Gadgetory

we've taken its unique s-pen for a guided video tour we've put it head-to-head against its predecessor and we've even measured its worth compared to its close cousin the galaxy s3 now it's time to go big or go home and with the device this big I don't think that's gonna be too much of a problem I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow dot-com and this is our full review of the samsung galaxy note 2 the galaxy note 2 is actually a lot less like its predecessor and a lot more like its cross category sibling the galaxy s3 than you might expect Samsung may have created the phablet category 1/2 phone half tablet with the Galaxy Note but it seems to be honing it into something more accessible to the mainstream with the galaxy note 2 where its forerunner was unapologetic and it's sort of brutal beastliness the 2012 model is softer with more curves and a bit more subtlety in its design it's still mind-bendingly massive but considering the instant popularity of the galaxy s3 and the growing significance of the Galaxy Note brand overall the public will probably find this gargantuan offshoot more intriguing than intimidating or at least that's what Samsung hopes so how big is this thing well as I mentioned in another galaxy note 2 video earlier this week it is big but still manageable enough that I think it's gonna attempt a lot of folks into trading up to the phablet form factor let's take a little hardware tour I keep mentioning the note 2 size because it doesn't translate well to video even with other devices nearby for size comparisons like Google's Nexus 7 and Motorola's Droid Razr m the device just doesn't look as big as it feels in my time with this review unit I've been stopped constantly in public by people asking me what it is is that an iPad Mini what's going on it's definitely a head turner up front here dead center of the note 2's elongated body sits a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen under a layer Gorilla Glass 2 it measures 5.5 inches across and packs a pixel density of 267 PPI along with the resolution of 1280 by 720 as we've come to expect from Super AMOLED blacks are deep and color saturation is excellent and even variable through the settings menu on this international version samsung has retained its traditional button arrangement all over the note 2 down below here is the now standard menu button right in the center flanked by capacitive menu and back keys over to the right where righties rest their thumbs is the power standby key across the device over here is the volume toggle and four physical buttons that's all you get above the screen is a 1.9 megapixel camera rumor has it that's the exact same module as well as the 8 megapixel shooter around back as found on the galaxy s3 take a trip across the proximity sensors in the earpiece here there is a hidden notification light under the casing which we are always happy to see around back is that 1080p capable 8 megapixel shooter with LED flash some Samsung branding and the same speakerphone location is on the original note down here in the corner just below that is the dock for the unit's S Pen Stylus the silo hosting it quite snugly and around the edges we're looking at the usual microphone and USB port along the bottom and the headphone jack and noise cancelling microphone up top finally prying off the back cover and we can do that because this device has a removable battery Thank You Samsung reveals a micro SD card slot capable of expansion of up to 64 additional gigs atop the 16 32 or 64 already included onboard a SIM card slot and a huge 3100 milliamp hour battery invisible under all that as the device is Exynos 4412 quad quad core processor running at 1.6 gigahertz notable for being one of the first processors to pack both LTE support and quad core construction into the same package holding the device in the hand is a good experience with the note 2 is 183 grams give a solid feel that's augmented by a bezel that's much less plasticky than on other devices and the whole thing feels a bit more robust than say a Galaxy s3 we wish Samsung would give users an option on the hyper glaze coating though it sure would be nice to handle a modern Samsung device that wasn't also an oil and fingerprint magnet in the meantime the hardware of the Galaxy Note 2 bears no creaks or pops and definitely feels like it would last the duration of a two-year contract with little trouble it's a little ho-hum but it's a fine-looking device neither ostentatious nor entirely forgettable we find the marble white version here especially nice but the size and scale of the Galaxy Note 2 is only half the story the other half of what makes a phablet is in its software the new note runs the latest version of TouchWiz nature UX atop Android 4.1.1 jelly bean that makes it one of the few Samsung devices currently available to offer Google's latest software and it's all here from enhanced notification support to Google now support to the UX smoothness of project butter Samsung hasn't had much trouble getting smoothness out of its nature UX but it's good to know the underpinnings of the note 2's OS are slathered in the new smoothness responsiveness is a dream with fun little animations when opening and closing folders and slick quick reactions in the app and notifications drawers the new TouchWiz also means Samsung's bevy of widgets and tutorials are here some useful and some not a lot of these features like smart stay the expanded toggle row and brightness control in the notification shade and motion-activated inputs are reported wholesale from the galaxy s3 but there are also new additions small things like smart rotation which checks to see your head orientation before flipping the screen useful when reading lying down but also big usability enhancements as well the really impressive stuff though is truly awesome stuff like multi window and the pop-up browser which leveraged the added screen size to make this device truly unique with multi-window you long press the back key to call up a list of supported apps along here on the left hand side it's not all the apps on the phone but it's a lot more than we expected this list serves as a doc if you're just treating it normally you can launch him to say the gallery there but long pressing an app such as the browser allows you to drag it into one of two available panes on the display and you can run two apps fully functional at once pop-up browser offers similar time-saving functionality say you're surfing the feed in your Twitter app and you want to call up a link well doing so while collecting while selecting pop-up browser I have it set as my default selection because it is so useful will allow you to continue browsing on Twitter while the page loads in the background you can see the focus shift when we jump between apps here the only downside is expanding the pop-up window to full size prompts a reload of the page still it's a very handy feature for get in get out browsing we need to touch on one other thing the thing that makes a Galaxy Note a Galaxy Note the s-pen Samsung was talking at IFA about how it had redesigned the note twos new s-pen and that's pretty obvious here the new one is larger and more substantial it also includes a new tip to offer a little more friction in the writing experience that does make it feel a little less awkward than writing on the note ones display did but I don't think it ever really gets close to that ballpoint pen on paper experience I heard talked about on the bright side though the experience is faster than it was on the original with the onscreen responsiveness only trailing behind the Pens actual position by a small amount how much that small amount of inaccuracy bothers you is going to depend on what you're using the note 2 for casual sketch artists and infrequent photo editors will probably just enjoy the added functionality of a stylus especially with the huge amount of useful software Samsung bundles for that purpose but people who are really planning to use an - to replace a moleskin or another pocket notebook are going to come away unhappy that's because though it's good for sketching and photo editing something still makes writing legibly extremely difficult on this display even if you're doing it very slowly still the s-pen does change how you perceive the device from a usability standpoint when you've got the note 2 in one hand and a stylus in the other you feel like you're working your focus is honed and you're there to get things done now of course there are stumbling blocks the back and menu keys are not pressure-sensitive forcing you to use clumsy gestures by pressing the button drawing a back arrow to go back drawing an up arrow to access the menu they're time consuming then that's kind of a good way to sum up the s-pen in general it's helpful in certain applications and it definitely expands the utility of using a smartphone but there's a price for that added precision and that price is time still the s-pen was definitely nice to have and I found myself using it a little more often than I initially expected so the Galaxy Note 2 is a feature-packed smartphone tablet hybrid but how does all this gadgetry hold up in real-world use in short quite well we tested the Galaxy Note 2 in rural and urban areas of Boston and New York and it held on to a signal as well as the Samsung Galaxy s3 in most areas phone callers reported no problems hearing us either via speakerphone earpiece or headphones except in areas of New York City where 18 T's 3G network led us down at times there was no active LTE connection on the unit we tested callers came through sounding fine though the feeling of holding a Galaxy Note 2 to your ear is as absurd as you might expect battery life isn't quite as impressive as you might think with that huge 3100 milliamp hour battery pack probably because it's powering this massive 5.5 inch display battery life isn't bad by any means we managed to eke out over days worth of moderate to heavy use but it's really not that much better than what we were seeing on our Galaxy s3 during the same period and that's without LTE turned on you might not need to keep a charger with you at all times but you'll want to keep one handy just in case performance elsewhere throughout the device as we demoed in some earlier videos was excellent the Exynos quad processor seems perfectly capable of handling the increased load all these features throw at it and the camera includes some handy new features which we detailed in our head-to-head video between this device in the galaxy s3 such as no more dedicated burst mode all you need to do is press and hold the shutter and also some increased features over here like best photo best faces which we talked about at Aoife overall it's very easy to believe that this is the same camera module as found on the galaxy s3 and that is to say it's an excellent smartphone camera one of the best on the market right now that is as true on the galaxy note 2 as it was on the galaxy s3 the galaxy note 2 does many things well but to are most important from a product standpoint it pushes the Galaxy Note lineup forward improving on its predecessor and it also brings it closer to the Galaxy S family both in terms of style and maybe in mainstream acceptance it's not going to replace more traditional smartphones any time soon but it will definitely make some users pondering a 4.6 or a 4.8 inch phone wonder why they shouldn't just take the leap into phablet territory based on what we've seen from the galaxy note 2 if you're one of those people there's not much here that's gonna disappoint you about Samsung's newest phablet we rate the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 a 9 out of 10 that's gonna do it for our full review of the samsung galaxy note 2 be sure and check us out on pocketnow.com for the full written review and a whole lot of other galaxy note 2 coverage from editorials to news posts to even more videos on this device you can follow us on Twitter to make sure you don't miss any stories that set pocket now tweets the affairs lecounte I am at captain two phones it's captain the number two phones make sure and throw us a like here on youtube if you did enjoy the review please leave us a comment at pocketnow.com if you want to say something to us and you would like a response we generally don't get to YouTube comments in our responses and stay tuned for more there's a lot more coverage from pocketnow.com on the Galaxy Note 2 and on other devices from Samsung and other manufacturers we will be covering those as the days weeks months and years roll on thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time