Well, the Samsung Note II _is_ big (it reminds me of the Big Korn Bites ad) – some people say “too big”, I say that I can read what is on the screen and use it practically without me having to grab my glasses every time I need to use the phone!
First Impressions
Not as heavy as you would expect, larger than others (_really_), all the buttons are the same as the other Galaxy devices – crisp display and lots of screen space to add your customised shortcuts.
The device is 150x80x9 (length x width x thickness) and weighs 182g.
Screen, Video and Pictures
Very beeegggg. The 5.5” HD Super AMOLED screen is crisp and a pleasure to read, view pictures or watch movies.
Recording video and taking picture are just about instantaneous, which is refreshing after using other phone cameras, which take a while to load the camera application and then once you push the shutter button they do a rugby scrum….click…..PAUSE….set – which by that time the moment/object has long moved on! So the camera and video are great to use with impressive results.
The camera is an 8megapixel auto focus with an LED flash and the video is capable of recording in Full HD (1080p).
Speed
Not too shabby govner! I did not find myself waiting for applications to open.
The Processor is a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor and runs the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system.
It has 2Gb of RAM memory and 16/32/64Gb of storage space through the use of the microSD slot.
Music
The sound is good through the speakers and the earphones supplied are adequate, but I imagine that the sound is as good as the earphones /headphones – plus my ears seem to reject those little plugs!
Telephone
The sound quality is great, many people who had no idea that I was using a different phone commented on the clarity of the calls, so either the Note II is better than most or Vodacom has given me a special service. Have the volume too loud and it causes an echo, but I think that would be true of most phones.
Battery
Better than most – I needed to charge it every second day – which for a smartphone these days is rather good. From what I have heard, most people are very impressed with the battery life of the Note II.
Contacts
Easy enough to use, once the contact is on your screen, put the phone to your ear and it calls the contact for you, same as with the S3.
Connectivity
My Gmail was simple enough to use – great thing about the Gmail on IMAP is that you enter your Google account details and you are good to go where you left off with your other phone. Messaging with SMS, WhatsApp and Facebook are pretty good. The Notifications on the home screen at the top, activated by pulling the screen down, make it simple to keep in touch 24×7.
Office Tools
OfficeSuite 6 is there for any Office type documents, not to say I used it while I had the phone on evaluation.
Summary
It is big – but I like the large screen. It makes reading those email attachments that you would normally leave for the PC back at the office, an easy task that no longer needs to be postponed.
I think this is a great phone which is slightly faster than the S3. Choosing any of these two top performers from Samsung would be a good bet in my opinion. The only downside is that the sleek casing makes it a little more difficult to keep it securely in your hand – well that and the size combined make it a little trickly.
My advice on these phones is stick to the operating system that you get with the phone, don’t be enticed to download and install the very latest OS.
I have very much scratched the surface on what this phone is capable of delivering, but from my experience I would definitely have a Samsung Note II as my personal phone.
