Samsung launches Galaxy Note 4 phablet for Rs 58,300 in India, is it worth a buy?

After unveiling the same at IFA 2014- a consumer electronics show in Berlin- last month, Samsung has now launched its next in line Note offering in the Indian mobile phone market. Christened Galaxy Note 4, the device sports a 5.7 inch display and runs on the Android operating system. It has been priced at Rs 58,300 and will be available for purchase ahead of Diwali (Oct 23, 2014) in the country.

As part of an introductory offer, telecom operator Vodafone is offering 1GB of free data for two months to its subscribers that have an existing data pack. In addition, to entice first time users, Vodafone subscribers who do not have any active data packs will get up to 2GB of data for two months.

"With the introduction of the Galaxy Note series, we brought the age-old culture of the pen and notepad into the digital world. The new Galaxy Note 4 introduces the most refined Note experience to-date by combining all the latest technology that users expect from the Galaxy series," said JK Shin, CEO and head of IT & mobile communication at Samsung Electronics.

The phablet sports a 5.7 inch Quad HD Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display (2560×1440 pixel resolution), and runs on the Android 4.4 KitKat operating system. Due to its large screen, users can choose how they access their applications with full, split or pop-up screens, and change the size and positioning of apps on the screen with one swipe. It is powered by a 2.7 GHz Snapdragon 805 quad-core processor and has 3GB of RAM. The internal memory of the device is 32GB that can be further expanded up to 64GB with a microSD card.

Note 4 packs a 16 megapixel auto-focus rear camera with LED Flash that can record Ultra HD videos at 30 frames per second (fps) and full HD videos at 60fps. The device also has a 3.7 MP front facing camera that can also record full HD videos. The rear camera features a Smart Optical Image Stabiliser that counter-balances camera shake and automatically extends exposure time in dark settings.

Users can also make use of both the cameras with dual shot and dual recording. Additional features of the camera include HDR, rear-cam Selfie, beauty face, and selective focus, among others.​ On the connectivity front, the device has Bluetooth 4.1, IR LED, Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G LTE (depending on the region), as well as a microSD card slot and a microUSB port.

The dimensions of the device are 153.5mm x 78.6mm x 8.5mm, and its weight is 176gm. The company has provided a 3,220 mAh battery in the device. The Galaxy Note 4 also comes with an improved fingerprint scanner, and a built-in 'voice recorder' which offers eight different directional voice tagging and a selective playback capability that allows users to isolate and listen to specific voices in a group conversation.

Here is an introductory video of the device.

Improved S Pen

Galaxy Note 4's S Pen has been specifically evolved to offer a much more authentic pen experience, with a natural brush effect that emulates writing on paper with a fountain or calligraphy pen. The S Pen also introduces a more user-friendly Air Command functionality along with other features such as Action Memo, Screen Write, Image Clip and Smart Select, in order to allow users to create and collect content with ease.

In addition to typing and writing, the Snap Note feature allows users to take a picture of their notes on a paper or a classroom board, and then easily convert to the S Note.

In terms of competition, Note 4 will mainly face off against Apple's latest phablet offering- iPhone 6 Plus. Scheduled to launch in India later this week (Oct 17, 2014), the device sports a 5.5-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen Retina full HD display (1920 x 1080 pixel resolution) with 401 ppi pixel density. You can read about its specifications in detail here.

The iPhone 6 Plus will be available in three internal memory options that will be priced at Rs 62,500, Rs 71,500, and Rs 80,500 for the 16, 64 and 128GB models respectively. And while Note 4 has been priced slightly lower than the iPhone 6 Plus, Samsung does not command a devoted fan base like Apple that is willing to pay close to Rs 60,000 for a mobile phone.