三星Note 4 離取代電腦不遠了

In 2011 Samsung unveiled a smartphone so big it looked as if it must have been a joke, a mistake or a turn toward conceptual art.

2011年，三星(Samsung)推出了一款智能手機。這款手機大得簡直像是個笑話、敗筆或是向觀念藝術的轉型。

With a screen measuring 5.3 inches diagonally, the device, the Galaxy Note, was met with instant and slightly unhinged criticism.

名爲Galaxy Note的這款手機屏幕尺寸爲5.3英寸，一推出便遭致稍顯瘋狂的批評。

A writer for the Boy Genius Report, an industry blog, called the Note “the most useless phone I’ve ever used,” adding, “You will look stupid talking on it, people will laugh at you, and you’ll be unhappy if you buy it.”

行業博客天才男孩報告(Boy Genius Report)的撰稿人稱其爲“我用過的最無用的手機”，並接着說“用它打電話看上去很傻，人們會嘲笑你，如果買了，你會難過的”。

The critics were wrong.

這些批評人士錯了。

Samsung went on to sell millions of the huge Note; and its successors, the even larger Note 2 and Note 3, became some of the best-selling smartphones of the last few years. The Note also spawned dozens of copycats, making for an entire new category: phablets, or smartphones almost big enough to be considered tablets.

三星後來賣出了數百萬部大屏Note，而其後續產品，即屏幕更大的Note 2和Note 3，屬於過去幾年最暢銷的智能手機。Note還催生了數十款跟風產品，形成了一個全新的產品種類：平板手機，即大得幾乎足以被當做平板電腦的智能手機。

Today, just about every smartphone manufacturer — including, at long last, Apple — makes a phone as big as the Note, and plus-size phones are threatening to overrun both the smartphone and tablet business.

如今，幾乎所有智能手機生產商，包括最後加入的蘋果(Apple)，都會生產Note那麼大的手機，而大屏手機對手機和平板電腦業務都構成了威脅。

So the Note has become a watershed device; along with the original iPhone and iPad, Samsung’s phone is one of the most important and influential digital inventions of the last there’s a new Note, and it is better than ever.

因此，Note已經成了一款分水嶺式的產品。和最早的iPhone和iPad一樣，三星的Note是過去十年最重要、最具影響力的數字發明之一。眼下又有了新款Note，而且表現比以前更好。

The Galaxy Note 4, which goes on sale this week, is superior to just about every other phablet on the market. Its only real competition is Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus, which has a more intuitive interface. But the Note 4 has at least a half-dozen clever features that should prompt even the most die-hard Apple fan to begin salivating.

本週發售的Galaxy Note 4，幾乎比市面上其他所有平板手機都更勝一籌。唯一真正稱得上競爭對手的是界面更直觀的蘋果iPhone 6 Plus。但Note 4至少有6項更智能的特色，它們應該會促使即便是最忠實的蘋果粉絲開始流口水。

Among them: The Note 4 has a sharper, larger display; the ability to charge its battery to half-full in just 30 minutes; and a series of on-screen features that make it easier to use in one hand.

Note 4的這些特色包括：更清晰、更大的顯示屏；30分鐘便可充電50%的能力；以及讓單手操作更容易的一系列屏幕功能。

Also, like previous versions, the Note 4 has a stylus, which Apple fans have long argued was proof of its inferiority. They’re wrong; despite Steve Jobs’s objections, the stylus is a handy tool for manipulating such a big phone, and after using the Note, I often found myself missing it when I went back to the iPhone.

而且和之前的版本一樣，Note 4也配備了觸控筆。長期以來，果粉一直稱觸控筆是其低級的證據。他們錯了。儘管遭到了史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)的反對，但觸控筆是操作這類大屏手機的便利工具。而且在用過Note又回去用iPhone時，我常常發現自己想念觸控筆。

With the Note, Samsung is aiming for something transformative, a device that is more than just a big phone: The Note 4 feels like an ambitious effort to reach for the future of computing, in which our phones are more useful and powerful than PCs, and in which we barely bother with any other kinds of computers.

通過Note系列，三星的目標是變革性的產品，即一款超越了大屏手機的設備：Note 4感覺像是朝着計算的未來，邁出的雄心勃勃的一步。在未來的計算中，我們的手機比個人電腦更有用、更強大，而且我們幾乎不再正眼瞧其他任何類型的電腦。

Granted, the Note 4 is far from perfect; in true Samsung fashion, a lot of gimmickry can be found in it, and several features seem half-baked. The heart-rate monitor is pointless, and the fingerprint scanner isn’t nearly as good as Apple’s. But if you can overlook the rough edges, you’re left with a truly useful machine.

當然，Note 4遠非完美。它忠實地採用了三星的款式，可以發現很多花招，而且多項功能似乎還不完善。心率監測儀毫無意義，指紋傳感器和蘋果的相去甚遠。但如果略過那些粗糙的邊緣，你擁有的是一部真正有用的機器。

Any assessment of the Note 4 must begin with its stunning display.

對Note 4進行任何評估，都必須從其令人震驚的顯示屏開始。

Even though the Note 4 is just about the same size, over all, as the iPhone 6 Plus — it’s about 5 millimeters shorter than Apple’s device, but a millimeter wider and thicker — Samsung has packed a slightly larger display into the Note than Apple does into its giant phone. Even though the screen is only about 6 percent larger than the iPhone’s, it’s a noticeable pleasure, like an extra inch of legroom in the Note’s display is not just bigger; it is also better. DisplayMate, a company that performs technical tests on digital displays, recently called the Note 4’s screen “the best performing smartphone display that we have ever tested.”

儘管從總體上看，Note 4的尺寸幾乎和iPhone 6 Plus一樣——Note 4比iPhone 6 Plus短大約5毫米，不過在寬度和厚度上均多出了1毫米——但相比於蘋果那款大屏手機，三星給這款Note手機配置的顯示屏略微大一些。儘管Note 4的屏幕只比iPhone 6 Plus的大6%左右，但顯而易見的這一點令人高興，就像車廂裏額外多了一英寸放腳的地方一樣。前不久，對數字顯示屏進行技術測試的公司“顯示伴侶”(DisplayMate)稱Note 4的屏幕是“我們測試過的表現最好的顯示屏”。

Though DisplayMate also found the iPhone 6 Plus’s display to be very impressive, it gave the Note 4 the edge because of a couple of technical advances, including what Raymond Soneira, DisplayMate’s president, called “significantly better color accuracy.”

儘管發現iPhone 6 Plus的顯示屏也令人印象深刻，但“顯示伴侶”認爲Note 4更勝一籌，因爲它在技術上有幾處進步，包括該公司總裁雷蒙德·索內拉(Raymond Soneira)所說的“色準明顯更好”。

To my eyes, the Note 4’s screen did look better than Apple’s — sharper, more vivid and just generally delicious, the kind of screen you don’t mind staring at.

在我看來，Note 4的屏幕看上去的確比蘋果的好，更清晰、更濃豔並且總的來說令人感覺愉悅。就是那種你不介意盯視的屏幕。

The Note 4 runs Android, Google’s mobile operating system, but like most Samsung phones, it has been dolled up by TouchWiz, the company’s horrendous homegrown user the most part, TouchWiz isn’t pretty; it is a mess of garish colors and unintuitive gestures, and until you get accustomed to its quirks, it will seem to add unnecessary steps to just about every common task.

Note 4運行的是谷歌(Google)的移動操作系統Android，但和三星的大部分手機一樣，它使用的是該公司自己糟糕透頂的用戶界面TouchWiz。TouchWiz的大多數地方都不好看；過分鮮豔的顏色和有違直覺的使用手勢亂七八糟地結合在一起。除非適應它的怪癖，否則它似乎給幾乎每一項常見任務都增加了一些不必要的步驟。

The surprise, then, is that for the Note 4 Samsung has built several useful features into TouchWiz that collectively recognize an important truth about phablets: We use them in different modes.

Note 4令人驚喜的是，三星在TouchWiz中加入了幾個有用的功能，這些功能在一起，體現出它認識到了平板手機的一個真理：我們是在不同的模式下使用它們的。

Sometimes, we use them as phones, or quick-hit devices to use on the go, when we need to scan email or look up directions. Other times, we use them in deeper ways, to go through morning mail, plan a day in a calendar, take notes while on a phone call or watch a show.

有時，我們會將它們用作手機，或是忙亂時需要用來瀏覽郵件或查詢方位的快速點擊設備。其他時候，我們對它們的使用更深入，仔細查收早上的郵件、在日曆上安排某天的計劃、在通話或看演出期間做筆記。

Samsung has smartly built its interface to facilitate either of these ways of using a phablet. Apple’s big iPhone, by contrast, does not appreciate these two modes; you use the iPhone 6 Plus pretty much as you would any other phone.

三星巧妙地對自己的界面進行了打造，使其讓平板手機的這兩種使用方式都變得更便利。相比之下，蘋果的大屏iPhone並未意識到這兩種方式；你使用iPhone 6 Plus的方式，跟其他任何一種手機沒什麼兩樣。

For use as a smartphone, Samsung has come up with a few tricks that make the phone easier to use in one hand.

對於智能手機的使用，三星想出了一些技巧，讓Note 4的單手操作更容易。

The best of these is the side-key panel, a pop-up menu of useful icons that sits on the left or right side of the screen, right under your thumb.

這些技巧中最棒的是側面鍵盤。這是一個彈出式的菜單，上面有一些有用的圖標。這個菜單會出現在屏幕的左側或右側，正好位於拇指下方。

Samsung’s labyrinthine interface does not make the Note 4’s utility obvious, and even if it did, there would be a learning curve to grasping its unusual powers. That’s why Apple’s phablet is far easier to use. But if you’re patient, and you want a glimpse of the phone of tomorrow, you should take a look at the Note 4.

在三星複雜的界面下，Note 4的易用性並非顯而易見，即便它做到了這一點，要理解其不同尋常的能力，也需要進行長時間的學習。這正是蘋果的平板手機更易用的原因。但如果有耐心，而且想一瞥未來的手機，你應該看看Note 4。