These past couple of weeks, a ton of tech news has emerge.
There was plenty of good announcements, such as Google naming Android M Marshmallow.
There was also a fair share of bad news, such as the Ashley Madison hack. But today I only have good news to share.
I have the new Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge +. Both of the phones are AT&T provisioned devices, and I’ve been given the opportunity to play with them for the past five or six days to get a feel for the devices. On my personal Galaxy S6 Edge that I bought on launch day, I have tweaked it to no end to make it work exactly how I want it. In order to give you a good idea of what you get out of the box, I have left the devices almost entirely stock. I am running the TouchWiz launcher and tried to use as many of the S Pen features as possible to give you the best possible angle of what to expect.
Normally I would do one device review a week but these are very similar minus a couple of different features. I will first start with how the phones are similar, and at the end I’ll let you know what sets each one apart from one another.

Performance
These two phones are by far the smoothest and quickest phones I have ever laid my hands on.
Going into the review period, I knew about the 4GB of RAM and the octa-core processor that was previously present in the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. There was no way to prepare for how fast the phones operate. The extra gigabyte of RAM in the Note 5 and the S6 Edge + makes the phone as snappy as ever. Apps open blazing fast, and they run smoothly the entire time. Nothing I have thrown at the devices has slowed them down in the slightest, granted, the most intense game I played was Threes.
If the only thing you care about in a phone is speed, these phones are the way to go this year. Part of the speed comes from Samsung’s thinning down of their TouchWiz software in Lollipop that was previously, for many people, a major hassle to use. I never had a problem with the software; but now that I see a Lollipop-based TouchWiz, I would never go back to the old and overwhelming skin present on Android KitKat.
Battery life on the S6 Edge was my only gripe with the phone and hearing that the S6 Edge + and the Note 5 had a 3000 mAh battery made me worried. The battery in the two phones is only 400 mAh larger than the Edge. These phones are massive. Phones this big need big batteries — or so I thought.
The battery lasts a surprising length of time after you burn the battery in. By 9 p.m., the Note 5 battery still has 25 percent left when I had unplugged it at 9:30 this morning and used it as I would any other day.
The normal Galaxy S6 Edge would have made me plug it in by 4 or 5 p.m., but the Note keeps going. I like not having to worry about my battery dying in the middle of the day, which is something I grew accustomed to with the S6 Edge. Because of that, I do not mind that I only have to worrying about plugging my phone in before I go to bed.
Both screens are 5.7 inches, bigger than the iPhone 6 Plus, and pack gorgeous QuadHD displays. Despite the gigantic screen size, the footprint of the phones fit inside of the footprint of the iPhone 6 Plus and even the Note 4 from last year, which is a testament to how good the engineering is at Samsung. The displays are truly pleasing to look at. Every single color pops off the screen, which is only accented by the stock wallpapers Samsung puts on the device.
In recent years the only question anyone asked about any device running Android is, “Is the camera as good as the iPhone’s? If not I do not want one?”
This year the Android camera quality overall has truly ramped up and many have been reviewed to match (and in some reviewers eyes to surpass) the quality of the iPhone camera. The last iPhone I owned was an iPhone 5 so clearly the camera on the Note 5 and the S6 Edge + have surpassed that. Whether or not it is better than the iPhone 6 is truly in the eye of the beholder. The camera is the same 16 megapixel shooter found in the Galaxy S6 and the Edge. It takes stellar photos. That is widely all I can say about it. I do believe that if you were to switch from an iPhone to a Note or a S6 Edge + you would be hard pressed to notice a drop in quality from the iPhone. Android cameras are finally on track to beat the iPhone, and Samsung is clearly leading the way.

Build Quality
Both phones are built with entirely metal and glass frames and follow the same design language as the S6 and Edge.
Around the side of the devices is a metal edge with glass on the face and back. As you can see in the picture above, the back glass of the Note 5 is the same curve of the front curve on the Edge and Edge +, which feels great in the hand. The glass is grippy, but with the sheer size of both phones, I feel as though I am going to drop them, especially when trying to use them in one hand. I almost do not recommend one-handing the device at any time, but I still can do it. The act may be a bit risky though. I have hands that fall on the smaller size so having bigger hands might change the experience entirely.
That said, the phone is well balanced in the hand. One issue I had with the iPhone 6 Plus, the closest size phone to the Note 5 and Edge +, was that it was top heavy and could flip over if you were holding it wrong. I do not have to worry about that with these two phones which gives me even more peace of mind about using them in one hand.
I have simply two qualms with the design of both devices: the lack of an microSD card slot and the removal of the IR blaster.
The removal of the microSD card from the Galaxy S6 was a no-brainer to me. While I missed the option of storage expansion, I understood that Samsung was going for better build quality and slimmer phones. Despite the switch in build materials, I was sure that Samsung would go with at least expandable storage in the Note 5. Glass backs mean no removable battery. I have never cared about that. What I did care about was the lack of microSD card storage.
In a phone built to be as productive as possible, the lack of expandable storage makes no sense to me. The Note has always been aimed at the “get stuff done” person that is always working. They are always editing documents and PowerPoints on the go, hence the S Pen marketing. Those people need to store things on their phone to get to later. A 32GB base model and a max of 64GB (there is no 128GB model) limits what you can take on the go with you. I do not even consider myself a power user, but my Spotify playlists are huge. Instead of trimming down my music, which I ended up having to do, I should be able to pop in a SD card and hit the road.
The removal of the IR blaster is something that I probably would not have cared about a year ago, but in the past year I have grown accustomed to using my phone to control my TV. I have not touched my remote in a year so if someone could help me find that, I would really appreciate it.
One final nitpick that I have about the device is about the glass. In the moments I took that picture of the Note 5 face down, the screen scratched on some microscopic particle. That will bug me every time I look at it.
Now that the similarities are out of the way, I am going to break down what makes each device different.

Note 5
The Note 5 is practically a larger Galaxy S6 with a curved back. They look almost identical in that aspect, while only differing in one sense — the S Pen.
The S Pen is a tool that I have looked at during each Note reveal and thought that it was not for me. During my review, I decided I had to be fair and use the pen as much as I could. After days of using it, I can honestly say I like it very much. Imagine having a notepad with you at all moments. That is the S Pen with the Note 5. One of the coolest features is ejecting the pen with the screen off and having the phone become a blackboard. You do not have to launch an app or anything, it just automatically comes up. If the screen is on, it opens the toolbar of apps that support the S Pen as well as a few shortcuts to apps that you can set yourself. It also offers screen-write features that snaps a shot of the screen you are currently looking at and mark it up however you want. It also is just nice to scroll through apps with because it covers less of the screen than your fingers.
The best part about the S Pen is it clicks like a pen. Now at the drop of a hat I can click it three times and yell “I am invincible!” like I am a villain from Goldeneye.
All joking aside, the S Pen fits almost flush with the bottom of the device. To eject it, click it and pull. The fatal flaw of this design has been unleashed this past few days, and has actually been blowing up the Internet lately. If you put the S Pen in backwards, by curiosity or by accident, it will literally break your Note 5. The phone will still work, but the phone will never know if the pen is ejected or not from there on out because the eject mechanism will break.
Besides the fear of breaking my brand new phone, I genuinely like the S Pen.
Edge +
The new Edge + is simply a large Edge.
The phone features the same internals as the Note 5, which is great, but it lacks the function of the S Pen. It does, however, make up for that in looks. The Galaxy S6 Edge + is the definition of form over function.
The only software that the Edge + sports is a pull-in menu that comes in from the curved edge on either side of the phone. The menu has favorite contacts as well as shortcuts to your favorite apps. Besides that, not much else can be said about any software benefits.
But who needs function when your phone looks so freaking cool? I can honestly say that I bought the S6 Edge in April because it has such a different design in the day where all phones are rectangles. Sure you can add function through third party add-ons, but this phone turns heads.
The amount of people who have looked at the phone and asked “Wait, is that phone blue?” or “Hey! Why is your screen so curved?” is astonishing.
People actually really like how it looks and I am no different. The way I see it, if the phone itself can carry you through the next two years or however long your contract or plan lasts, it better look good doing it. I can honestly say that I am perfectly fine looking at my S6 Edge for the next two years of my life, and if you do choose to buy an Edge +, you will be happy looking down at it as well.
When it all boils down, these phones are phenomenal. They are easily a couple of the best phones on the market, in a market dominated by incredible phones. That says a lot about how far Samsung has gone to make a great experience for their users.
The Note 5 final score is 9.25 for speed and the functionality of the S Pen. The only points deducted are the IR blaster removal and lack of expandable storage.
The Edge + final score is an 8.5 because it is just as fast and smooth as the Note 5, but lacks any major defining feature. It looks amazing though.