The size of this phone won't suit
everyone, but in every other respect it's a superb smartphone - the ideal
combination of phone and tablet
Samsung's original Galaxy Note was the
subject of much derision from tech fans: after all, who would buy a smartphone
with a 5.3in screen and a stylus in 2012? Customers flocked, though, and
Samsung has unleashed the sequel with an even bigger 5.5in display.
If you still aren't convinced, think of the
Note II as a digital notepad that has all the features of an Android
smartphone. Although the Note II has a capacitive touchscreen that works like
any other, this device is all about the S Pen stylus and the screen's
Wacom-licensed digitiser.
Samsung
Galaxy Note II
Removing the stylus from its socket reveals
list and note templates, and the S Pen makes its influence felt throughout the
rest of the heavily tweaked Android UI. Hovering the pen over a gallery folder
opens a thumbnail preview, and doing the same over a contact flashes up their
details. Removing the S Pen during a call pops up a small notepad, and the
phone even sounds an alert if you walk away without the stylus in its holder.
A button on the stylus unlocks more
options. Hold it down, scroll upwards, and you'll unlock Quick Command, which
enables fast note-taking. It supports gestures, too: you can write an
"@" symbol to draft a quick email; a question mark to open the search
box; and an exclamation mark to load Google Maps. You can also define your own
gestures - we told the Note II to open the Amazon app every time we scrawled
"a" and it worked flawlessly.
Removing
the stylus from its socket reveals list and note templates, and the S Pen makes
its influence felt throughout the rest of the heavily tweaked Android UI.
Other tweaks don't require the S Pen in
order to work successfully. A tab on the left-hand side of the screen opens a
menu of common apps, and there are options to move the dialler, keyboard and
calculator keypads to the left or right of the screen.
There's plenty of power inside, too. It
employs the some quad-core Exynos 4412 processor as the Samsung Galaxy S III,
but running at 1.6GHz rather than 1.4GHz, and there's a healthy 2GB of RAM.
This results in a stellar set of benchmark results. The Note II's Quadrant
result of 5892 beats the S III's 5371, and its SunSpider score of 1042ms isn't
far behind the 920ms of the Nokia Lumia 920.
This
results in a stellar set of benchmark results. The Note II's Quadrant result of
5892 beats the S III's 5371, and its SunSpider score of 1042ms isn't far behind
the 920ms of the Nokia Lumia 920.
The Note II runs Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean),
which makes for a smooth experience. There's no slowdown during navigation, and
high-end games run smoothly: N.O.V.A. 3, Shadowgun and Dead Trigger all ran
flawlessly.
The 720 x 1280 screen is standard on
high-end Android devices, and quality is high. The 239cd/m2 brightness and
Super AMOLED's perfect blacks make for a panel that's punchy and vibrant, and
you'll have to look very closely to spot the pixels.
The Note has an 8-megapixel camera, and
Samsung has carried over many of the software enhancements we love on the S
III, including the burst mode and face detection, and quality is superb. Shots
are packed with detail, the macro mode is excellent, and colours are accurate.
Battery life is superb, too, with 80% capacity remaining after our 24-hour
test.
This powerful device isn't cheap: it costs
more than the Galaxy S III, and only the iPhone 5 and Nokia Lumia cost more.
Its size won't suit everyone, but the screen is superb, the S Pen works
brilliantly, and performance is stellar.
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Specifications
·
Display: 5.5 inch 16M-color Super AMOLED HD
display, 720 by 1280 pixel resolution, capacitive touchscreen, Corning
Gorilla Glass 2 protection
·
Hardware: 1.6 GHz quad-core Cortex-A9 CPU with
2GB RAM, Mali-400MP GPU, Exynos 4412 Quad chipset
·
Software: Android v4.1 Jelly Bean Operation
System with Samsung’s new TouchWiz UI launcher
·
Primary Camera: 8 Megapixel wide-angle lens
autofocus primary camera with LED flash, 1.9 MP secondary front facing camera
at front
·
Camera Features: Face detection, Smile
detection, Blink detection
·
Video Recording: 1080p Full HD video recording
at 30fps
·
Storage Capacity: options for 16GB or 32GB or
64GB internal storage with expandable memory via a microSD memory card
·
S-PEN: Yes, active stylus with deep software
integration
·
3G: Yes, with 21 Mbps HSDPA support and 5.76
Mbps HSUPA support
·
WLAN: Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n support
·
Bluetooth: Yes, Stereo Bluetooth v4.0
·
NFC: Yes
·
GPS: Yes, with A-GPS connectivity; GLONASS
support and Digital compass
·
FM radio: Yes with RDS support
·
Audio Jack: Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
·
Sensors: Accelerometer, Proximity, Gyroscope
·
Battery: 3100 mAh standard battery
·
MicroUSB port with Full HD 1080p TV-out and
USB host support, Charging & MHL support
·
Speakers with great audio quality
·
Document Viewer, Document Editor, File manager
(apps are pre-installed)
·
Large number of video and audio codec support
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