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Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 - REVIEW

2014-02-23
hey everyone this is Jimmy from Jim's review room welcome to another review today we'll be looking at the brand new Samsung Galaxy Note pro this tablet size is completely new to the market and it's currently $200 more expensive than the 10.1 inch version so is this well worth to purchase the model I have here is the 12 point 2 inch 32 gigabyte Wi-Fi only version the note Pro comes in several different variants either 32 gig or 64 gig configurations and two color choices of either black or white a 16 gig version is not available and eventually LTE and 3G versions will be available through your carriers now on your screen you have different price points of other models currently available at the time of this review so if you're on the fence of which tablet to get hopefully with this review it will help you decide so without further ado we'll get started physically the most noticeable difference is its size the unit measures 11 inches wide eight inches high and only 0.3 inches thin still it's only 1/100 of an inch bigger than a brand new iPad air the Note 10.1 and note pro are actually willing to finish tablets on the market today and continuing with its physical features like all Samsung current and future tablets will have the imitation leather backing with faux stitching the 10.1 2014 edition I reviewed had the same backing but it felt much more plastic like this time around the backing looks identical but has a silicone feel to it giving it a bit more grip when holding in general it looks modern generates minimal fingerprints and no scratches when I attempted to key the device now going over its physical layout you still have your power and volume rocker buttons on the top with the infrared blaster in the middle to control your TV the S Pen is still stowed on the side and will of course discuss that in detail shortly now on either side of the note hazard speakers which during my test sounded decent for a tablet it's just loud enough for average slash casual self listening they warn't anything stellar for speak up though of course there's a three-and-a-half millimeter input on the side so you can use your own headphones if desired now to the right is the latest USB 3.0 port used for charging your device with the supplied wall charger and transferring your files in most tablets today still use the slower microUSB port for charging so this is a new plus for Samsung I also connected a note Pro directly to my computer though which for my case didn't charge the tablet and below the USB 3.0 port is a micro SD card slot for expanding your memory and transferring files and that's something a good handful of tablets don't even offer today there's nothing on the bottom of the tablet this time however where the buttons are located instead of the original app button resides now a recent app button the name speaks for itself allowing you to quickly access applications you are just working on and closing them with a quick flick of the wrist task manager is also there to end all tasks as well and finishing up the physical layout the front has a two megapixel camera while the rear has a eight megapixel camera with built-in LED flash and although I believe it's weird to hold up as huge tablet to take photos nonetheless the cameras are good for casual users what you see on the screen right now are currently photos taken from the note Pro itself with no photo editing now tablets are not Canon or Nikon digital cameras but for a tablet the no pro had some decent photos low light had some noise but it was still tolerable in my opinion again good for casual users the last and most notable item physically is the big screen again this is a 12 point 2 inch screen diagonally and it comes with the same resolution as the 10.1 inch model at 2560 by 1600 giving a pixel density of 247 pixels per inch now the more density of pixels per inch the more crisp images and lettering will be the image quality is still very well done with contrasting colors and deep blacks and bright whites now having the tablet for the first 24 hours I was concerned the tablet would have slipped out of my hands even when I was holding it at my side because it's so thin and so wide physically the tablet and the screen size itself is huge for a tablet there's no question about that and some have stated basically it's just too big but I don't think it was a big deal since after you played around the tablet for a while you became comfortable with it 24 hours later I was a lot more confident afterwards so I highly recommend though having or purchasing a cover with a built-in Bluetooth keyboard for both protection and also productivity and when placing this on your table or desk it works well and looks amazing because of its size so with all that being said how's the performance especially this tablet is geared towards productivity in my case as a full-time youtuber I really need this for my calendar news email and communicating on social media and with a processor consisting of 8 cores the affirmation is not a problem at all 4 cores run at 1.9 gigahertz while the other four cores run at one point 3 gigahertz in laymen terms the samsung exynos processor is meant to be a multitasking champion the processor is also the same processor found in a 10.1 inch 2014 edition samsung tablet same with its three gigs of ram and both now runs on the latest Android 4.4.2 kitkat but what's unique about this tablet versus the after mentioned because of the screen real estate you can now run four apps simultaneously on a screen through multi window and although it's the same processor on the smaller samsung tablet it runs for the most part without a hitch and goddammit this thing is a beast at multitasking but I said earlier it runs for the most part without a hitch at times even with just one app open and task manager cleared I would still get a stutter or hiccup here and there or some actions just didn't happen as fluid this was also found on the 10 inch tablet as well and my only speculation is the coding Samsung used might have either been too demanding or just wasn't efficient at this time it's not frustrating but for me at least I do notice it although very far from broken or frustrating this is something I wouldn't have expected from a premium priced tablet and now I'm going on to the main screen here you still have your interface TouchWiz which you're probably most familiar with if you're an Android user but what's new is Samsung's magazine UX it's a tile based interface in which companies believe are becoming more popular and demanding think windows 8 live tiles or the app Flipboard left from the magazine UX screen you can customize information you want displayed and the screen now I'm showcasing my news feed and everything news related I want goes here basically now if I wanted to add another news feed let's say I'm interested in sports I pinch the screen and scroll to my news tiles and drag and drop sports on to my desired page at maximum each page can hold up to six tiles afterwards I add which new sources I want to be viewable and as you can see on the right side each one I click will eventually be reported to me once I back out and click on that tile and use it as normal it basically becomes Flipboard when I flip through pages and see all these news sites that I've selected so far now one issue I've found so far with magazine UX it looks quite limited pinch the screen again as you can see in the social realm of apps whereas Facebook Instagram Tumblr Google Hangouts snapchat etc apps I've downloaded through Google Play Store or the Samsung store doesn't show up here as well and I would assume those apps have to be compatible with magazine UX for them to work and with that being said I found myself using this standard interface more since all of my information was there just maybe down the road hopefully in the near future magazine UX will grow to something more now the next software feature proprietary to Samsung is the air command identical to the note tablets and phone once you pull out your S Pen a window appears prompting for your action the fan offers five actions that can be performed and you can access this anytime by clicking on your S Pen button while close to the screen first up is action memo if you're in a hurry and want to write down someone's information as I'm doing here the note pro will recognize my handwriting and convert it into a contact the best thing it populates the field for you name email phone number and if you want to map on Google Maps it'll show basically its accuracy is impressive of course if you have decent handwriting however it doesn't recursive well though now scrapbook is the next feature where once accessed you draw a square around any content you want to snip and be placed into a saved folder it's literally like scrapbooking for me trying to get ideas to decor my house at times I see something I like and I snip it and save it and I do the same thing for clothing as well and possibly for let's say designers architects or possibly a hairstylist could snip things very fast to find inspiration later in their saved folder next up is screen write which takes a photo of your screen and then allows you to write on that screenshot then you can share it on your social media app like Facebook or Instagram etc it's pretty simple to use for sharing content that you've written on now s Finder is the second to last option where you can search for anything on your tablet either tight or handwritten it'll find it for you in this example I found John Smith's notes I wrote earlier again it can find words that you've also handwritten in lastly tis pen window which is really unique after selecting this option from the air command draw a square anywhere on the screen and select an app that you desire to open wherever you drew the box the app will open right there and I find myself using this when I'm on a web site and I need to pull up my calendar or instead of using multi window I can pull up Google Maps at the same time I'm looking up the restaurants addresses and its reviews it's another tool that Samsung offers to help you multitask whether for work or for your personal needs so for my test for both work and pleasure I really do like the note series in general I love the S Pen it gives me more precision less need to put finger prints on the screen and some of the features through Air Command I actually use with the twelve point two inch screen though swiping the on-screen keyboard can feel like a chore now since it's so wide the keyboard is almost the same size as a full keyboard and I can almost type on there like a regular keyboard but without physical keys you do lose your place a bit and you do have to look down pretty often so treating this as a regular keyboard I would have to say no but working on a 12 point two inch screen is like a dream there's so much area to view web pages are viewed with comfort and pictures are viewed almost like a huge portrait although watching a movie and this was truly a delight but holding a while in bed required a different change in holding the tablet up nonetheless the twelve point two inch is definitely definitely a huge benefit and playing games on this went without a hitch I haven't had an issue with this and ran basically anything that was available in the Google Play Store let's include more graphically intense games that had 3d polygons and basically simulated physics again no Prime's as you can see on the screen now regards to video playback it was the same as well very smooth processing and the colors and the contrast looks great and the ever-popular Netflix was not an issue at all either and typically with my youtube channel I don't get too deep into the technicals as I'm trying to reach the average consumer but the benchmark numbers are in the about description below if you're interested and lastly my mixed use on a tablet yielded 11 hours and 17 minutes average to be precise of battery life that I recorded now when I was on the tablet I would record my time on and then off with using basically the web random YouTube videos trying new apps playing Pandora in the background etc and then when I go to sleep I would turn off the tablet all together and that count the time the tablet lay dormant I just measured continuous news just like the manufacturers do I left auto brightness on just to have a standard measurement again 11 hours and 17 minutes was the average so altogether the note series is great but as for the note Pro specifically I know it's subjective I don't think that $200 price premium is worth just the additional two inch area now if you really love the big screen and want it or more importantly need it then so be it but if you're considering best bang for your buck the specifications analyst is nearly identical to the $550 Samsung Note 10.1 2014 edition and on speaking of the same camera same resolution same processor same RAM same or at least similar performance the differences that do exist just isn't enough again for a $200 premium can Internet can buy another great 7-inch tablet for 230 dollars in the end it's still a great tablet but it's a matter of your preference so hope this review helped you in some way please take your time to subscribe and visit my Facebook or Google+ pages this is Jimmy from Jim's review room take everyone by
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