[sengork]

Unfortunately the last two release cycles of the Note series have been feature downgrades ever since Note 4.

Fun fact - this is not a maths error, Samsung skipped Note 6 branding and went straight to 7 to match their S7 release names.

[dagw]

Slackware Linux jumped from version 4 to version 7 so that people wouldn't think that Slackware was less up-to-date than Redhat 6.

Solaris versions went 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 7, 8... since Sun got tired of people thinking that point releases only meant minor tweaks and bug fixes.

[goldenkey]

Note 4 had a removable battery cover that could be replaced with the S-Case. That made the phone very small. You are totally right, (I have the note 5 and its only a faster phone, everything else is worse.)

[dingo_bat]

What features did the Note 4 have that the Note 7 does not? I think the IR blaster is definitely missing.

[arvinsim]

Removable battery for one.

[sengork]

UV light sensor which for some reason needed location data to measure correctly. I've never understood why this is required as it should be able to read raw data based on incoming light.

[sengork]

And less megapixels for the camera, although this is not a conclusively bad thing...

[alastair]

expandable memory

[dingo_bat]

It's there.