the Note 4, but the construction of the two phones couldn't be any more different.

Galaxy Note 5 (left) is smaller and more refined than the Note 4 (right)

Gone is the faux leather back that was made of plastic but felt more like cheap snakeskin. It's been replaced by a glass sheet that's infused into a metal frame, just like on the Galaxy S6.

At 153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6mm, the Note 5 dimensions are certainly bigger than Samsung's 5.1-inch flagship, but it's actually a hair smaller and noticeably thinner than the Note 4. It's lighter too, at 171g, shedding 5g, even with its metal-and-glass construction.

Its back glass also curves inward on the right and left sides. This smaller footprint and curved back made it easier to hold in my palm, despite its phablet size.

There's a curved glass back that makes it easier to hold

Glass does make gripping this 5.7-inch phone more of a challenge, breakable and a fingerprint magnet compared to its faux leather predecessor. There's less traction, but it's nowhere near as slippery as a super smooth aluminum iPhone 6S with rounded corners.

Cases will help with the grip and prevent my overarching palm from interfering with the touchscreen, due to its ultra-thin bezel. This happens more often as bezels wane, phone sizes increase and my hands get fat. But I don't suggest Samsung's default case offering. I know from my time with the Galaxy S6 – its slick plastic makes the phone even more slippery.

Here are the Note 5 colors. You can get three of the four of them in the US

The Galaxy Note 5 colors include Sapphire Black, White Pearl and, as of November, Gold Platinum in select sizes in the US. The Silver Titanium option is offered outside of North America. Interestingly, it's one of three new colors for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, as is Black Onyx and Blue Coral. Better late than never.

The Galaxy Note 5 aluminum frame is silver in all cases, with a color-matching power button on the right and volume rocker on the left. These buttons are thin, but feel strong when pressed and, importantly, are situated in the upper portion of the frame, exactly where my fingers clutch the phone.

Brexit: 8 cities that might replace London as FinTech capital of Europe

Populism popped, an EU Leave vote became a political hot potato, and now the reality is setting in for tech industry; things will change. Until now the startup and financial capital of Europe, a post-Brexit London that lacks access to theEuropean Digital Single Market, EU-funded research, or free movement of tech staff from across the continent (one in three staff in UK tech startups are from the EU) isn't necessarily the kind of place entrepreneurs will want to be.

If racist incidents continue, that goes double. If the major banks desert London and the new Mayor can't 'take back control', the city will likely lose its status as the top place in Europe for financial technology, or FinTech, which is rated to have brought in a staggering $5.4 billion (around £4.1 billion) of investment in the last six years.

Is a tech exodus on? It's not yet clear, but Plan B's are being formulated, and there are plenty of cities in countries committed to the EU already eyeing Brexit as a huge opportunity to attract more FinTech and other startups

The Scorpio and Neo are a betrayal of trust that might come back to bite Microsoft and Sony

Every console generation starts with a chicken and egg dilemma. The shiny new hardware that emerges into the wild might have high hopes and higher price tags, but it inevitably launches with a games library that's a mere shadow of the consoles it hopes to replace.

For awhile the trickle of games is slow. Developers don't want to spend too much money developing for a console that not enough people own, and yet those same people won't take the plunge until enough games exist on the system.

This situation arises every six years or so, and yet every time the new consoles manage to slowly but surely take off despite this seemingly impossible paradox.

So why do consumers chose to buy a console with no games on it? And why do developers make games for machines that nobody owns?

The answer to both has a little to do with confidence, and a little to do with trust.

And it's this trust that the PlayStation Neo and Project Scorpio might just break.

A pact made in plastic

It seems like an obvious answer, but people buy consoles not for the games that are already out, but because of the games they expect to release over the coming years.

Gamers trust that manufacturers will continue to support their consoles for at least six years, and they have the confidence that over that time a machine's software library will continue to grow stronger and stronger.

PC gamers question why anyone would opt to buy a console over the technically superior PC platform, but it's this continued support that makes the console such a good deal for so many people.

But, mathematically speaking, it makes sense: just one purchase can ensure that someone has access to every game released on that platform for the next six years.

When it works, this process is almost invisible, but when it breaks down, as was the case with Nintendo's Wii U, a console will flounder and eventually fail.

Lessons from the Wii U

Just over a year ago, swathes of articles were written about how you'd be crazy to not buy a Wii U. Mario Kart 8 was out they said, and so was Super Smash Bros. There was even an excellent Mario game on the system, Super Mario 3D World. Go out and buy a Wii U they said, you'll love it.

Except people didn't. They didn't for the simple reason that outside of a new Legend of Zelda, there were almost no new games to look forward to on the horizon. No new Mario Kart, no new Super Smash Bros, no new Metroid.

The console might have had a strong library in the past, but its future looked uncertain, and people sensed that uncertainty and stayed away.

Scorpio stings gamers

Neither the Xbox One nor the PlayStation 4 have weak games libraries, but the announcement of the 4K Neo and Scorpio systems casts some doubt on their futures.

Both Sony and Microsoft have promised that their existing consoles will continue to be supported alongside the new hardware, but it's hard not to feel that you won't be getting the full experience if you opt to play a game developed with the Neo in mind on a launch PS4.

We don't yet fully know what the gaming implications of the Neo and Scorpio will be, but at the moment it's hard not to feel betrayed. Gamers bought these consoles because they trusted Sony and Microsoft to support them for six years, and now after four years they're being superseded for a feature that not every gamer can take advantage of.

Is 4K and HDR worth the trust they've lost with gamers? Probably not.

I don't know if people will buy the Scorpio and Neo in their droves. I don't know if enough people have 4K televisions to make the upgrade worthwhile, and I don't know if developers will pay the new hardware enough attention to optimise their games with it in mind.

But what I do know is that when the Xbox Two and PS5 are released people will think twice about whether they represent a solid six-year investment or whether they'll be superseded by new hardware after just four short years.

A drop from six years to four years might not seem like the biggest difference in the world, but that's a third of a console's traditional lifespan.

In other words, from a consumer point of view, the PS5 and Xbox Two may have just lost a third of their perceived value.

Maybe Sony and Microsoft's experiment with mid-generation console upgrades will be a success. Maybe the PS4 and Xbox One will continue to be the consoles that they always were and the Scorpio and Neo will work to complement rather than replace them.

But maybe this mid-generation switcheroo will be perceived as a betrayal by gamers who have seen their expensive hardware become outdated two years ahead of time

Xbox Play Anywhere set to launch on September 13

Microsoft announced Xbox Play Anywhere at E3 last month. The program allows participating games to be played on both Xbox One and PC when bought digitally, with season passes, game add-ons, in-game unlocks, achievements, save files and consumables shared seamlessly between the two platforms. Now the company has announced September 13 as the official kick off date for Play Anywhere along with a list of supported titles.

The service requires that you have the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition update on your PC, which is expected to arrive in August, as well as the summer update on your Xbox One console. Only games purchased digitally will be eligible for the program, with the Xbox Store displaying a Play Anywhere logo in games that support the feature.

Microsoft is planning to bring all of its future first-party games to Windows 10 and Xbox One as part of the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative. ReCore, an upcoming action-adventure video game developed by Comcept and Armature Studio and published by Microsoft Studios, will be the first Play Anywhere title launching on September 13.

Notably, Play Anywhere titles will reportedly cost the same as a regular game, so you get to play on either platform along with any extra content you buy for it at no extra cost.

Check out the full list of supported titles so far:

• Gears of War 4
• Forza Horizon 3
• ReCore
• Sea of Thieves
• Halo Wars 2
• Scalebound
• Killer Instinct Season 3
• State of Decay 2
• Ark: Survival Evolved
• Cuphead
• We Happy Few
• Crackdown 3

Download 12 Best Android Hacking Apps 2016

#1 Hackode
The hacker’s Toolbox is an application for penetration tester, Ethical hackers, IT administrator and Cyber security professional to perform different tasks like reconnaissance, scanning performing exploits etc.

#2 Androrat

Remote Administration Tool for Android. Androrat is a client/server application developed in Java Android for the client side and in Java/Swing for the Server.

#3 APKInspector

APKinspector is a powerful GUI tool for analysts to analyse the Android applications. The goal of this project is to aide analysts and reverse engineers to visualize compiled Android packages and their corresponding DEX code.

#4 DroidBox

DroidBox is developed to offer dynamic analysis of Android applications.


#5 Burp Suite

Burp Suite is an integrated platform for performing security testing of web applications. Its various tools work seamlessly together to support the entire testing process, from initial mapping and analysis of an application’s attack surface, through to finding and exploiting security vulnerabilities.

#6 zANTI

zANTI is a comprehensive network diagnostics toolkit that enables complex audits and penetration tests at the push of a button. It provides cloud-based reporting that walks you through simple guidelines to ensure network safety.

#7 Droid Sheep

DroidSheep can be easily used by anybody who has an Android device and only the provider of the web service can protect the users. So Anybody can test the security of his account by himself and can decide whether to keep on using the web service.

#8 dSploit

dSploit is an Android network analysis and penetration suite which aims to offer to IT security experts/geeks the most complete and advanced professional toolkit to perform network security assessments on a mobile device.

#9 Arpspoof

Arpspoof is a tool for network auditing originally written by Dug Song as a part of his dsniff package. This app redirects traffic on the local network by forging ARP replies and sending them to either a specific target or all the hosts on the local network paths.

#10 Shark for Root

Traffic sniffer, works on 3G and WiFi (works on FroYo tethered mode too). To open dump use WireShark or similar software, for preview dump on phone use Shark Reader. Based on tcpdump.

#11 Nmap for Android

Nmap (network mapper) is one the best among different network scanner (port finder) tool, Nmap mainly developed for Unix OS but now it is available on Windows and Android as well. Nmap for android is a Nmap apps for your phone! Once your scan finishes you can e-mail the results. This application is not a official apps but it looks good.

#12 SSHDroid

Android Secure Shell: Secure shell or SSH is the best protocol that provides an extra layer of security while you are connecting with your remote machine.SSHDroid is a SSH server implementation for Android. This application will let you to connect to your device from a PC and execute commands (like “terminal” and “adb shell”).

Make Chrome Run Faster and Keep RAM Usage Under Control

Chrome has come a long way since its first beta was released in 2008. Currently sitting at the top of the desktop and mobile market share charts, Google’s browser is flexible, feature packed, and cross-platform. But for all its popularity Chrome is also notorious for its habit of consuming a lot of RAM and draining battery life on laptops.
The reason for this has to do in part with something called process isolation, which is meant to make Chrome more stable and secure. By separating every tab, plugin, and extension into its own process, if a single plugin or website crashes it doesn’t bring down the whole browser. Likewise, by this same logic, if an attack takes place in one tab, it’s harder for it to access data on another tab.
This is why you see a lot different entries for Chrome when you open up Task Manager on your computer, and since the browser needs to duplicate some tasks for every tab, it all adds up. Certain plugins and extensions can also contribute to higher memory usage, and some behind the scenes enhancements, like Chrome’s prerendering feature can make loading up a webpage faster by predicting where you’ll go to next, but it will use up some RAM as well.
As long as you have plenty of memory it’s all good. All of this will make your experience faster. The problem is when Chrome’s RAM usage is limiting the amount of memory available for other apps.
Google isn't blind to these issues and is continually improving in this area, but there are some things you can do to curb RAM usage and keep Chrome from becoming slow and annoying. We'll also share some 'hidden' features you can enable to get the most out of your web browsing experience.

Manually close processes

This should be your first line of defense when Chrome starts to feel sluggish. To see a list of running processes simply head to the Task Manager by pressing Shift + Esc on Windows or from the Window menu if you are on a Mac. Sort processes by memory usage and shut down anything you don’t need.


Get rid of extensions you don't use

Just because you needed to download an embedded video one time it doesn’t mean you’ll need an extension for that purpose running all the time. Be selective about the extensions you install and then be selective about the ones you keep. You probably only need a handful of essentials, so type chrome://extensions into the address bar, disable the ones you don’t regularly need but want to keep handy, and delete whatever you don’t really need anymore.


Make every plugin click-to-play

Chrome has already started blocking Flash ads, and will start blocking Flash by default later this year except for several major websites. But the browser already includes a built-in click-to-play feature that works for every plugin. To enable it go to chrome://settings, click on Show advanced settings, and then click Content settings under Privacy. Scroll down to the Plugins section and select ‘Let me choose when to run plugin content’.

Make sure that “always allowed to run” isn’t enabled in chrome://plugins as that appears to override the click-to-play setting. Also if you see something that’s not essential in your plugins list you can go ahead and disable or delete like we did with extensions.

One Tab and The Great Suspender

If you tend to keep a lot of tabs open and don’t intend to change that habit, there are a few extensions that can help. Two of the most popular options are One Tab and The Great Suspender.
One Tab basically lets you close every open tab with a click and converts them into a list instead. Whenever you need to access the tabs again, you can either restore them all at once or individually by clicking on the respective link. You can also easily export and import your tabs as a list of URLs. Depending on how many tabs you are running and how many scripts are running inside your tabs, moving them to OneTab can significantly improve performance.

The Great Suspender on the other hand has a more hands off approach as it will automatically suspend tabs that have not been used for a while, freeing up memory and CPU that the tab was consuming. Tabs retain their favicon and title text and can be restored by clicking anywhere on the page when needed. You can configure how long to wait before a tab is suspended and whitelist sites.
We should note that Google is testing a feature called tab discarding in Chrome since version 45that replicates more or less what The Great Suspender does, which is definitely a welcome improvement. If enabled, tabs get automatically discarded from memory when system memory is low, and reloaded when clicked on. In the future, Chrome will be adding tab serializing so after suspending a tab and reloading it you can go back exactly where you were instead of making it load fresh.

Access Chrome's Experimental Features

If you are feeling adventurous you can play around with Chrome's flags, which are experimental features that Google is testing but aren’t part of the main browsing experience. To access them type chrome://flags into the address bar. You'll see a short warning telling you these experimental features may change, break, or disappear at any time. Here are a few we recommend you to try:
• Number of raster threads: Changing this number from “Default” to “4” will speed up image rendering.
• Enable fast tab/window close: This will run Chrome's onunload JavaScript handler independently of the GUI to make tab closing faster.
• Enable experimental canvas features: This allows Chrome to make use of opaque canvases to speed up web page loading times by making certain assumptions about the content that is being rendered, like automatically removing everything underneath the canvas pixels because it won't be visible to users.
• Automatic tab discarding: If enabled, tabs get automatically discarded from memory when the system memory is low. Discarded tabs are still visible on the tab strip and get reloaded when clicked on. Info about discarded tabs can be found at chrome://discards.
• (Bonus) Tab audio muting UI control: This one is not speed related but it is certainly handy. Enabling this will make the audio indicators in the tab strip double as tab audio mute controls, so you don't need to switch tabs to turn off its sound.

There are over a hundred different experimental features to choose from and Google is constantly adding and removing a bunch of them as part of its testing. Choose whatever you need and click the relaunch now button at the bottom of the screen to apply the settings.

Data Saver Extension

If you are on a slow connection, this Google-made extension can help reduce data usage by using the company's servers to compress pages you visit before downloading them. Pages accessed using private connections (HTTPS) or in incognito tabs will not be optimized or seen by Google.


Other Good Practices

You can also delete the History Provider Cache to free up some space if needed, and avoid using custom themes as you'll just use up more system resources unnecessarily. You can also speed up your browsing experience by learning and using Chrome's keyboard shortcuts.
Be sure to give other browsers a try, too. Safari is a great alternative for Mac users as it's tightly integrated with the operating system, making it fast and efficient. Microsoft is also building Edge from the ground up to make it a serious contender if you are on Windows 10, and while it’s still lacking some basic features, the company is already touting its efficiency over Chrome, Firefox and Opera.