Galaxy Note II Review: Bigger Got a Lot Better

When the Galaxy Note come out to begin with this year , well , it was a giant , laggy jumblewith a bum style . But the Note II might just have what it takes to gain ground over our inhuman , size - ist hearts .

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notice : examination was done on the T - Mobile and AT&T versions of this phone . It is also arrive to Sprint , Verizon , and U.S. Cellular .

What Is It?

Same deal as its predecessor : half - phone , half - tablet . The Note II ’s got a 5.5 - inch sieve , a 1.6GHz quad - core Exynos , and 2 GB of RAM powering Android 4.1 ( Jelly Bean ) with Samsung ’s TouchWiz UI .

Who’s It For?

People who want a lot of screen on their phones for recital or gaming . George Muresan .

Design

The gigantic HD Super AMOLED CRT screen prevail the front of the speech sound ; the side bezel is barely there . The back is the removable plastic shell that has become a Samsung stylemark . Under that , though , is a huge ( swappable ) 3,100 mAh stamp battery and Micro SD and SIM notice slots . The Note II is only 0.37 thick ; essentially like someone stretch out out a Galaxy S III with a rolling pin tumbler . There ’s a built - in pressure - sore stylus in the bottom right corner .

Using It

I hope your hand is flexible , because even long - finger kinsfolk will be stretch to handle the full video display . The much - improved stylus popping out of its small corner corner and has , Samsung claims , thousands of 1,024 levels of atmospheric pressure sensitiveness , which you’re able to apply for anything from note - taking to canonic esthetic try . The earphone can also tell when the tip of the S Pen is within 10 millimeters . The TouchWiz UI adds a lot of features to stock Jelly Bean , but it also makes everything more complicated and cluttered .

The Best Part

velocity . Compared to the original Note ( and even to theNote 10.1 tablet ) , this affair cart . Even though TouchWiz is the clayey cutis out there , the phone performs very smoothly , thanks to Jelly Bean’sProject Butter smoothinatorand to the horsepower under the hood .

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Tragic Flaw

Ergonomics . I have decently large mitts , and this equipment is not sluttish to use one - handed . I have to shift the phone down in my palm to slide the notification control board down . When I want to slide it back up again , I have to shift the phone back up . It leaves you in perpetual fear of dropping it .

This Is Weird…

The Note II is actually slightly low res than the first Federal Reserve note , despite them both being “ HD . ” The screen jumped up to 5.5 - inches from 5.3 , and while the vertical resolution stay the same at 1280 pel , the horizontal closure went from 800 pixels down to 720 , modify the display proportion from 16:10 to 16:9 , and drop the pixels per inch from 285ppi to 267ppi . You wo n’t point out it ( they ’re both basically retina ) it ’s just an interesting choice .

Test Notes

The S Pen is so much good . For starters , it ’s thicker , hit it feel like a real penitentiary in your digit , not a gamey - tech toothpick . Second , Samsung ’s softened the gratuity , adding conversant friction as it slides over the trash — that tactile feedback is very significant .

Air View — which let you talk terms tabbed menu in webpage , see the contents of a photo album before clicking , or cancel through a television to get a preview of where you ’re going before jumping there — is a really refined caper .

While the Note II is extremely dissolute , it ca n’t keep up with theLG Optimus G. Opening apps and flipping through menus is noticeably faster on the Optimus , and games wager just a bit smoother . The Note II waffle occasionally , and then jumps forward to endeavor to catch up .

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To get all benchmarky : In the Geekbench 2 tryout , the Note II make an impressive 1969.6 , but the Optimus G scored a crazypants 2145 . In the Quadrant Standard , the Note II came in at 6,018 . all-fired fast . But not as tight as Optimus G ’s 7,644 . The Optimus G also stomped the Note II in almost all of the GL Benchmark 2.5.1 trial ( which try out graphics processing capabilities ) , often by huge margins , though the Note II did succeed the two Egypt Classic . Take from that what you will , oddball .

The barrage biography is better than you ’d carry for a speech sound with this many picture element . It lasted from 7:30am until preceding midnight with restrained - to - large use . This is , however , no where near go about the close to two full mean solar day we got with theDroid RAZR MAXX HD .

Photo quality is excellent . The Note II has the same camera as the Galaxy S III , which means that its photos are very sharp , colors are nicely balanced , and that it do well in depleted - light experimental condition . It also shoot better video than any other smartphone . You need feature ? It ’s father tweakable HDRs , panoramas , and even weird color - isolating feature of speech in video . And you could shoot stills as your disk , too . [ chatter here for photo / video samples . ]

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If you listen closely to the sampling videos you ’ll discover that one of the channel abridge out sometimes . This job was sequester to the AT&T version , so we think it was a faulty unit rather than a dominant problem . Or mayhap I was covering one of the mics with my manus . Speaking of which : the earphone is so braggy it ’s actually pretty awkward to practice as a tv camera .

TouchWiz remains overbear . It adds many layers of complexness to Jelly Bean and it often is n’t deserving the added functionality . Stock Android is infinitely more intuitive to voyage .

Likewise , there are millions of popups throughout the phone that tell you what everything does . It may be nice for beginners , but it becomes a marvellous pain in the ass to dismiss them all the meter .

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If you utilize the S Note app , the script - to - text function is still downright garbage . Really , do n’t even waste your time .

This is a really fun size for gambling .

The concealment is very nice , though it certainly does n’t equate to the HTC One X.

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Jelly Bean ’s speak - to - text engine , however , is dead incredible . It ’s a hell of a raft better than Siri , and it lick offline . Very accurate and very fast .

astonishingly enough , the Note II is slightly easier to use one - handed than the Note because it ’s a turn narrow .

There are a lot of accessary uncommitted . Car dock , desk docks , HDMI docks ( the Note II just has one port to stream via MHL ) , flip - cover cases , and portable chargers .

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Both the AT&T and T - Mobile phones averaged download speeds in the upper teen . telling for T - Mobile , considering it is n’t on LTE yet .

Should You Buy It?

Only if you really , really want something this size . The Galaxy Note II is still too bounteous to be a phone and too small to be a tablet , but it ’s a very solid gimmick for what it is ( whatever that might be ) . Just do n’t pick us for your palm - cramp . Starts between $ 250 and $ 300 depending on carrier .

• internet : AT&T , T - Mobile , Sprint , Verizon , U.S. Cellular

• OS : Android 4.1

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