Samsung Galaxy Note Edge vs Samsung Galaxy S5: first look

Come on, is there anybody whose jaw didn't drop as Samsung revealed not one, but two Galaxy Note phablets at IFA, and one of them looked unlike anything else on the wide open market. The Galaxy Note Edge presents a special and strange treat – its curved QHD screen puts your thumb at the cutting edge of technology, all while providing the familiar and notable Galaxy Note experience. To illustrate how far Samsung has leaped just six months after unleashing the Galaxy S5, we put the two together for a comparison. Enjoy!

Design

The Galaxy Note Edge is uncanny but classy; the Galaxy S5 functional, but dull.

The Galaxy Note Edge and Galaxy S5 come from different galaxies. Obviously, the first one has that uncanny curved right edge - it looks like a Galaxy Note 4 prototype that escaped out of an laboratory, while the Galaxy S5 is a regular, functional Samsung smartphone. Even though they have the same parents, the Note Edge represents a refined design, decorated with an aluminum frame and finished with a conservative faux leather back without dimples or fake stitching. The Galaxy S5's all-plastic build is quite dull in comparison. It was the lukewarm reaction it got from critics and consumers that forced Samsung to discover metal.

Being a larger-screen phone, the Galaxy Note Edge's dimensions of 5.96 x 3.24 x 0.33 inches (151.3 x 82.4 x 8.3 mm), 6.14 oz (174 g) are, understandably, more hand-straining than the Galaxy S5's manageable 5.59 x 2.85 x 0.32 inches (142 x 72.5 x 8.1 mm), 5.11 oz (145 g). Yet, Samsung gave the Galaxy Note Edge slim bezels... or should we say, a slim bezel. But this phone is about the edge, and said edge is placed so your thumb reaches comfortably to interact with it. Perhaps curved displays will eliminate bezels altogether in the non-distant future, making them a functional part of the smartphone. What if they break, though? We'll see.

Display

Both smartphones present the pinnacles of Samsung's display engineering.

The Galaxy Note Edge's 5.6-inch curved QHD screen is the pinnacle of Samsung's display efforts. In fact, we believe the main reason Samsung put the Note Edge for sale is to showcase its ability to produce and market such a forward-looking, oddball device. That's quite the statement of power. Curvature aside, the Note Edge has one of the very best QHD displays available on the market, with is brightness, saturation, color accuracy and viewing angles surpassing competing solutions such as LG and Oppo's. As for the Galaxy S5, its 5.1-inch screen is one of the most highly regarded 1080p displays of 2014, performing great across all major fields and having the very welcome option to tweak the colors if you find them overblown.

Interface

The Galaxy Note Edge bends TouchWiz to its will.

Seeing that both smartphones run Samsung's TouchWiz interface, the room for comparison is close to zero... or is it? Remember the curved screen? Samsung tweaked the interface to support the Galaxy Note Edge by literally putting shortcuts, control buttons, and other essential, but distracting elements away from the content in the center screen. Thus, your eyes remain focused on the experience, without your thumb getting in the way... or at least not as much as it used to in the flat-screened past. Another key differentiator is the S-Pen functionality, which is the Galaxy Note series's bread and butter. Otherwise, TouchWiz is mostly identical between the Galaxy Note Edge and the Galaxy S5 - it's styled in pretty blue, it has more apps and features than a child math prodigy can count, and lets one lose themselves in its menus. TouchWiz might be overwhelming and visually inconsistent, but riding on it never fails to give that thrill of discovery.