[Galaxy Note5 General] Dannar:
There is a valid debate here that only a precious few of you hit on. Yes there is some whining, and when it comes right down to it, the Note 5 is not bad when compared to most phones out there.

But there was a reason we started buying Samsung. Those of us who are less than thrilled with the latest addition into their smartphone line feel like the rug was swept out from under us. The brand has changed, and it has moved away from what made it great.

Remember the much maligned S5? That was the high-water mark. You had a phone with:

- Removable battery

- SD card slot

- Water and dust resistance

- Plus the usual bevy of things that made the S series shine

Are you kidding me? This thing was just a regular old galaxy S. Man, what a value proposition. It put all other phones to shame. All those useful features...that is what made Andriod phones superior. The iPhone isn't a bad product, but how could it even compare?

Sadly, a lot of you care more about whether or not your phone has leopard print or some other horribly irrelevant metric. There was a guy on another forum who said the S5 was far from perfect because...wait for it...gaps. Yes, gaps. What a deal breaker!

These devices cost a significant sum of money. I'm not sure how you guys do it outside of the USA, but with contracts dying here, it makes more sense to hang on to things longer. We all know the battery WILL degrade and die. You need access to it to switch it out.

The extra utility of switching out a battery when it's depleted is nice, but largely secondary to the maintenance factor granted. Would you buy a car with a non removable battery, air filter, and oil filter? No, no, and no.

I don't like this trend. It seems like it's a scheme to monetize me. I have crap for local storage, so I need to use a subscription cloud based storage and burn through my limited dataplan. I also have less local storage because I have a permanently welded in apps like VZ navigator that I never use. God forbid I try doing anything to get rid of adds...

Yes, plenty of phones were already like this, but I never bought them. It's just a letdown to see the best in the business get out of it so swiftly. Now I'm looking for someone, *anyone*, to make a good phone that offers those features. I'm holding my breath for the LG 4 Pro, even though the Samsung will likely have better performance.

See, the S6 was a valid upgrade. I'm 100% ok with what they did there. Feature removal aside, they did some great things with their own processor and internal storage and RAM. But we grade the Note differently than the standard S line.

Here's the issue:

- Removal of power user features on a power user phone

Everybody has beat this to death. It doesn't make sense.

- Exact same hardware as standard S6

Why do proponents of the Note 5 only compare it to the Note 4? Every note in the past has been an upgrade to the standard S line. It makes sense...bigger phone = more space for better internals. And hell, they price it at a higher point too...we need to get *something* for the added cost. This is a blatant money grab.

- The S6+

Why? They just really want to cash in on Apple's image huh? And if this is the case, why not make this one the shiny unibody toy, and let the real users have a valid handset? Let this one be the form over function model for all the iPhone users they so blatantly want to capture. As it stands right now, there is no reason for the S6+ and the Note 5 to both be made.

I really hope the LG 4 Pro gets the snapdragon 820, though we know it likely wont. If so, it's a day 1 buy. I will speak with my wallet as loudly as I can on this one.