Samsung Galaxy Note Edge review: The other side

S Pen, S Voice

When you take out the S Pen, the Air Command menu launches. This works even if the device is asleep (unless you have a secure lockscreen set up, of course). Menu can be brought back up if with a press of the S Pen's button.

Action Memo lets you jot down notes but it uses handwriting recognition for clever tricks. You highlight a section with the S Pen button pressed and pick an app to send the text to - phone numbers to the dialer, URLs to the browser, addresses to Google Maps and so on. The handwriting recognition works impressively fast and quite accurately too - it handles just about everything you throw at it.

Air command • Action memo

Smart select is the newest option. It lets you select on-screen content and extract the text from it. Multiple items can be collected and added to a scrapbook or shared.

Smart Select

Screen Write takes a screenshot and lets you scribble a note on top. Image clip is similar but directly crops out a part of the screen.

Screen write • Image clip

S Note is where the S Pen's drawing and writing skills are used to the fullest. You can create entire notebooks from 18 templates and you can create ones using images from the gallery. You can sort notebooks by tag, time or location.

S Note

S Note features the photo note camera. It can snap a photo of a document and automatically separate the elements. You can move elements around, copy or delete them, change their size, add borders or effects to them. If you need to quickly retouch a brochure or something, this is one of the quickest ways to do it - dead simple too.

Photo note

Scrapbook lets you keep any content you browse through on the Note Edge's screen. You need to select anything on the screen of the Galaxy Note Edge by pressing the S Pen button and the software highlights it and gives you a prompt to send it to Scrapbook via an image.

Scrapbook

Hovering the S Pen over certain kinds of content can display a pop up with information. In the S Planner app hovering over a date will list the events, in the gallery a hover will show you a preview of a picture or album, in the video player if you hover over a video it will silently play in a pop up. In the browser clicking the S Pen will let you highlight text and give you a copy option.

You can even hover over a link you got in the Messages app and that site will be opened in a preview window, so there's no need to tap the link and leave the app.

Hover • Text selection with S Pen

You can enable and disable all or some of the S Pen features in its dedicated settings menu. The motion and gestures menu has seen a big cut in features. You can directly call a contact from the messaging app by raising the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge to your ear, mute or pause a song by placing a palm on screen or turning the device over (this will also mute the ringer).

A palm swipe over the screen will capture a screenshot. Finally, smart alert will vibrate the phone when you pick it up if you have unseen notifications.

S Pen settings • Motion gestures

S Voice has gotten smarter as well. It can be set to constantly listen for your voice and you can set a custom command to wake it. S Voice can be used to initiate a call, dictate text, play music, open an app, change a setting, make a memo (including voice memo), add a reminder, schedule an event, set an alarm or timer, check the weather, do an Internet search, look for local listings (e.g. nearby restaurants) and even get an answer to a question.

S Voice