The Samsung Galaxy Note 2: Hands On Overview

Updated: October 5, 2012

Sometime bigger is just better, and in this case the new 4G LTE Samsung Galaxy Note 2 fit into that category quite nicely as it’s larger screen is the deal sealer for me. My Samsung Galaxy S3 is a very nice phone don’t get me wrong, but a 5. 55’’ Super AMOLED screen makes viewing much easier on these old eyes and movies and games just look better on a larger display hands down. Its also faster as seen by our GeekBench scores that see it smoking the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S3 making its Quad-Core 1.6Ghz processor one of the fastest there is to be seen yet. The unit that I got a hold of is the AT&T unlocked version that you can buy on the Internet, but is not yet available through American service providers at this time. There will be an American version, but we can only speculate on the actual features it will have and what processor. It will really suck if they only release a Dual-Core Version, as that would be a subpar product compared to this one.

The actual outer dimensions of the Note 2 are 80.5 X 151.1 X 9.4 mm, which although larger than the Galaxy S3 to me seems to not be a negative in any way as it still fits in my shirt pocket and yet has a much larger screen for viewing. You also get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean another thing my Verizon S3 is still waiting on and this OS runs much smoother and faster than the previous version Ice Cream Sandwich. I wish my phone would hurry up and get the update dang nabbit, LOL. The new Pen and Tablet like feature for me was a bit hard to do, but there is a course for actually getting better available on the Note 2. I can see this being cool for some things, but to me talk texting is the big thing. On that note the Galaxy Note 2 had no problems with voice recognition and did not even need to be trained to respond to my voice, which to me is a solid feature. Connecting to the internet and surfing the web I thought was much faster than my phone and having the larger screen allowed me to much more easily clearly see the web pages and the available apps.

As far as the multimedia aspects of the Note 2 it still has a 8 Megapixel Rear Auto Focus camera With LED flash and BSI (Stabilization) capabilities. There is also a front-mounted 1.9 Megapixel VT camera that also has stabilization features. In low light the camera and video has improved from previous generation phones, but is still nowhere near the entry level Canon cameras. The video however does shoot very nice video and the quality of the sound capture is not bad at all either and in a comparison in a head to head battle with the iPhone 5 it looked pretty damn good. You could with proper lighting shoot a decent quality video with the rear camera and that in itself is a vast improvement in mobile technology. If you ever owned an older generation digital camera you know exactly what I mean by this, as they were downright shabby in the video department. The viewing angle is not all that great and you really do have to be looking at the screen to see it well and is one area I feel Apple’s new iPhone 5 surpasses the Samsung screen, be it Galaxy S3 or Note2. Its not really a big deal though as most of these mobile devices are meant for personal use, not for a crowd.

You can purchase the new Note 2 with 3 different pre-installed internal memory options, 16/32/64 and you can use up to 64GG using a microSD. All units come with 2GB of un-upgradable memory. Listening to your music with the included headphone sounds just great and the volume levels are done correctly to match the headphones so the sound never become distorted, even with the volume turned up all the way. Overall if you are a fan of the Samsung Galaxy phone, then you will be sorely pressed to not be impressed with the Galaxy Note 2. The Note 2 uses a standard Li-ion 3,100mAh battery and if used as a phone, IE: texting and talking the battery life is about 2 days, movies and games about a day or a little more, which is really amazing battery life. Having a phone with a 16:9 screen ratio just like a monitor or TV is really an amazing thing. Just to be able to watch movies on the go in 1280X720p on your phone is cool and with the 35mm ear jack and headphones you can drift off into your own little world. If a tablet is too big, but a normal phone is too small, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 2 fits a unique niche of user groups of which I consider myself to be amongst. There is really nothing to complain about on the Note 2, as with all the features apps and options I feel this an Editors Choice product here on Tech Of Tomorrow.