Gadgetory

what's up fries by fans i'm brian tom we have two products that could be called foams or they could also be called tablets but we like to call them phablets it's a prizefight punch out between Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 and LG's and tuition our judges for this fight are senior editor Jessica dual court associate editor Lynn LA and myself - strong tone we'll take all three judges blind scores and average them out to the nearest tenth of a point the final prize fight score will be an average of all rounds using the same system let's get busy round one is design the galaxy note 2 brings a familiar Samsung design aesthetic but this time with a 5.5 inch screen no doubt it's large and awkward to hold at first but then you start getting used to it with its curved edges that make it easier to hold if S Pen Stylus slides right into the notes body so you'll always have it with you and it still passes my front pocket test now if you think the note 2 is awkward to hold then you haven't tried the LG intuition it's 5-inch screen changes it up with a four by three aspect ratio that makes it wider and more difficult to hold its form factor is a little harsher with squared off corners and a textured backside now it's not an ugly design but it just won't value and its biggest flaw is there's no place to store the stylus on the intuition in fact someone might actually ask you whoa what yeah but it's not a stylus in your pocket why yes it is the Galaxy Note 2 gets a four and the intuition gets a three next round is user interface and controls the Note 2 brings its own Samsung OS on top of Android jellybean to enable the use of its s-pen it's kind of a mixed bag because although you get the benefits of the Google now services and jellybeans awesome voice search and commands and swift key flow keyboard for tracing characters on a keyboard it's straightforward and easy but it also becomes more complicated when you throw into the dual screen mode to run two apps at the same time and then on top of that throw in specific features for the s-pen like air view for hovering over items to preview them it's also annoying that you're primarily using the stylus you still have but then you have to physically touch the backlit buttons on the bottom so you'll be switching between the stylus and your hand back and forth now if you want to keep it simple it's great and if you're willing to learn more you can with the s-pen but it can sometimes feel like there's a little too much going on here now the LG intuition really keeps it simple with its Optimus UI 3.0 on top of Ice Cream Sandwich now you won't get all the new jellybean features but you'll still have a lot of androids customization and it's still snappy and easier to use it also makes using it as a note pad real easy with the button on the top that throws you directly in the quick memo mode for writing notes or drawing sketches on top of the current screen shot or standalone notes now you don't really need the stylus you can just use your good ol finger and it's truly the easier of the two phablets to use and that helps it here but at the same time we really missed some of jellybeans features under the hood the Galaxy Note takes this round and just edges it with the four and the LG intuition gets a 3.7 so after averaging two rounds the note 2 takes a strong lead next round is features Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 brings a quad-core 1.6 gigahertz processor with 16 gig 32 gig and 64 gig storage options it brings all of jellybeans goodies that we hit on earlier and also has NFC for beaming content from two different devices and true multitasking with the multi windows feature that I was honestly impressed with it's s voice is alright but Google's voice features are much better now its biggest feature is its S Pen Stylus that brings a whole new level of functionality to a device that already acts like a phone you can drop pictures from your screen with the S Pen and then you're able to access multiple brushes by selecting them on the S Pen for sketching and note projects or even jotting down ideas and adding voice memos on top of your notes this is the most productive phone or phablet we've seen if you're willing to learn the system now the LG intuition brings a 1.5 gigahertz dual-core processor that's no slouch and it really doesn't feel like it lags behind because it has a simpler OS that's not as demanding the intuition also brings NFC but it's quick memo feature is what makes it unique and makes note-taking easy but it's just not nearly as robust as the note 2 samsung takes another round with the 4.7 and the intuition gets a three next round is web browsing and multimedia the Galaxy Note 2's HD AMOLED screen is massive with its 1280 by 720 resolution that looks killer for watching any type of multimedia or playing games and surfing the web the intuition brings a 1024 by 768 resolution and it handles surfing the web just fine but you lose so much screen real estate when you're watching widescreen multimedia content and having to manually go into the settings to correct the aspect ratio for certain games and apps is annoying every time now the Chrome browser runs great on both platforms and it's still our top pick from one of the best mobile browsers both phablets bring eight megapixel cameras with 1080p video capture well when comparing the two the no2 brought slightly sharper pictures with richer colors compared to the intuition the galaxy note 2 takes its fourth round in a row four point seven to four and after averaging four rounds Samsung has a solid lead the final round that decides it all is called quality and performance these two ballots are big but let's not forget they're still phones and your call quality and LTE speeds will vary depending on carrier overall call quality was great on both phones and data speeds were excellent now both phones were very snappy when flowing through their interfaces but we might give a slight edge to the slightly snappier note - and when it comes to battery life and our C net battery drain test we were able to squeeze out 12.5 hours of video playback on the Galaxy Note 2 compared to nine point nine five hours of juice with the intuition for a big screen that's impressive and again the Galaxy Note takes this round with a perfect 5 and the intuition gets a 4.3 so let's average out all 5 rounds and this would be no surprise with the note 2 dominated all rounds and takes this prizefight 4.5 to 3.4 and is your prize by Twitter this might seem like a butt whooping but the LG intuition is still a legitimate option it was just Samsung's feature and power pack note 2 that really had a chance to flex its muscle in the battle for phablet supremacy i'm brian tom thanks for watching we'll catch you guys next time on another private you