Galaxy Note 4 Wish-List: Must Have Specs & Features

The Daily Note II/3's Ultimate Wish-List of Specs and Features for the Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Display Size

We ran a Galaxy Note 3 concept poll on our website and it was determined that the majority of the people who voted were looking for a Note 4 that kept the same the device size but had increased the display size by reducing the boarders.

Significant Battery Increase

We're looking for more than 100mAh increases.  Sure the Note 3 will go for a day and a half on mild use.  But sometimes, you just want to use that battery hogging app in full brightness and for hours at a time.  And we all know how quickly the battery drains when we use our devices like that.  So we would love to see battery life, at least double or even triple of what it is now.  It can be an optional accessory that people can choose to carry, such as a battery door with a large battery and people can opt to use such an accessory on special days only when they think they need it.

AOSP-based Web browser (Note II Style Browser)

Right now, the best browser available for the Note 3 is Dolphin browser.  And although it gets the job done right, the browser on the Note 2 is still better in many ways, especially when you enable the Quick Controls and Full screen feature.  The AOSP browser on the Note 2 runs on Android 4.4 and it works flawlessly.  We would love to see this browser again on the Note 4.

RAW Capture from Camera

RAW seems to be the hot topic of smartphones.  Although there has been no official word about iPhone and RAW images, Android L will support RAW capture.  And considering that the Note 4 will almost certainly come with the latest OS, RAW images from the Note 4 may be entirely possible.  Adobe has been very busy updating their apps on both iOS and Android to support raw processing as well.

There are many advantages to shooting in RAW.  Accurate re-white balancing during post processing, highlight and shadow recovery which would result in more visible dynamic range.

High Bit-rate 4K Video Capture

The 4K video is superb, especially on the new Galaxy S5 that lets you shoot HDR video.  The quality would be good enough for professional use if Samsung is willing to make some minor changes.  Currently, it’s capturing 4K video at 50mbits/sec and that bitrate is too low to keep up when there is a lot of movement on the screen.  So why not give the users an option to select something like 100mbits/sec for 4K video and let the user worry about the file size?  High bit-rate video in the right hands is very valuable.  Other features that are a must is the ability shoot 24p at 4K, also manual controls for shutter speed , ISO, and aperture are an absolute requirement as well.

Not surprisingly, there’s a known mod or hack for rooted users that lets you record 4k video at 100mbits/sec, and these changes may be entirely possible if Samsung is willing to give their users the right options in the camera app.

Google ChromeCast Compatibility of Samsung Apps

Before ChromeCast, there was AllShare Cast with the same functionality of ChromeCast but it was never a huge seller like ChromeCast.  And now that ChromeCast offers basically the same type of functionality, there is even less of a reason to buy an AllShare Cast that costs double the price and has very little 3rd party support.  So Samsung should re-evaluate whether they want to continue to only support a small number of people who've bought an AllShare Cast, or whether they should let their stock apps support streaming to ChromeCast.  It would definitely be a nice feature to gain for all Samsung Galaxy users .

One Voice Assistant Only

It is time for the option to designate a single voice assistant such as S Voice or Google Now as a sole voice assistant on the Note 4.  Looking at both S Voice and Google Now, it is very redundant.  Sure there are a few things that S Voice can do that Google Now can’t.  But overall, Google Now seems to be the future.  It is clear that Google is willing to spend way more resources developing a voice assistant further than Samsung would ever be interested in doing.  So S Voice, it had a descent run, but we would like to see the Galaxy Note 4 optionally but also fully support Google Now the way it was meant to be used rather than S Voice being in the way without the option to change it.

Galaxy Note 4 64GB & 128GB Options

I personally have a 32GB Galaxy Note 3, and there have been times when I had to make a decision to uninstall an app for the sole purpose of freeing up space.  And really, having to make that decision decision seems rather unnecessary in 2014.  Solid state storage is incredibly cheap these days.  And whatever the reason it was for not having 64GB Galaxy Note 3, we hope Samsung can offer higher capacity devices for the Note 4.  Considering Google is making it ever so harder to actually use an external storage card, and demanding more of the internal storage for the OS, we’re going to need that extra space.

S Pen Kickstand

Many people have figured out you can kinda use it as a kickstand, but it is still way too unstable.  We have Samsung has noticed and designs the S Pen so that it can do officially double as a kickstand and offer a more sturdy way of doing this because it’s a feature that would be incredibly useful for many Note users.