The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has some accessibility features that are not present on any other Android phone, other than the most recent Galaxy devices like the S6 and S6 Edge. As I have not personally owned any of the other Samsung devices, I can't speak as to when any of the following features were introduced, however, I believe most of them are part of the aforementioned group of phones, only.

Voice Assistant: This is not a voice assistant as you would think of Google Now-they call that S-Voice. This is the Samsung enhancement of TalkBack. I will note here, that the traditional TalkBack app is not factory installed on the Note 5, so there is a learning curve-one I have yet to completely overcome. Voice Assistant got rid of the right-angle gestures and the duplicated gestures (using left or down, using right or up). They have also taken steps to, in theory, make text selection, copying, cutting, and pasting easier. Some of the gestures seem to me, someone who has listened to many iPhone users over the years, to be somewhat iPhone-esque. Things such as double finger tapping for one function and triple finger tapping for another, three finger swipe left to right, and others. When all is said and done, Voice Assistant is more robust than the traditional Google Talkback, but it can be difficult to move from TalkBack to Voice Assistant if you are quite used to the one, already. It is possible, however, to use TalkBack with the Note 5 and not Voice Assistant. You just have to download it from the Play Store, then turn it on in Accessibility Features, under Services.

Voice Label allows you to attach voice labels to NFC tags. This is, in a way, a much more modern version of the Pen Friend. It can be quite handy-if you have a stack of NFC tags lying around.

The Note 5 has a larger range of system font size possibilities than other phones I have used, including the LG G2, the phone I came from, which was pretty revolutionary at its release for allowing changing of text size and font. In this setting, you have everything from "tiny" to "extra huge."

In addition to pinch and zoom magnification, the Note 5 also offers a magnification window, somewhat reminiscent of the old Microsoft Windows Magnifier.

There are multiple color adjustment options-just as any Android device in recent years, you have the option of negative colors or making color adjustments, which skew the colors to one wavelength or another. In order to do this in a meaningful way, however, the Note 5 runs you through a test. It asks you to put tiles in order based on their similarity in hue. It will advise you if color adjustment is necessary, and if so, it will make base adjustments and then allow you to fine tune those adjustments. A feature that the Note 5 has that I have neither seen nor heard of on any other device, is Grayscale. This turns all colors on the screen to shades of gray. This can be helpful if color is distracting for one reason or another.

There are numerous other accessibility features that have to do with hearing, dexterity, and the like, but as I don't have any experience with them, I am not qualified to describe them.

A couple things that are not considered by Samsung to be accessibility features, but might be useful, especially to low vision folks, are the availability of full system themes, some based on color schemes, others based on size, objects, etc. Many of these are free, others are available for a nominal fee from the Samsung Store.

The Note 5 also has what it calls Easy Mode. This transforms the Home Screens into more simplistic areas than you see traditionally. Where home screens have a 5x5 grid where app icons reside, and often widgets as well, Easy Mode only has about 12 or so icons per home screen, and there are only a couple available widgets. This can get in the way of accessibility as well though, as it also disables system theming.

As a low vision Android user, there are several features that I consider to be of utmost importance. The first is the screen. It has to be good and big…the bigger the better, it has to be bright, and it has to be quality. I can’t see the millions of pixels, but if the colors don’t render well, it isn’t bright, and it isn’t large, then I can’t use it. Second is the camera. I use my phone as a portable CCTV. Because of this, I depend on the camera quite heavily. I need to be able to zoom in both live and once I’ve taken a picture. I need to be able to see text clearly both on paper and on other packaging or on signage. The Note 5 fulfills these for me.

One final note about accessibility. While someone who is totally blind may not get a lot of use out of the S-Pen, I’m finding I get more use out of it than I anticipated. One of the things that makes it more useful is that I can change the color of the background, the color of the pen, etc. So if yellow text on a black background works best, then do that. You can also change from a fine point to a very broad marker. The pen can also be used for selecting and manipulating text, and I believe that’s doable with Voice Assistant, but it isn’t something I’ve tried.

Overall my experience with the Note 5 has been extremely positive. However I can't wait until Google gets rid of the bright white notification area. It's killer on the eyes.