Confirmed: no removable battery or SD card in Galaxy Note 5
Leaked photos confirm Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is to lose two popular features
Leaked photos have confirmed many people’s worst fears about the Samsung Galaxy Note 5: the phablet will have neither a removable battery nor expandable storage. Samsung was once revered for being one of the few phone makers to issue flagship phones with both swappable batteries and SD cards, but it’s gradually phased them out in favour of sleeker, metallic cases.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 omitted both removable battery and SD card slot, and now Samsung’s adopting the same policy with its popular phablet, if the leaked photos of the handset published on Droid Life are authentic – which they almost certainly are.
The photos confirm some other rumours about the design of the Note 5, which is due to be officially unveiled at a press conference next week. The phablet retains a slot for the S Pen stylus, which is apparently spring loaded. However, it doesn’t use what is fast becoming the new connector standard, USB Type-C. Instead, it has the same Micro-USB slot as its predecessor.
According to Droid Life, the phone will come with 4GB of RAM, either 32GB, 64GB or 128GB of storage, and the non-removable battery will be rated at 3,000mAh, which is actually a slight decrease on the capacity of the battery inside the Galaxy Note 4.
The metallic case is curved on the rear, making the device a little easier to hold, and the bezels around the edge of the screen look thinner than its predecessor’s.
We’ll have full details of the Galaxy Note 5 next week, but if you value removable batteries and expandable memory, now might be the time to hunt for a bargain Note 4.