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)推出了一款智能手机。这款手机大得简直像是个笑话、败笔或是向观念艺术的转型。
With a screen measuring 5.3 inches diagonally, the device, the Galaxy Note, was met with instant and slightly unhinged criticism.
名为Galaxy Note的这款手机屏幕尺寸为5.3英寸，一推出便遭致稍显疯狂的批评。

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.”
行业博客天才男孩报告(Boy Genius Report)的撰稿人称其为“我用过的最无用的手机”，并接着说“用它打电话看上去很傻，人们会嘲笑你，如果买了，你会难过的”。
The critics were wrong.
这些批评人士错了。
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.
三星后来卖出了数百万部大屏Note，而其后续产品，即屏幕更大的Note 2和Note 3，属于过去几年最畅销的智能手机。Note还催生了数十款跟风产品，形成了一个全新的产品种类：平板手机，即大得几乎足以被当做平板电脑的智能手机。
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，几乎所有智能手机生产商，包括最后加入的苹果(Apple)，都会生产Note那么大的手机，而大屏手机对手机和平板电脑业务都构成了威胁。
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 decade.Now there’s a new Note, and it is better than ever.
因此，Note已经成了一款分水岭式的产品。和最早的iPhone和iPad一样，三星的Note是过去十年最重要、最具影响力的数字发明之一。眼下又有了新款Note，而且表现比以前更好。
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.
本周发售的Galaxy Note 4，几乎比市面上其他所有平板手机都更胜一筹。唯一真正称得上竞争对手的是界面更直观的苹果iPhone 6 Plus。但Note 4至少有6项更智能的特色，它们应该会促使即便是最忠实的苹果粉丝开始流口水。
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的这些特色包括：更清晰、更大的显示屏；30分钟便可充电50%的能力；以及让单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样，Note 4也配备了触控笔。长期以来，果粉一直称触控笔是其低级的证据。他们错了。尽管遭到了史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)的反对，但触控笔是操作这类大屏手机的便利工具。而且在用过Note又回去用iPhone时，我常常发现自己想念触控笔。
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.
通过Note系列，三星的目标是变革性的产品，即一款超越了大屏手机的设备：Note 4感觉像是朝着计算的未来，迈出的雄心勃勃的一步。在未来的计算中，我们的手机比个人电脑更有用、更强大，而且我们几乎不再正眼瞧其他任何类型的电脑。
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.
当然，Note 4远非完美。它忠实地采用了三星的款式，可以发现很多花招，而且多项功能似乎还不完善。心率监测仪毫无意义，指纹传感器和苹果的相去甚远。但如果略过那些粗糙的边缘，你拥有的是一部真正有用的机器。
Any assessment of the Note 4 must begin with its stunning display.
对Note 4进行任何评估，都必须从其令人震惊的显示屏开始。
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 coach.And 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.”
尽管从总体上看，Note 4的尺寸几乎和iPhone 6 Plus一样——Note 4比iPhone 6 Plus短大约5毫米，不过在宽度和厚度上均多出了1毫米——但相比于苹果那款大屏手机，三星给这款Note手机配置的显示屏略微大一些。尽管Note 4的屏幕只比iPhone 6 Plus的大6%左右，但显而易见的这一点令人高兴，就像车厢里额外多了一英寸放脚的地方一样。前不久，对数字显示屏进行技术测试的公司“显示伴侣”(DisplayMate)称Note 4的屏幕是“我们测试过的表现最好的显示屏”。
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.”
尽管发现iPhone 6 Plus的显示屏也令人印象深刻，但“显示伴侣”认为Note 4更胜一筹，因为它在技术上有几处进步，包括该公司总裁雷蒙德·索内拉(Raymond Soneira)所说的“色准明显更好”。
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.
在我看来，Note 4的屏幕看上去的确比苹果的好，更清晰、更浓艳并且总的来说令人感觉愉悦。就是那种你不介意盯视的屏幕。
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 interface.For 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运行的是谷歌(Google)的移动操作系统Android，但和三星的大部分手机一样，它使用的是该公司自己糟糕透顶的用户界面TouchWiz。TouchWiz的大多数地方都不好看；过分鲜艳的颜色和有违直觉的使用手势乱七八糟地结合在一起。除非适应它的怪癖，否则它似乎给几乎每一项常见任务都增加了一些不必要的步骤。
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令人惊喜的是，三星在TouchWiz中加入了几个有用的功能，这些功能在一起，体现出它认识到了平板手机的一个真理：我们是在不同的模式下使用它们的。
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.
有时，我们会将它们用作手机，或是忙乱时需要用来浏览邮件或查询方位的快速点击设备。其他时候，我们对它们的使用更深入，仔细查收早上的邮件、在日历上安排某天的计划、在通话或看演出期间做笔记。
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.
三星巧妙地对自己的界面进行了打造，使其让平板手机的这两种使用方式都变得更便利。相比之下，苹果的大屏iPhone并未意识到这两种方式；你使用iPhone 6 Plus的方式，跟其他任何一种手机没什么两样。
For use as a smartphone, Samsung has come up with a few tricks that make the phone easier to use in one hand.
对于智能手机的使用，三星想出了一些技巧，让Note 4的单手操作更容易。
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.
这些技巧中最棒的是侧面键盘。这是一个弹出式的菜单，上面有一些有用的图标。这个菜单会出现在屏幕的左侧或右侧，正好位于拇指下方。
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.
在三星复杂的界面下，Note 4的易用性并非显而易见，即便它做到了这一点，要理解其不同寻常的能力，也需要进行长时间的学习。这正是苹果的平板手机更易用的原因。但如果有耐心，而且想一瞥未来的手机，你应该看看Note 4。