Gadgetory

and what point is a large smartphone no longer a phone but rather a small tablet as a boundary that Samsung has been pushing for the better part of two years and it's showing no signs of slowing down or abandoning the so-called phablet market I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is our full review of the galaxy mega 6.3 as if the name wasn't a dead giveaway the Galaxy mega is a huge phone it's the first thing you'll notice once you see the phone in person the second thing you will notice is that it looks almost exactly like a much larger galaxy s4 it features the same plastic trim around the edges the same dock pattern on the hyper clays plastic on the back and beneath the glass on the front and the same camera hump around back with the LED flash beneath the difference here obviously is size it measures one hundred and sixty seven point six millimeters tall 88 millimeters wide and eight millimeters thick for reference the galaxy note 2 is only 150 1.1 millimeters tall 80.5 millimeters wide and nine point four millimeters thick although the mega 6.3 weighs in at a hefty 199 grams it feels relatively lightweight especially for its size much of that weight is the giant 3200 milliamp hour battery if you've been turned off by Samsung's penchant for lightweight plastics the galaxy mega will be no different it strictly adheres to Samsung's current design language and does not deviate even the slightest bit from the design shown in the Galaxy Note 8 or the galaxy s4 while this pocket stretching foam pushes the boundary of what is sensible to carry and specifications won't blow anyone away Samsung did not build this phone to cannibalize its Galaxy S and Galaxy Note brands instead it's been given a brand of its own and thus does not feature the most impressive specifications it bears a 1.7 gigahertz dual-core Snapdragon 400 chip 1.5 gigabytes of RAM 8 or 16 gigabytes of built-in storage paired with a micro SD card slot and 8 megapixel primary camera and the now standard subset of connectivity Wi-Fi b/g/n AC NFC LTE and/or HSPA+ and infrared lastly the 6.3 inch display is hardly the best display on the market unlike most Samsung smartphones the mega does not feature a Super AMOLED display instead it's a TFT LCD panel with a resolution of 1280 by 120 pixels for a total pixel density of 233 PPI as you would expect beside a smaller more dense display like the 4.7 inch 1080p s LCD 3 display on the HTC one videos and images are not nearly as crisp in fact the edges of the icons on the home screen looked fuzzy that said large text looks fairly sharp the display offers wide viewing angles but the colors are not nearly as saturated as what you will find on other Samsung devices using OLED displays it's not even as vibrant as many other LCD panels we've seen but it's bright and the added size is what truly matters with this phone the Galaxy mega 6.3 runs the latest version of Android version 4.2.2 beneath the latest TouchWiz iteration if you've used the Samsung smartphone for any length of time in the past two years you will feel right at home on the mega 6.3 the notification shade looks virtually the same as the galaxy s3s or the note 2's the icons home screens widgets and application drawer all look the same but since it's running on jelly bean 4.2 there are some added features such as lock screen widgets daydream mode and a quick settings page accessible by a two finger swipe down from the top of the display and many of samsung's features we have come to expect or prison such as multi window s voice motion controls S Memo a custom photo gallery and much more however it's important to note that this version of TouchWiz is not the full-blown TouchWiz you will find on the galaxy s4 you will find air view the ability to preview select content by hovering your finger over various things and like on the s4 the light will follow your hovering finger around the lockscreen you will also see the new tab layout if you take a quick trip to the settings application there you may also notice there are several things missing such as air gesture smart polls smart rotation or smart scroll it's also missing dual camera and drama shot in the camera app and many more features there are also several built-in apps missing like s health more or less the galaxy mega 6.3 offers the same TouchWiz we're all used to by now atop the latest version of jelly bean instead of new smart features Samsung has kept this version of TouchWiz fairly streamlined with previous versions which shows us exactly how the company is prioritizing and showing favoritism towards its hero device the gallic s4 the chipset in the Galaxy mega 6.3 isn't the fastest chip around it's a 1.7 gigahertz dual-core Krait CPU paired with an Adreno 305 GPU to make the Snapdragon 400 chipset and in normal day-to-day usage it holds up pretty well as per usual with a TouchWiz device there is some intermittent lag and stuttering and thanks to s voice there is a short pause that occurs when you press the home button disable the double press shortcut in s voice settings and you will immediately notice a serious improvement when exiting apps naturally it scores them synthetic benchmark tests weren't the greatest we've seen much higher scores and much lower scores the Galaxy mega 6.3 will eventually come with LTE capabilities but our model is limited to HS p+ connectivity and we've been running in on AT&T here in the Charlotte metro area for several days and all the speed tests so far have been in the same ballpark around 6.5 megabits per second down and one point five megabits per second up car quality has been above average callers for crisp clear and exceptionally loud there are even software toggles that can improve the sound quality based on individual use cases we also held enough signal to perform and hold calls in spotty areas some places we've even been disconnected with other phones on AT&T with a 32 hundred million power battery tucked inside we figured the Galaxy mega 6.3 would offer similar battery life to the galaxy note 2 but we hadn't taken into account the additional battery munching display and it makes a noticeable impact on the battery life overall we'd say the stamina on this device is average which is disappointing considering the additional battery capacity as you would imagine when the display is on especially at full brightness you can watch the battery percentage slip away by the minute the camera around back is an 8 megapixel camera and considering the galaxy s3 and note 2 offered some of the best eight megapixel cameras on the Android platform we set our expectations pretty high for the mega 6.3 s image sensing in a nutshell the performance of the mega 6.3 s camera isn't terribly impressive but we're not convinced it isn't a lack of software optimization images turn out great in terms of clarity color reproduction and contrast low-light performance isn't particularly noteworthy but the real problem is auto exposure the camera is very quick to blow out whites and it also has some trouble clean autofocusing to sum things up we'd be hard-pressed to say the galaxy mega 6.3 is destined to be a popular smartphone it definitely turned some heads and it makes a great conversation piece we've even had many passers-by extremely interested in such a large foam but its size makes it a tight fit in pockets even in loose jeans and shorts and it forces users to use the phone two-handed in most scenarios it's a great thing if you're after additional display space that still fits in your pocket a smartphone that can play the part of a small tablet and a smartphone and for that we love it but this smartphone is clearly not for everyone we give the Galaxy mega 6.3 and 8 out of 10 that's gonna wrap up this review if you enjoyed it be sure to click the thumbs up button and subscribe and follow us in all the typical places before we go we'd like to give a final thanks to our friends at Negri electronics for lending us a Galaxy mega 6.3 for this review as always I'm Taylor Marlon and I'll see you soon