benchmarc

Samsung Galaxy Note – General Review

21 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment

by egomarc in handphone, interest, Just Updates, life, money, whatever

I’m was told to do a review of this phone. And being the one that totally disregard any phone after the iPhone came into my life, I thought that I should use some of my time to try out this phone, and wishfully think that this phone won’t oust my love and interest of the iPhone.

The general specs of the phone, as listed below.  (Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note-4135.php)

General

Body

Display

Sound

Memory

Data

Camera

Features

Battery

Misc

SAR US	0.16 W/kg (head)     0.96 W/kg (body)
SAR EU	0.34 W/kg (head)
Price group

Also known as the Samsung GT-N7000, this is one big-ass communication system. I really mean it when it comes to the size. But amazingly, it’s light, or should I say, equally light as the iPhone 3Gs.

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Outlook of Phone

Lets look at the outer part of the phone first.

The phone is not that thick, and it is simple and sleek. The huge ass screen is good enough for me to watch a movie or any youtube video that i have decided to stream. The battery is another huge ass thing, but it make sense because the phone is huge as well.

I just ponder on the rationale of having a flimsy cover at the back. It feels like the sides can break anytime. Other than that, I’m comfortable throughout the phone because of it’s simple outlook.

It can still fit into my pocket, but that’s because I’m wearing jeans from GStar (deep pockets though). But if you are a lady, I think you will probably treat it as a tablet.

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Greatness of it.

Now… let’s venture on the inside.

The phone display is crisp clear and i must say, I’m pretty impressed with the vivid colours and imaging that it can show. The camera itself offers a pretty good glimpse of what it offers as another media platform, and that this camera also comes with a flash. The best part? It’s not laggy, unlike my stupid iPhone 3Gs.

Apart from that, the phone has 7 main screens to slide and input important stuff like notepads, weather, news, email (which can be sync-ed to your gmail account). It also contains an application icon for you to access even more applications that you have either downloaded from the Samsung “Download” app, or whatever applications that the phone comes with by default.

Basically, it also comes with a stylus that accompanies with the amazing function capable of performing a “magic wand” from photoshop, cutting the shape of the object and doing a copy & paste function. The notepad app that allows the use of the stylus provides real time writing and drawing without any lag in the system.

It also have similar functions of the iPhone, like if you hold down your finger for a while on an icon, the icon is available for you to move to whichever place that you decide. The stylus has also a function that allows you to utilise gestures to quickly toggle various functions from any screen, whereby it after you hold the stylus button and hold it on screen, it will capture the screen and it can then be annotated on any screen (e.g. the map).

The other amazing thing that I found out is that the phone allows you to crop a picture freely whenever you need to, which the iPhone can’t do so.

The phone also has a default video maker application, and it gives you the flexibility to input all your video recordings and combine it for further editing IN THE PHONE. Good stuff eh. And when you accidentally exit the application, the application apparently auto-saves your project. =) Oh did I forget to mention that they also include a micro-SD card slow for you to input additional memory.

Last but not least, the phone has this intuitive hand motion function that allows the instinctive reactions to the phone. For example, if you would like to do a screen capture, all you need to do is a “Palm Sweep” action, where you sweep your hand from left to right and then right to left, just to capture the screen. Cool eh?

That’s not all. By using the “Palm touch” action, it will trigger the pause & resume function while watching videos or movies on phone. The last gesture would be the “Tab & Twist” function, where with the use of 1 finger, if will enable focused screen capture and rotation of the text or image. Nice! It kinda eases the usage of the phone by many actions available.

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So what’s bad about it?

Now the negatives.

When I first resetted the phone, I went home to use it for about half and hour or so, and suddenly the “Back” button has a sensor issue, and somehow I couldn’t exit anything unless I press the “Home” button. Therefore, I have to reset the phone AGAIN just to get everything working right again.

The phone, like the iPhone, doesn’t allow the download of videos from any website. I tried and I realise that I can’t do anything about it. Worse, I have a video editing application and I can’t download a video to try it out. Funny.

At one point, I tried to find out where the screensaver thing was, and I realise that it was an application that was repetitive everytime it goes on standby, and it’s really irritating as it runs the battery life. So I took a while before I found the uninstallation tab and thus, removed it.

The battery life was a bit unpredictable, as i played a game for about 15 minutes or so, and it dropped about 10%. I wonder if it’s right or not, but when I surf the net, the battery life still kinda stays well put.

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Conclusion

If you are frugal and thrifty, Then I suggest you get the phone while it’s on a mobile plan. In my opinion, this phone is definitely great and sufficient for me. It will be even more useful for people like businessmen who have busy schedules because the calender allows you to organise and plan your activities very well and clear.

Overall, this is a good phone and apart from the size, it is a great phone to use. Like a smaller iPad on the go.

Rating – 4 out of 5 stars