Gadgetory

imitators beware Samsung's latest smartphone tablet hybrid is now out and available and as we learned in our extensive review of the global galaxy note 3 it's a force to be reckoned with now we're taking a look at the stateside model I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is our full review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 for AT&T the Galaxy Note 3 the latest addition to one of Samsung's most unlikely popular brands is the first to receive a slight exemption to his design rules as Michael explained in his review of the Exynos equipped global edition the note 3 features a lined faux metal trim to mimic the pages of a notebook though we also feel it resembles the metal trim on a 50s era diner or saloon car and the rear plastic battery door imitates a leather texture with fake stitching around its edges the somme this imitation comes off as a bit cheesy but we like the change from the scratch and fingerprint magnet hyper glaze coating of years past the texture in the faux leather allows for a considerable amount of grip and simply makes the device feel nicer in the hand like its predecessor the note 3 is a handful but Samsung is up to its old tricks again the note 3 sports a slightly larger display than the note 2 5.7 inches instead of 5.5 yet its physical measurements are smaller in nearly every dimension it's also significantly lighter 15 grams to be exact yet in the hand those differences are hardly noticeable and that's a good thing the hardware is subtle and that means Samsung is on the right track the note 3 doesn't feel like a cheap toy an improvement we can't help but notice also improved are the specs in almost every way the combination of a 2.3 gigahertz quad-core Krait 400 CPU and Adreno 330 GPU is impossibly fast it comes with an impressive three gigabytes of RAM a first it has a 13 megapixel camera around back 2 megapixel camera on the front as well as a beautiful 5.7 inch 1080p Super AMOLED display of course the 3200 million power battery is removable and it comes with a micro SD card slot just above the SIM slot it also has no shortage of connectivity options or sensors LTE Bluetooth Low Energy Wi-Fi AC infrared NFC barometer thermometer etc oh and it all has USB 3.0 along the bottom edge to boot another first and lest we forget the s-pen the sole tool that makes this device part of the Galaxy Note brand and not one of the others that blends in with the masses its new and improved with a rubberized tip and a design that allows it to slip into its integrated holster in two orientations all of this and Samsung has still maintained every detail which makes this device a note without blowing out its proportions or losing sight of what's most important value proposition versus size and that brings us into what alongside the s-pen takes the note series so special all the additional display real estate is effectively useless without software to take advantage of it along with all of Samsung's feature dues or such as smart stay smart rotate s-health Samsung hub watch on etc the S Pen comes with its own software suite pull the S Pen out of its holster and Air Command a radial palette of actions appears action memo scrapbooker screen right s finder in the pin window most of these are features that cannot easily be imitated at least not with the same level of integration or ease of use within certain apps the S Pen can be used to slowly pan in any direction thanks to air view pressing the button and double tapping the display brings up action memo and pressing the button plus a long press quickly captures the current screen without these features and its pressure sensitivity the S Pen would be no better than any old capacitive stylus if you want the absolute best smartphone for multitasking this is it / multi window with pin windows floating apps and you have the utmost utility at your fingertips you can literally have five six or even more apps open at once excessive sure but it's there for the taking there are some low points worth mentioning though the software is bloated beyond belief as anyone who is used a touchless device before knows all too well a staggering six gigabytes of the initial 32 is reserved for the system alone 6 gigabytes for a suite of software most of which will never be used and sure it seems trivial to complain about 6 gigabytes when you have over 20 gigabytes left and a micro SD card slot for expansion the TouchWiz still seems to buy even the most powerful smartphones down at times fortunately we haven't experienced the same kind of performance problems with this model as we did with the eggs under powered note 3 but there are times when we wonder how much better this device could perform with an all-around lighter UI we can't say we've experienced any noticeable lag with the note 3 yet but there are times where 2 fills hesitant to return home yes even with the S voice shortcut disabled load a new app or even open the app drawer his performance in benchmarks as you would expect is nothing short of phenomenal but let's not get tied up in that argument what matters here is real-world performance and the note 3 delivers exceptionally well gaming with the 1080p display and Snapdragon 800 is second to none graphics are beautiful and fluid we couldn't ask for a better gaming experience on a smartphone and the 12.16 wide hour battery is more than enough to power you through an entire day of fairly heavy use including short spurts of heavy gaming since we received the AT&T note 3 review unit last Wednesday VfL to successfully drain the battery fully in a single day one of the only upsetting features of the note 3 is the loudspeaker it's more tinny than we expected and it struggles with volume even when your finger isn't accidentally covering the thrill this carries over into the speakerphone performance which is not very impressive using the earpiece speaker calls are clear and crisp and the volume is loud though it could be louder for use in noisy environments even with the extra volume setting enabled data speeds have been average in the Charlotte metro area averaging upwards of 10 megabits per second down and 7 megabits per second up even in the typical signal abyss in the Charlotte office finally the camera is every bit as impressive as we imagined like the 13 megapixel shooter on the s4 the note 3 provides vivid warm colors with a considerable amount of detail in great lighting by today's standards the note 3's low-light performance however is subpar without optical image stabilization the note 3 is forced to use Samsung's somewhat confusing smart stabilization software which provides passable yet not very impressive low-light images unlike the global model the Snapdragon equipped Note 3 is capable of capturing 4k video like with 1080p the quality is great colors pop assuming the white balance isn't thrown for a loop and accurate we did note that the footage got a bit jittery shooting at 4k and prepare for extremely large files 121 second clip weighed in at a hundred and thirty two megabytes put simply the galaxy note 3 is the best smartphone Samsung has made ever it's more than a worthy upgrade to the note 2 and it provides one of the most compelling user experiences to date as well as one of the most compelling arguments for larger display smart phones making full use of its 5.7 inch panel and that paired with the s-pen exceptional hardware battery life and unbelievable performance is why we give the Galaxy Note 3 a 9 point 3 out of 10 thanks for watching if you enjoyed the video be sure to click the thumbs up button below and subscribe to the channel to see more content from the rest of the PocketNow crew be sure to follow us on all the usual places twitter google+ and facebook at pocket now I have Taylor Martin you can find me on twitter casper tech and i will see you next time