In his 1982 novel, Life, the Universe & Everything, Douglas Adams fantasized about pocket computers and bistromath—the science that explores how numbers written on restaurant checks don’t “follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe.”
What Adams deemed to be science fiction at the time, is now our phenomenal reality. It’s true we have yet to harness the power of restaurant arithmetic, but thanks to the likes of Apple, we’ve got the science of “pocket computers” nailed down to near perfection. The new and brilliantly designed Samsung Galaxy Note Edge is yet another testament to that fact.
A Panel on the Edge
Made up by one curving piece of glass, the 5.6” Quad HD + Super AMOLED display of the Galaxy Note Edge is stunning, to say the least. Prior to the phone’s release, reviewers speculated that the curved screen was merely there for show. As it turns out, it’s actually quite practical.
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Placed to the right of the main screen, this angled panel can host a variety of apps serving multiple functions such as a flashlight, voice recorder, timer, stopwatch and ruler. Another main purpose of the panel is as a notification screen, as alerts from many of your apps may pop up along the edge of the phone periodically.
There are two more features that are unique to the new edged panel. The first is a Night Clock app that, when turned on, shows the date and time continuously through a dim glow during night hours (as the name suggests, very much like a night clock). The second feature allows you to wake up the phone partially simply by swiping your finger along the curved edge. This movement will initially reveal the date, time and weather, then continued swiping will show your notifications.
Challenging Boundaries
Since rumors about the design of the Edge began to surface, there’s been a great deal of hype about the smartphone. Much of the talk, as was previously mentioned, pondered whether or not the phone would be too weird for people to get used to. For the most part people don’t like change and usually cling to the familiar. This tendency is what makes massive leaps in phone design generally frowned upon.
The Galaxy Note Edge however, seems to have achieved a delicate balance between novel forward-thinking design, and user-friendly functionality. The phone looks cool no doubt, but it’s also comfortable to hold and can be flipped to serve left-handed users as well.
In terms of added technology, the panel is something new that users will have to get used to, but it’s not such a foreign concept to make one give up. Once you get the hang of the panel, you’ll probably love it with all of its minimalist goodness.
Indeed there’s a refined minimalism about the Galaxy Note Edge—an aesthetic that is often deemed to be solely in the purview of Apple. But there you have it, a pocket computer from Samsung that is as much science fiction as Adams could have imagined thirty years ago.
