Post all Note Reviews Here!

Another "gem" from BGR.....

http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/15/samsungs-galaxy-note-so-much-more-than-just-a-smartphone/

The Gadget Show review, short but sweet.
http://fwd.channel5.com/gadgets/phones/samsung-galaxy-note-review

original_ganjaman said:

This thread was intended to contain both positive and negative reviews. I would like this to be a good and honest resource for prospective note owners.

If you have issues then post them, you never know a good user might be able to help you out. This is one reason XDA Developers is here, to share knowledge and resources.

So in short, Post your review, be it positive or negative, i for one want to hear from all sides.

Dont worry i will deal with any flaming

Thanks for being considerate

Peace!

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Alright, I will hold you to what you've said.

I've only used the Galaxy Note for 7 days as I decided to return it to the store because it was not really all of my requirements and expectations.

Let me divide my user based feedback on the following:

-Build quality:
It feels great in the hand, does not give you that cheapish feeling the Galaxy S and S2 gives you, perfect form factor and extremely light weight

- Software:
Nothing really new, coming from a Galaxy S and S2.

- Connectivity (WIFI/BT/GPS/GSM)
Wifi is still weaker compared to other devices such as my old Nokia 5800 or my 9 year old laptop.
GPS is amazing though, the GLONASS system justs locks in less than 10 seconds
Call quality is also good but the earpiece volume is something that is to be desired at max settings its extremely weak!

- S Pen
Really didnt find any good use for it aside from doodling, honestly I dont think anyone will find a productive use for this, but its great to have one but the response if far from what a WACOM digitizer is on the PC/Mac.

- Battery Life
Just awesome, that 2500mAH can really give me a full days worth of charge and still have 25-30% left over.

- Screen
This is where my mixed feeling goes, I already know what to expect from a pentile screen since my first OLED devices both come with Pentile and both are from Samsung.

Looking past the manufacturing flaws and inconsistencies, the screen looks absolutely stunning, very vivid and really gives you that next generation feel!
Mine came with out faults, I do see several horizontal lines on the screen when greys are rendered and 1 that seems to persist even on whites regardless of the brightness, there is a noticeable unevenness of the brightness but I doubt a lot of people can notice it. Screen related issues that are discussed on these threads are very true and I have seen them first hand:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1336187
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1430847

The biggest bummer for me was the video playback which is extensively covered here:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1344714

Some guy posted his video results there and I get about the same result, unacceptable on my end, since I also watch some video's or shows before I go to bed. Though I did get a chance to test 5 other Galaxy Note's from the store on the day I returned it and I saw a lot of screen inconsistencies so I decided to get my money back and still use my Galaxy S pair with a Tab 7.7

Just to let everyone know, I've never read any reviews or did any research before I tried the Galaxy Note, I was just shocked that none of these were covered by larger media sites but I guess its expected since they do get screened units and all that conspiracy theory that I have. Bottom line is that the note is a good device with lots of potential it could have replaced my need for a tablet but it also has its own faults.

I was reading the hard copy and thought I would share:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/column...2-02-15/samsung-galaxy-note-review/53108536/1


Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA App

Croak said:

http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/13/samsungs-galaxy-note-is-the-most-useless-phone-ive-seen/

In case you don't want to reward BGR with page views, here's the summation:

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

That review is worth reading for the comments alone. Not only are they very revealing (about the Note and I daresay about the writer), they are hilarious.

I decided, for the heck of it, to kludge together a '3 month impressions' video:

It's more of a review 'complement' I guess.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FhACfmkR0M

I'd like some comments/criticisms of it.

Is it way too long? I don't think there's that much dead space in it though.
I know there's a lot of 'ums' and etc, but I kind of like the candidness/rawness of it. I sort of feel if i keep rerecording it to smooth it out it'll feel too rehearsed.

- Frank

---------- Post added at 11:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 AM ----------

Flightless said:

I see this is only a positive 'review' posts and I cant post a full review nor the positive only.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

No piece of tech is perfect and personally I like to see a balanced review that acknowledges both positives and negatives. It gives the review credibility and tells Samsung what to improve with future notes.

- Frank

So, a lot of people have been saying how they can't go back to using another phone after using the Note. Well, here is a professional reviewer who reviewed the note a while back, and hasn't been able to well, let go of it...

Jon Rettinger from TechnoBuffao is one of my favorite reviewers on youtube & here is what he has to say about the note after using it for a month:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBhEiiMd3qU

This is pretty much consistent with what I & many others have experienced after using the note for a while.

A review I just wrote on Google plus but I'm not allowed too give links so here is the content. NB it is not easy to publish here, I am not sure if I am allowed to edit my own post. ..

……………………

A friend of mine asked about my Galaxy Note, about it's size compared to the Kindle and if it is a nice device for reading the Web on the couch.

The size of the Galaxy Note is to be compared with the size of a small wallet containing a passport, some cards and some banknotes. I always have such a wallet in my left pocket, and care so much about smallness that I asked a street tailor to cut one for me, to the smallest practical size for a single passport. This wallet is just a bit bigger than my phone. Both fit in my pockets, why my keys, some random stuff (I currently have a small Lego toy and some firecrackers leftover). Because I don't like using a screen protector, I have a flip-cover thing on my phone, and then it looks even more like a wallet.

So it is big, and some call it a "phablet", but to me the Galaxy Note it is still a plain normal smartphone, like my previous Nexus One. The reason it is still a phone is that it lives in my pocket and follows me everywhere. It is not a tablet you would keep in a suitcase, and use to show documents to your boss during meetings. It is not a Kindle you bring during holidays or plane trips for long-form readings. It is just a big phone and once you get it at your hands, all other phone look like toys for dwarfs. Every time I have to use my wife's small screen phone (a Nexus S), I wonder why the screen is so small and what can be done with it, except for receiving calls.

So you'll forget about the size of the screen much faster than you'll forget that your keyboard has no real buttons (if you ever forget that). To be true, I am reminded of the big size of the screen on some apps whose UI is not yet adapted to these screen resolutions. Just one example: the stock browser has pages and bookmarks buttons on top bar, and they should be on bottom bar, because often used buttons should be closer to where your fingers are most of the time.

Content consumption

Apart from this little annoyance (which should be fixed with the next version of any good apps), all in all, using this device for toilet or couch Web surfing is perfectly good for me. At home, in the evenings or the week-ends, I very rarely start my computer anymore, but I still check mails, news, social networks. In fact, I do these more than ever, but on the sofa or the bed. (For a good web page viewing, remember to double tap to zoom in and out, and allow auto resize in settings, so you don't have to scroll left-right.)

Content production

The Galaxy Note also excels in content production. For instance, I did write the draft of this long piece of text on my phone. It is a device where it makes sense to edit pictures, write draft documents, take screen shots, draw diagrams, and so on. I think apps did not make the move yet, and a good mobile text editor could find it's user on this phone.

Less errors

Maybe I have fat fingers but I had an error rate approaching 30% when typing on my previous phone's keyboard. Now this rate fell below 10% (which is still too high, I am waiting for the guy who will invent a good way to input text efficiently without a full hardware keyboard).

Less misery

On smaller screens, one need to have a few homes to organize most used apps, and then you need an app to manage these homes, and you have to have transitions between the screens, which are just hiding the misery of having not enough room on your screen under some CPU-hungry useless eye-candy. On my Galaxy Note I just have one home with all apps' icons I daily use and two folders for the less used apps. I even have enough room for a picture of my kid and a News/Weather widget. I also avoid auto-rotating the display, which is more annoying than useful most of the time.

More battery

A bigger phone means a bigger battery and extended battery life. I had two batteries for my previous device, so I could switch them halfway over Siberia's oh-so strange landscapes while flying between Europe and China. I may well not have to buy another one for the Galaxy Note, but I am not sure as battery power is still a serious limitation of every big screen handheld device, except the Kindle.

A pen

I rarely use the pen but it is helpful sometime, for example when editing pictures. I recently remove a cigarette tip from Lover beach sand in Sanya and would not have been able to do that without the pen. I would appreciate a way to manually calibrate it's direction (the auto-calibrate is not good enough for me), and I think the pen's button should be used to display a crosshair on the screen before starting to draw, because the thickness of the glass means an offset between the pixel you point at and the pixel you act on.

Calls, sometimes

The question about Galaxy Note that seem to be raised by most reviewer is about phone calls. True, it can be a bit less convenient, but calls is an anecdotal use-case of my phone. Should I to give a long call I would put headphones anyway, and a long important call is one of the rare things I actually like to do in front of a desktop computer.

External storage

Having an external SD card slot is useful. I brought all my music, audio books, pictures and video from my previous phone to my new phone through the SD card. I would have missed that on a Galaxy Nexus.

And a good companion

I was considering buying both a phone and a tablet, before choosing the cheaper option of the Galaxy Note. Until now I am very happy with this choice: I won;t have synchronization headaches, I won't have the "should I bring my tablet to the swimming pool" dilemma, I will just always bring my roboty friend in my pocket and that's all.

Really shameful review of Samsung Galaxy Note (repost)

I have read countless reviews of the Galaxy Note, even though I have owned mine since November 2011 I still like to read them to give me that warm fuzzy feeling of owning the best phone ever.

So it came as a massive shock to read one of the most pathetic reviews ever posted on InfoWorld.com by Galen Gruman who is obviously an apple fanboy or demented (or both)

Quotes:

"Run, don't walk, as fast as possible away from this monstrosity"

"The software on the Note fits the large screen poorly"

"Samsung's customized-for-Note apps, such as its Calendar, are actually harder to use on the big screen than they are on a regular smartphone "

"You have to wonder why Samsung shipped such a pathetic failure."

"The UI and the big screen come together badly"

"very bright, almost garish Super AMOLED display, subject to flickering"

"Interesting concept, poor execution... the Galaxy Note as currently delivered isn't the right vehicle for this experiment. I hope someone else tries to do it right."

Head over to the website and kick his sorry ass:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-te...rtphone-186387


This is a repost as orignal closed due to being in wrong section!

Found a Better Review.Hope This will help!

I have been using the note for about 10 days now. I checked this phone out multiple times at the Samsung Smartphone Cafe, but was not able to make up my mind because of 2 things: The display wasn't exactly mindblowing in the well-lit showroom, and because the demo was extremely laggy. I was using an Xperia Mini before this, and I can still clearly see that SE's user interface is far-far smoother than Samsung's TouchWiz. However, the Note I bought (my decision was fueled by the need of a bigger screen) was noticibly zippier and smoother than the demo unit (Maybe this haad something to do with the 2.3.6 that came pre-installed). Anyway, here are my impressions of the device:

1) Design and build: The design is standard Samsung. Looks like every other phone they have designed. I got the white version. The white one looks gorgeous, just as good, if not better than the black one. The only problem is that the back cover is a high gloss one, so it will get scratched up in no time (the black one has a textured back). But if you use a case, or a cover (I'm currently using Samsung's flip cover, with the black back) its not a problem. But the main advantage of the white one, which no one seems to mention is the sides. The black one has shiny dark metallic sides- they look good, but the one on the demo piece was badly scratched up. The white one however has matte aluminum sides, so no fear of scratches of any kind!! It also looks good in a classy kind of way.

The build is actually very good, no squeaks of any kind, and the S-pen holder is firm. But the back cover opening mechanism is a very cheap and fragile one. Seems like its going to break any moment. Apart from this, no gripes with build.

Holding the phone with one hand is not a problem for me. To some extent, even one handed use is possible (My hands are not that big). It fits into any jeans pocket with ease, and it DOES NOT look stupid when using it as a phone. So handling is actually nice. Also the little problems are worth the massive screen

2) The display: The super Amoled looks nice in a nicely lit showroom. But bring it in a normal or dimly lit room, and you will see its magic: The colours pop out of the screen and although they seem little unrealistic at first, after a while, you won't want anything else. The clarity is stunning, movies appear great, and browsing is a breeze.
But the display has one very big problem- banding. This may be due to the display being a 24bit one, and Android itself supporting mainly 16bit ones, but still, banding is very prominent in the display. Every time a web page loads up, the first few seconds show a grey coloured loading screen, banding is very clearly seen there. Even in most apps, banding is prominent (try the Exodus live wallpaper-theme=chaos. You will find concentric circles in the grey background). However on some apps, there is a force 24bit option, which significantly reduce banding. So, I do not know whether it is the display or the software, but I do know that it is visible in many places, but its certainly not unbearable.
Apart from this, the display is top-notch

3)UI: Some parts of touchwiz actually beats all its competitors-the notification panel with all those shortcuts. Even the widget selector at the bottom looks cool, but none of this can make up for the fact that many actions are sluggish on a phone which can score 3900 on quadrant. This 1.4 dual core proccy should be able to run android fluently, however for some reason, TouchWiz lags in many places-jittery scrolling in lists (such as in settings or in contacts), the Sense-type leap, while changing the sizes of widgets. Worst of all, other launchers such as ADW and GoLauncher and Launcher Pro, lag just as much, sometimes even more. I do not know why this is so, it may just be a compatibility issue, but it is something which app developers should fix, with the barrage of HD cellphone displays imminent in the very near future.

4) Apps and Games: HD games like Asphalt 6, or Trail Xtreme 2, or Shine runner run very well- no lags there, but simple games like Ninjump, and Fruit ninja seem extremely pixellated and blurry. Angry birds seems fine, although it could use some better backgrounds. But this phone runs HD games amazingly well.
The stock browser runs buttery smooth, but the same cannot be said for Opera or Dolphin browsers. However, the lack of auto-text refilling in the stock browser is a bit of an annoyance, but the fact that you will hardly have to zoom in to read webpages makes it mostly irrelevant.

5)Videos: The stock player can handle most types of videos, however seems to have the most problems with mkv files. Dice player from the market runs well on this device and plays all types of videos with ease. This phone is the best phone there is for video playback.

6)Battery: This is a huge problem in this phone. With little usage (like that's gonna happen), this phone can easily last 2 days, however with HD games, movies, music, etc, you will probably end up charging this twice a day. Keeping movies and music to a minimum, with moderate internet usage and gaming this phone can last a day. With some apps, the battery drain is massive, and the phone tends to overheat. Also, the phone also heats up while charging, although its not much of an annoyance.

To conclude, this phone is an amazing phone, notwithstanding a few major problems. If you can live with the jittery feel, and banding issues, then this phone will keep you warm at night. If you can't live with it, then check it out in person-chances are you will learn to live with it, and you will accept it wholeheartedly.

Gizmodo's quick review.... too bad they got the At&T one...

http://gizmodo.com/5886054/samsung-galaxy-note-lightning-review-wait-who-ordered-this

This guy kinda likes it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMechSrGTSk

Gotta love the joker laugh

Very negative review on TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/21/samsung-galaxy-note-review-who-do-you-think-you-are-mr-big-stuff/

ZDNet review of the Note. Generally positive but with the usual 'too big to fit in a pocket' comments as well.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/smartphones/2011/12/15/samsung-galaxy-note-review-40094659/

Galaxy Note annoyances

Hi, I posted already a review of my good roboty little big friend, Here are some points where I think there is room for improvement.

(I am not very accustomed to xda forums, and have no easy mean to know if someone actually replied to me, and page loading is so slow in China that it is a bit difficult to come everyday browse all forums)

- Samsung messed up the name of the device. "Note" is boring and leave no room for imagination. Sure, this device can be a nice tool for businessmen, but it could very well be a nice gaming platform, or the phone of choice for bad boys, or a geek's companions. The brand name "Note" doesn't allow for these uses. For now I'll call this thing by its much better, technical name: the N7000.

- I don't like have brand names on my devices: any idea for a black marker that could hide the "Samsung" logo on front and back?

- On such a big screen it is harder to take picture that are horizontally adjusted, even with the guides. Maybe an app could fix this, or do already.

- There is a bug in either the camera or many apps: when I share a picture it is sometime up-side down. It works better if I pass the picture trough Picsay.

- Carefully compared to an iPod's audio out, the sound quality is very close, but the maximum level is much lower on the Galaxy Note.

- The front camera is far from the center, so it is awkward to look in the eyes when doing a video call. Is it not possible to have this camera behind the glass?
- On such a big screen, the higher parts of the screen in portrait mode are not the most accessible to the fingers and should be used for display (current location in the app tree, current status, etc.) but not for frequently used action or navigation buttons. Many apps should review their UI with this in mind.

- The S-pen has no manual calibration or adjustment, and should have. Because of the thickness of the glass, one need to hold the pen orthogonally to the screen's plane to have a good pointing precision, but this position is not the most natural for pen holding.

- Obviously, having no Android 4.0 nor a stable custom ROM for this device is annoying. Hope it will come soon enough.

That's all for now.

I really feel this belongs in its own thread -
I think this thread should be a list of reviews for people to read, and it shouldn't be interrupted by blocks of discussion/commentary of individual reviews within it. It just hurts the purpose of the thread.

But anyway, I wanted to post what I consider the biggest reviewer 'sins' with regards to the Note:
1) Not using it for more than a day or two. The Note is a device you have to get acquainted with, since it's bigger than your typical phone and smaller than your typical tablet. If you look at all of the 'longer term' reviews, most of them say that the first few days they had issues with the Note, and then started to love it after that break-in period

2) Insisting on using it 100% one handed. This one really gets my hair up. The Note, since it has a phone number, will clearly replace your current phone. However Samsung doesn't jsut call it a 'phone' since you can't just use it "like a phone". It's part tablet and MUST be used part time as a tablet - two handed. No, you don't HAVE to use it two handed, but often it is just much more comfortable to do so.

It very annoying to see people struggle to use the note one handed, yet stubbornly refuse to use it two handed, and then declare the Note a failure.

3) It annoys me when they say the note isn't pocketable. You never see them say, 'I tried it and it doesn't fit any of my pockets'. They don't try it at all. Yes - some reviewers say it doesn't fit some pockets. Or sometimes that it fits but it's not comfortable. I'm fine with that.

4) I really question when people say 'you will look like a fool talking into this phone'. I think I'll start a poll about this. Yes, it attracts lots of attention - but I don't think I've read ANYONE walking around in public and getting pointed at and laughed at/mocked. Again, it feels like a blanket statement.

5) I really dislike the 'too big to be a phone'/'too small to be a tablet' line. It's such a copout.
It's just a mindless line they always use whenever someone releases a bigger phone. The obvious reply of 'What do you do with your phone/tablet that you can't do with the Note?' usually leaves them speechless.
[except for one handed use, which leaves to my next point.....]

6) As I see it, you can draw a grid, where the X axis is 'hand size' and Y axis is 'how often you use the phone one handed'. They aren't necessarily directly related - I have large hands and never used my old phones one handed. There is a rather large portion of that grid which the Note is perfect for. As you get closer to the 'small hands/100% one handed' corner the less and less suitable the Note is. But there's generally no acknowledgement of this and it's just generalized as 'you need NBA hands for this phone'. It hurts a lot that the stock Note doesn't have the one handed keyboard.

But again, I feel that's just a lack of understanding of who the Note is for.


I don't have an issue with reviewers not liking the Note - it's a niche device.
But it annoys me heavily when you see a reviewer just approaching the Note from the wrong direction and then dismissing it without giving it a fair chance. I almost always post a comment in defense of the Note - not in a 'you are wrong/I am right' way, but in a 'you are approaching this the wrong way'.

I'd really like to see more 'long term' reviews. They are much more insightful and useful.



- Frank