Galaxy Note 5 review: The 2015 Note — glass design, refined S Pen, productivity polish.
The 2015 Note that went premium — now a legacy device.
The Note 5 brought a glass design and a refined S Pen. Dropping microSD and the removable battery was controversial; today it is firmly history.
01Display
76/10076/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2015.
02Camera
56/10056/100 is one of the weaker camera results among flagship phones of 2015 — 11 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
03Performance
42/10042/100 is one of the weaker performance results among flagship phones of 2015 — 22 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
04Battery
52/10052/100 is one of the weaker battery results among flagship phones of 2015 — 14 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
05Build
74/10074/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2015.
06Value
46/10046/100 is one of the weaker value results among flagship phones of 2015 — 12 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
- Glass-and-metal redesign with a refined S Pen.
- Sharp QHD AMOLED display.
- Fast Exynos 7420; 4 GB RAM.
- Wireless charging built in.
- Dropped microSD and the removable battery.
- microUSB; mono speaker.
- Software ended at Android 7.
- Discontinued.
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 100-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .