 Samsung announced a bunch of new products to IFA today including a new Note 4, a Note 4 with a curved display, a watch, and a VR headset, which is crazy. Dan Schafer is here. He's played with all this stuff. Let's just start with the most important one, the Note 4. What's going on there? So, the Note 4 is an update of Galaxy Note line. It's almost exactly like the Note 3 on the outside except it's got a faster processor, higher screen, and Samsung finally put some metal on its phone. Yeah, instead of faking it. Right, the Note 3 had this really ugly chrome plastic that's supposed to look like metal. But the Note 4's got a metal band around it and it's got kind of the same soft touch back that's that leatherette feeling but they got rid of that awful fake stitching. It feels a lot better in your hand. Put together a lot better. It's remarkable how big of a difference what a little thing like a metal band does when you're holding the device. It's basically just a really refined Note 3. It's a refined Note 3. It's exactly what it is. It's Samsung saying we did a really good thing with the Note 3. A lot of people complained about these particular things. We fixed those particular issues. Here's the Note 4. It's faster, better screen, better camera. And they're also doing stuff to make it more luxurious. There's Swarovski crystal backs. They partnered with Montblanc to do nicer styluses. Yeah, so Samsung's had these partnerships for a while with Swarovski but now they're just going full hog onto them. I don't know if we're ever going to see them here in the US but I can picture them in Samsung flagship stores worldwide of getting a Swarovski crystal back for your Note 4. Other than being a refined Note 3, anything major about the Note 4 that's worth knowing? So I think what the big takeaway for the Note 4 is Apple's going to be expected to release a big phone next week or announce a big phone. 5.5 inches. 5.5 or whatever it might be. Samsung has long held onto that big screen market. It kind of invented the phablet. This is Samsung putting its best foot forward to be able to hold onto what it's got against a big screen incoming iPhone. You think they'll be successful? It's hard to say. I think that this is definitely the best Note that they've released yet. They refined a lot of things. They made it better. The Note 3 wasn't a bad product. If you wanted a phablet device, it's definitely the best option. And now this is just a better Note 3. We'll have to see what Apple brings out. Every time I see a Note 3 I'm like, man, I want a gigantic screen. So Samsung, they also released the Note 4 Edge, which is the Note 3 with a little bit of a screen curve, some buttons along the side for quick actions and notifications when you watch videos. Did you play with that one? Yeah, so the Note Edge is exactly what she said. It's a Note 4 except on the right hand side of the phone they've taken the screen and kind of just melted it along the side. And they've had this kind of concept for a long time. We saw a couple years ago at CES they were showing off the exact same concept. But now you can actually or will be able to go buy it. And the curved kind of side, it shows different notifications for you. You can check your weather. You can have it act as a clock on your desk. They even built a silly little game for it that you play on the edge, which is just silly. Is that just Samsung being Samsung? This whole product is Samsung being Samsung. It feels to me like this is very much a first generation product that doesn't have a clear purpose to exist other than Samsung saying, we can do this and nobody else can. Right, I remember a long time ago Samsung had the Continuum on the Verizon which had two displays. Well, no, it had one display and they blacked out the middle of it. It just feels very much, is anyone going to support this? Exactly. When I talk to Samsung executives they say, they haven't released pricing yet, but they say this is going to be positioned higher than the Note 4. I don't think that they expect a whole lot of people to go for the Note Edge. It's just kind of like a thing that they built because they could do it. If you use it with your right hand... The ultimate Samsung. It's the ultimate Samsung. If you use it with your right hand you can swipe along the little edge. It's still a really big phone obviously so it's not super comfortable. But if you use it with your left hand that curve does nothing for you for interactions. Right, you've got to hold it upside down. You've got to hold it upside down which is ridiculous. So speaking of other Samsung stuff today, big news. Gear S, which was announced a few days ago, you've got to play with it now. Yeah, so the Gear S is the biggest smartwatch Samsung has ever released. It looks like something from a movie. It looks like your watch looks small. Because this thing has a two inch curved screen and it is... I've long said that these things look like computers on your wrist and they always have, but this is literally the closest thing we have to a computer on your wrist. It has a full QWERTY keyboard. It has a full QWERTY keyboard. You can swipe on it. I know some developers announced some things that their keyboards that they have on Android phones, they're going to be porting to this thing. It's got a SIM card in it so you can leave your phone at home and still get your text messages and emails and God forbid make calls from this curved two inch screen. There's no plans to bring it to the US yet. And we don't really know what it's going to cost but this is like peak Samsung smartphone. This is Samsung going full hog with a big curved display. And it looks cool. I don't think I'd ever wear it out of the house. It's kind of the same thing. Next week Apple is going to do a watch or something we expect and this is kind of there. Yeah, this is Samsung trying to preempt it. And so then lastly, speaking of crazy Samsung, they announced a VR shell for the Note 4 in partnership with Oculus. It's a great name. It's the Note 4 VR display, innovators edition powered by Oculus. It's an amazing, amazing collection of nouns all in that name. It's kind of crazy. You put a Note 4 in it and you can wave your head around. Is this just a gimmick? This thing is like, I looked at it and I was like, that's silly. It's ridiculous. I know that had been leaked a couple weeks ago and I thought, same thing. But when you put it on, and it's the same thing that you get when you put on the Oculus Rift, it's just this like, oh my God experience. You're sucked into this world and you're moving your head around all over the place. You're doing your best Stevie Wonder impression and you're just in this world and it just put a smile on my face right away. It's just a fun thing to play with. I don't know how much it's going to cost. I don't know when you're going to be able to buy it. It only works with the Note 4. There isn't a whole lot of software with it. Samsung says there's going to be a software store when it launches. Samsung makes a lot of promises on that software store. Samsung makes a lot of software promises. That's right. That's not going to happen. But there was a couple demos on there. You could be Tony Stark in his lab and grab things and stuff like that. There was this flight simulator demo where you flew the ship around with your head and tapped the side to blast things, which is like super fun. It's probably like 15 minutes of entertainment. If anything's cheap, it's a good toy to buy for the Note 4. I think what they're going to do, because it only works with the Note 4, they did the same strategy last year with the Note 3 and the first Galaxy Gear. It only worked with the Note 3 and one other phone. So Samsung bundled them together and they put a Galaxy Gear on a lot of people's wrists that wouldn't have bothered. AT&T is going to be giving these things away for free like crazy. I think the Gear VR is going to be the same thing. It only works with the Note 4. If you buy a Note 4, you can pick this up for 50 bucks or something and it doesn't work for anybody else. But it's fun. Awesome. Samsung. Doing it. Thanks, Dan. Subscribe.