Samsung’s range of Note devices has blazed a trail for big-screen smartphones, but it wasn’t until the Samsung Galaxy Note 3appeared this time last year that it really nailed the formula. Twelve months on, it isn’t surprising that its successor – the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 – is more of a refinement than a dramatic overhaul. See also: the best smartphones of 2014.

The screen is the same size as its predecessor’s – 5.7in across the diagonal – and from the front it doesn’t look awfully different. A closer look reveals the Note 4 is slightly taller (by 2mm), narrower across the front (by 1mm) and the same thickness, 8.5mm from front to back. It’s a large phone, but not unmanageable, and to our mind it’s a little easier to hold than the more slippery Apple iPhone 6 Plus. For a phone with a screen this big, it’s a decent compromise, although not the easiest thing to hold in one hand.

In terms of looks, it’s all change: the Note 4 does away with the Note 3’s slightly cheesy faux leather stitching in favour of cleaner, curved edges, and it also moves on from the ribbed, plastic chrome edging of its forebear. Just like the Samsung Galaxy Alpha, the Note 4 is framed with robust, luxurious-feeling aluminium, complete with shiny, exposed bevelled edges that catch light attractively.

All-round, it’s a solid-feeling and handsome handset, and it’s practical as well. The screen is topped with Gorilla Glass 3 for scratch and shatter resistance, and, in true Samsung style, the plastic rear panel at the rear clips off to reveal the phone’s micro-SIM slot and a huge, removable 3,220mAh battery. The Note 4 also has a microSD slot – capable of accepting cards up to 128GB in capacity – which is a relief, since Samsung removed this feature from the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.

Like its predecessor, the Note 4 has a vibrant AMOLED display, only with a higher resolution than the Note 3: you now get 1,440 x 2,560 pixels squeezed into the 5.7in screen, which delivers a pixel density of 515ppi. Is there any point? Not really: with the Note 4 next to the Note 3, there’s no discernible difference in sharpness when the phone is viewed from a normal distance.

Aside from that, though, there’s plenty to like about the display. Colour accuracy, as long as you stick with the Basic colour settings, is spot on. It’s also capable of displaying an impressive 99.3% of the sRGB colour gamut, and contrast – as always with AMOLED screens – is perfect, so images really leap out at you.

The downside of the technology is normally that maximum brightness isn’t as high as other flagship smartphones. And most of the time that holds true of the Samsung Galaxy Note 4: switch off Auto mode (and all of Samsung’s other automatic modes), and at maximum settings it reaches a maximum of only 341cd/m2 .

However, the Note 4 has a nifty trick up its sleeve: in direct sunlight, if you have the screen in Auto mode, the phone activates its special sunlight readability mode, pumping the brightness up to IPS-rivalling brightness levels. We measured it at 492cd/m 2on a clear, bright winter day in central London.

It’s a major step forward for AMOLED tech, but note that it only comes on in the very brightest of conditions – we had to angle the screen directly at the sun first (a big thanks to JohnnyAdverb for pointing this out in the comments at the bottom of the review).

It is also worth noting that the small air gap between the glass and the LCD, can reduce the contrast when the screen is viewed at an angle.

There’s a very real risk with a higher resolution display that battery life will suffer. We found that with the G3, which also overheated; we had to reduce the screen brightness to compensate.

In our tests, we found standby drain comparable with most of its peers. While streaming a two-hour podcast from SoundCloud over 3G, with the screen off, it used up capacity at a rate of 2.9% per hour. This suggests excellent light-use battery life; it isn’t quite as good as the iPhone 6 Plus, which drained at only 2.2% in this test, but it isn’t far off.

With the screen on, however, the battery life takes a tumble. In our streaming video test, in which we play a 720p video in flight mode with the screen set to 120cd/m2, it used up 6.2% per hour. That’s still good, but not as impressive as other leading smartphones we’ve tested. The iPhone 6 Plus, for instance, drained at a rate of only 5.5% in this test, and the smaller Samsung Galaxy S5 drained at a rate of 5.2%, leading us to wonder what the Note 4 might have been capable of had it been equipped with a less power-hungry screen.

Anecdotally, the phone should last you at least 24 hours – longer if you’re careful with it. When capacity starts to run really low, you can resort to Samsung’s Ultra Battery Saving mode, which shuts down all but essential services and turns the screen black and white. We found this gave around six hours of runtime once the gauge hit 5%, which can come in handy.

We have no qualms about performance. The Note 4 comes with the latest Qualcomm chip – the 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 – coupled with 3Gb of RAM, a combination that ensures smooth, responsive performance in all areas. Even the most demanding games play smoothly, although the screen holds it back a touch.

In the GFXBench T-Rex HD onscreen gaming test, it achieved 27fps, which is impressive, given the number of pixels being shunted around. However, it’s no faster than the Note 3, and it lags behind the iPhone 6 Plus considerably; it reached 52fps in this test.

In SunSpider, a score of 371ms is a match for most other flagship phones. Testing with Geekbench 3 returned single-core and multi-core results of 1,095 and 3,268 respectively, slightly behind the iPhone 6 Plus’ single-core score and slightly ahead for multi-core tasks.

The Note 4’s camera is a big upgrade on last year’s model, with a 16-megapixel sensor, optical image stabilisation and phase-detect autofocus. The result is superb photographs whatever the light, and almost all our test shots were in sharp focus.

It’s good to see, too, that Samsung has dialled back the complexity of its camera app, making it much easier to access and change settings. In any case, the Auto mode does such a good job of dealing with difficult backlit scenes and dark scenes with bright single light sources that we hardly ever felt it necessary to tweak anything.

Video quality is just as good, with options to shoot at 4K, 2K and 1080p resolutions, plus excellent judgement of exposure and frame rates. Dig deeper into the settings and you’ll also find a slow-motion mode capable of slowing footage by a factor of eight (for the same effect as the iPhone 6’s 240fps mode). In short, the camera is superb: it isn’t the best on a smartphone we’ve tested – that trophy still belongs to the Nokia Lumia 1020– but you certainly won’t be disappointed.

Audio quality is also top notch. The phone’s built-in speaker goes loud enough to use it as an occasional radio and podcast speaker, and the in-call volume is extremely loud – too loud, in some cases, since it has a tendency to distort slightly at the top end of its volume range. But you don’t have to reduce the volume much to get rid of this issue.

One of the key reasons for buying a Note 4 isn’t just its size – it’s that it does something genuinely useful with it. Unlike other phablets, it comes with a pressure-sensitive stylus tucked away in a slot in the bottom right-hand corner, which allows you to produce sketches, write notes by hand and enter text via handwriting recognition. It’s a useful addition, particularly for producing quick notes coupled with audio recordings using the bundled S Note app.

The phone runs Android version 4.4.4 (KitKat) which, as usual, has been customised with Samsung’s TouchWiz skin, which is jammed full of features most users won’t need or use. Of particular note is the infrared transmitter, which allows the phone to be used as a universal remote control for your TV and set-top box.

On the rear, you’ll also find a heart-rate monitor, which, when coupled with the onboard S Health app, allows you to spot-check your pulse, blood oxygenation and stress levels. Meanwhile, the home button doubles as a fingerprint scanner, which can be used to unlock the phone and authorise PayPal purchases. We found it less convenient to use than Apple’s equivalent; we often needed to swipe two or three times before our print was recognised.

Naturally, the Note 4 features all the connectivity a modern smartphone needs: NFC, Bluetooth 4, 4G and 802.11ac are all on board. We found the Wi-Fi speed particularly impressive, reaching speeds of 11.3MB/sec while copying a large movie file across from our Netgear Nighthawk router – much quicker than the iPhone 6’s speeds of up to 8.5MB/sec.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is a big phone in terms of more than size: it’s big on speed, design, battery life, camera quality and features. It’s also big on price. The 32GB model is available for £600 SIM-free, which is right at the top of the smartphone price scale, and you’ll pay a minimum of £35 per month on a free phone contract.

If that sounds pricey, bear in mind that you’re getting much more for your money than you are with its main rival, the iPhone 6 Plus. The Apple phone is faster, has better battery life and a brighter screen, but the Note 5 is more practical, expandable and includes the stylus, which is a nice bonus, plus the infrared transmitter and the heart-rate monitor.

In short, the Note 4 is the best phablet you can buy right now bar none. If you’ve been thinking of going big with your next smartphone purchase, save your pennies for one of these. We think it’s the phone you’ve been looking for.

Author: Jonathan Bray