Samsung Galaxy Note II Review (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint)

Introduction:

Experimenting with something a bit out of the norm, Samsung decided to gamble on bringing back the stylus with the Samsung Galaxy Note – and surely enough, it proved successful in shedding some light on the long forgotten pointing device. As we all know, it wasn’t just your traditional stylus, but rather, the Note’s S-Pen extended the functions of the smartphone. Not only was it accurate in accomplishing expected operations, like making selections and highlighting stuff, but it provided consumers an alternative to the paper and pen.

Beyond the S-Pen, the Galaxy Note was a sight to behold on its own, partly because it stepped outside the box with its immense size and large 5.3” screen. Simply, it pushed the envelope in terms of what was possible with the size of today’s smartphones. Well folks, a good thing is hard to let go, so that’s why Samsung pushed forward in bringing to market its successor – the 5.5” Samsung Galaxy Note II.

Our friends overseas have been getting some good face time playing around with the impressive smartphone, but now the smartphone is coming to the US – with all four major carriers getting in on the fun! Now that we’re seeing light of the US variants of the Samsung Galaxy Note II, it’ll be intriguing to see how it’ll fit into the lineups of the respective carriers knowing that there are other highly prized smartphones lurking about.

The package contains:

• microUSB cable
• Wall Charger
• Stereo Headphones
• Additional ear buds
• Start Guide
• Health & Safety and Warranty Guide

Design:

Instead of seeing a minor change, like what we saw with the US variants of the Note, which ditched the physical home button in favor of an all capacitive lineup, the T-Mobile version we’re checking out retains the design of the international unit. Those familiar with the Samsung Galaxy S III will clearly realize the resemblance with this device, as it’s essentially a stretched out version of Sammy’s flagship to accommodate its larger display. Compared to its predecessor on the other hand, it’s surprisingly similar in size (0.37” thick) and weight (6.42 oz) – while still packing a display that’s slightly bigger. Regardless of that noteworthy item, it’s still a bit unwieldy to hold in the hand, making it more suitable for two-handed operation.



You can compare the Samsung Galaxy Note II with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

With its rounded edges and high gloss polycarbonate body, it makes the handset feel rather slick in the hand. Unfortunately, for a device expected to tangle with some of the premier smartphones in the market, it lacks the premium aesthetics to catapult it into the same category of its rivals. However, it’s one of those devices that get people talking about it, or question what it is – whether it’s a tablet or smartphone. Overall, we can’t say that we’re totally impressed by the design, mainly because we’ve seen it before, but nevertheless, we’re most comforted knowing that it’s maintaining its figure.

Lining the area above the screen, we’re presented with the usual suspect of characters – these include the earpiece, light/proximity sensors, front-facing 1.9-megapixel camera (can shoot video in up to 720p), and LED notification light that’s discreetly hidden from view. On the opposite edge, its prominent home button is surrounded by its capacitive menu and back buttons.

With the placement of its volume control and dedicated power button, they’re located in the same positions that we’ve been seeing with most of Samsung’s stuff of late. Thankfully, they have a pronounced feel that makes them easy to touch with our fingers – while exhibiting springy responses when pressed.

Of course, both the 3.5mm headset jack and noise-cancellation microphone are located on the handset’s top trim, with the regular mic and microUSB port are placed on the bottom side of the handset. Not only does the microUSB port offer data and charging connectivity, but we gain video-out functionality with the aid of an optional MHL adapter.

In the rear, the Samsung Galaxy Note II is sporting an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash as before, which also has the ability to shoot 1080p videos. Meanwhile, two notches towards the bottom edge tuck away its internal speaker. Using the slot on the upper left corner of the rear, we’re able to pry off its plastic rear cover – thus, granting us access to its beefy user-replacable 3,100 mAh battery, microSD slot, and microSIM card slot.


Display:

After overcoming the shock of realizing how gargantuan in size the handset is while holding it in our hand, our attention is soon fixed onto its obnoxiously large 5.5-inch HD 720 x 1280 Super AMOLED display. Detailing it already, the Note II manages to maintain its predecessor’s overall size – while being able to accommodate a slightly larger display panel. At first glance, some will quickly realize that the resolution has dropped to 720p, as opposed to the WXGA 800 x 1280 from before, but it doesn’t prove to diminish its detail primarily because Sammy has decided to employ a modified RGB matrix arrangement with its pixels. As a result, we’re presented with details that aren’t softened in the least bit.

Whereas AMOLED screens in general are known to exhibit cooler looking colors, the improvements made upon the HD Super AMOLED display of the Note II is evidenced by its disposed appearance – giving it a softer tone. However, its color production is still on the saturated side, which isn’t bad at all, considering that it gives the handset its wow factor. Beyond that, it exhibits all the qualities we naturally adore about AMOLED screen in general – like its high contrast, wide viewing angles, and deep black color. For all of its beauty, it’s still prone when it comes to outdoor visibility, as the display is hardly viewable in direct sunlight.

S Pen:

Tucked away in the bottom right corner of the device, just like last time, the S Pen discreetly blends into the handset when it’s not in use – ensuring that it won’t be misplaced or lost. Once it’s take out, we notice some appreciable improvements made on the design of this new S Pen. For starters, it’s both thicker in size and longer to make it easier to handle, which essentially makes it more ergonomic than its predecessor. Fashioned into the shape and style of a pencil, we’re able to grasp it with a natural feel.


Of course, it’s accurate in terms of its responsiveness with the display, but there are some additional new features with the S Pen that extends the functionality of the handset further – we’ll expand on it more in the interface section. Showing its appreciation to the S Pen, there’s an option that allows us to be notified if we’ve forgotten to put the S Pen back into its slot when we take a few steps away from where we placed the S Pen. Overall, it’s a wonderful alternative to interacting with the smartphone.

Interface:

What a welcome sight people! Even though there’s nothing out of the ordinary on the surface with the Samsung Galaxy Note II’s custom Android experience, which is notably none other than Sammy’s TouchWiz Nature UX (which we know from the Galaxy S III), there are some new enhancements sprinkled around to make it deeper than before. In addition to that, we’re absolutely in love knowing that it is blessed with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box – meaning, it’s one of the few devices on the market that’s sporting the most up-to-date version of the mobile platform. And who doesn’t love being treated to the latest and greatest?

As we’ve noted, we’ve experienced this custom UI already with Sammy’s flagship, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to us that it’s littered from head-to-toe with a ton of useful features to cap the already wonderful things that come along with Jelly Bean. On top of having all of Samsung’s usual offerings (S Voice, S Beam, Smart Stay, etc.), it blends well with Jelly Bean’s specific perks – like Google Now, enhanced Google Voice Search, improved notifications panel, and Project Butter. Combining the two worlds together, the experience on the Note II is undoubtedly gratifying on so many levels, especially when it’s the most comprehensive things out there on the scene.


Visually, there’s nothing out of the norm when it comes to the look, feel, and operation of the platform. However, knowing that the S Pen plays a vital function with the smartphone, Samsung has been kind enough to expand upon its usefulness – and that’s beyond the customary things we’d expect, like hand writing recognition and making selections with it. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the new features associated with the Note II’s S Pen.

S Pen apps and performance:

Starting with the improvements from what we already had in the first Note, we now have extra templates to choose from in the S Note app. Just like in the Note, the productivity tools include a formula section, where you can scribble a more sophisticated formula, and a pop-up browser will calculate it for you through Wolfram Alpha.

Handwriting is significantly improved, too, due to the reworked S Pen stylus, which is thicker, longer, and more ergonomic, with new technology inside, and with almost nonexistent lag when you write on the screen now. You can handwrite in emails, messages, or simply use it to convert the handwritten words to text automatically.

The S Pen has learned new tricks now, too, with the most intriguing one being Air View, which brings up previews of emails, image galleries and videos by hovering the stylus over them, or simply tells you what this or that button does with a pop-up label. In the S Planner calendar app, Air View makes the appointments pop, so they are now readable much easier if you have a crowded schedule.

The S Pen button now tells the device that selected content is to be copied or edited, and there is an Easy Clip feature to outline and crop while holding it. The cropped region than can easily be sent via email, inserted in a note, or simply put into the clipboard for later use.


Another stellar application of the S Pen is that pulling it out during a phone call evokes the S Note app. Not only you can quickly jot down addresses and other trivia from the caller, but make gestures on the screen, too, to do things such as initiating calls and bringing up emails, which can come pretty handy when you don’t have paper and pen lying around.

Functionality:

Diving deeper to the handset’s core organizer apps, there isn’t much new found with them, since they employ the same layouts and functions we’re familiar seeing with the TouchWiz Nature UX experience. Regardless of that, Samsung has managed to integrate the S Pen to some of its functions – particularly the Calendar app where we can add handwritten notes and also utilize Air View to hover certain dates to see some detailed information without the need to actually select it.


Likewise, we find the same thing with the handset’s email app, which enables us to preview the contents of an email without opening it, by simply hovering the S Pen over specific items in our inbox. As much as we’re pleased by the function, it’s not something integrated with the Gmail app – leaving us with nothing more than the usual experience. Nevertheless, we’re able to get some serious productivity with the email experience.


Having so much room for our finger to play around with, the Note II is a fantastic device when it comes to inputting text via its on-screen keyboards. Whether it’s the Samsung or Swype keyboards that we’re using, we’re able to maintain a steady rate thanks to its spacious layout and responsiveness. For those who prefer a more one-handed approach, Samsung is nice enough to provide us with left/right handed keyboards that allow our thumbs to encompass the layouts with ease.



Processor and Memory:

There’s no holding back the Note II, unlike the US versions of the Galaxy S III, which so happened to ditch the quad-core CPU of the international version for a dual-core chipset instead. Specifically, this US variant is packing along the same lovable internals found with its international sibling – this consists of its quad-core 1.6GHz Samsung Exynos 4 processor and whooping 2GB of RAM! Combining the two, it results in one impressive performance that’s both instantaneous and gracious with its execution. Obviously, it’s more than equipped to handle most basic tasks without lifting a finger, but at the same time, we see the same thing with more processor intensive tasks as well. Although its benchmark scores aren’t necessarily ground breaking, they’re nonetheless in line with placing the handset at the top of the spectrum.

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	NenaMark 2
Samsung Galaxy Note II T-Mobile	5715	13579	58
Samsung Galaxy S III	5335	12016	58,6
LG Optimus G AT&T	7669	11245	60,1
HTC One X	4848	11024	47,4

Out of the box, the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note II is packing only 10.97GB of internal storage, which is a far cry from the 16GB it’s stated to offer. Sure, we can kick and cry about that uninviting realization, but we’re comforted to know that the handset is packing along a microSD card slot to increase its capacity.

Internet and Connectivity:

Simply put it folks, the Samsung Galaxy Note II is hands down the best smartphone for browsing the web right now! Needless to say, that’s a bold statement to make especially when there are already a handful of devices that get the job done and then some. As we look pass the speedy data speeds we’re getting with the handset’s HSPA+ connection with T-Mobile, it’s yet again the implementation of the S Pen that really enthralls and riles up our interest with the experience. Not only can we enjoy web sites in full fidelity, as the large display fits everything nicely, but the Air View feature of the S Pen once again shows its worth by mimicking the hover function normally associated with a PC’s mouse cursor. As a whole, there’s barely anything to complain about the performance, seeing that it’s fast and fluid with its navigational controls.


The Note II for T-Mobile sports 42Mbits HSPA+ connection, while other US versions will offer speedier LTE connections, plus the works when it comes to wireless radios – Wi-Fi, BT 4.0, A-GPS, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, and FM Radio with RDS. There is NFC, too, and the wired connectivity is covered by the MHL to HDMI video-out port.

Camera:

We’ve got an 8-megapixel shooter on the back of the Note II, and the camera interface is the Nature UX one. Things like zero shutter lag, and burst shot when you keep the on-screen button pressed come standard, plus this thing is almost instantaneous when it comes to focusing and taking a shot. We also have 12 effects to choose from and a variety of scene and shooting modes like HDR, Best Shot, which takes eight shots is rapid succession and suggests the best one, Best Face, Panorama and smile recognition – the works. Adding even more appeal to its arsenal, the Note II is graced with slow and fast motion video recording, which is something that we don’t normally find too often.


With its high-end status and all, it’s quite nice to find the Note II producing some likeable shots with its 8-megapixel rear camera. As a whole, it’s undeniably sharp when it comes to snapping photos outdoors under sunny conditions – a bit over-sharp with its details to tell you the truth. Meanwhile, its color reproduction rides on the fine line of being on the oversaturated side, which makes for an appealing gesture at first glance, but the handset luckily manages to handle dynamic range pretty well. Under low lighting situations, however, there’s some diminished qualities with its results – like some noticeable degrees of noise and its softer details. Yet, the LED flash manages to counteract some of those deficiencies, especially when it turns on prior to snapping the shot for proper focus.


Likewise, the handset’s 1080p video recording is also very good, considering that it has the balance appeal to make it stand out. With its 29 frames per second capture rate, sharp details, and minimal artifacting, there’s a lot to like about its satisfying quality – even more when its continuous auto-focus manages to refocus very quickly on the go. However, we have to say that its audio recording quality is a bit coarse, but it doesn’t degrade the overall quality of its results.

Samsung Galaxy Note II T-Mobile Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy Note II T-Mobile Night time Sample Video:



Multimedia:

The Nature UX music player supports categorization by artists, albums and playlists, and has easy access to a plethora of sound modes like faux 7.1 channel surround sound and Concert Hall, as well as equalizer presets. You can share the tunes you are currently playing to your buddies with the AllShare Play app on the other Samsung phones around, and the Music Square tab places your discography in a mood matrix to choose from. In terms of audio quality put out by its speaker, it’s without a doubt very strong with its output, but there’s a small presence of strain at the loudest volume setting.


The gallery takes a good advantage of the large screen real estate, splitting the screen in two while in folder view, offering easy access to all folders on the left, and swift scroll through the pictures they contain on the right. You can also preview the folder content with the S Pen stylus Air View functionality.

There is a choice of 3D views in the Gallery app - Timeline makes the pictures march towards you in an increasing order chronologically, and the Spiral View is suspiciously like the spiraling Gallery we saw prepped for Samsung’s Tizen OS. Individual photos can be edited with a pretty rich number of functions besides the usual crop, rotate, and annotate scenarios.


When it comes to watching videos, a bigger screen is naturally more preferred, right? Indeed that’s the case here, as the Samsung Galaxy Note II shows its worth in this particular category. Of course, it’s enabled to play a wide array of video codecs out of the box – like DivX, H264, MPEG-4, and XviD. Playing one that’s encoded in DivX 1920 x 1080 resolution, the Note II captivates our interest thanks to its smooth playback, large screen size, and vibrant colors. Just like on the Samsung Galaxy S III, we can choose to use the Pop Up Play feature to overlay the video on top of whatever we’re doing, but its mightier processing power enables us to resize it to our liking. Oh yeah, the Air View feature is incorporated as well by giving us a preview by simply hovering over a section in the video timeline.



Software:

Naturally, both Samsung and T-Mobile’s presence is found throughout the handset in the form of various applications – these include Kies Air, Game Hub, Media Hub, Music Hub, S Suggest, Samsung Apps, T-Mobile My Account, T-Mobile Name ID, T-Mobile TV, and Visual Voicemail. Aside from the usual set of third party apps preloaded with the device, there are a few noteworthy ones that manage to pique our interest. Specifically, there’s the app called Paper Artist that allows us to make some cool looking adjustments with our photos – again relying on the use of the S Pen. Not only are we given a depth of image filters to apply over our photos, but we can use the S Pen to highlight and enhance specific portions to give it a neat sketching effect.

Call Quality:

Rounding things out, the Samsung Galaxy Note II excels in the call quality department. Setting its volume to the maximum setting, voices through the earpiece are natural in tone. In noisier environments, however, we’re pleased to know that there’s an “Extra Volume” option available to us, which cranks up the volume even more. As much as we’re pleased by it, there’s a hint of distortion to voices. On the other end of the line, our callers have no issues in making out our distinct voices. And finally, we didn’t encounter any issues using the speakerphone.

In high coverage areas, the Samsung Galaxy Note II manages to give us an average signal strength of -89 dBm – with no evidence of major fluctuations in the same area. In addition to that, we didn’t experience any dropped calls during our testing in the greater Philadelphia and New York regions.

Battery:

Whoa! Can we just say that we are astounded by the Note II’s impeccable battery life, especially knowing it’s packing the largest display out there on a smartphone? Packing along a higher than normal 3,100 mAh battery, we’re able to push out two solid days with normal usage on a fully charged battery – albeit, the results are based on HSPA+ connections. Regardless of that, we’re blow away by its longevity!

Conclusion:

Sure, there’s a premium price attached to the Samsung Galaxy Note II, but there’s a very good reason for that. In T-Mobile’s case, they’re asking a mind-blowing $369.99 for the Note II – and that’s with a 2-year contract ($649.99 outright), while AT&T and Sprint are selling it for $299. At one point not too long ago, the threshold seen with cream of the crop smartphones topped out at the $300 mark, but with this, it totally kicks down the door and establishes a new tally. However, there's a point in paying a slightly higher upfront cost, considering that T-Mobile's plans tend to be cheaper in the end, compared to the competition. No doubt, it’s still an expensive thing to own, but as we’ve seen, this isn’t your typical smartphone – as it embraces the best aspects of both tablets and smartphones all around.

Continuing to show us why the stylus isn’t dead, Samsung has managed to reaffirm to us why it’s a core feature with the Note II. With the original model, the S Pen showed us that it’s capable of replicating the paper and pen experience. This time around, however, Samsung improves this and extends its functionality to a totally new level to make it even more compelling – while being practical at the same time.

Beyond that, this is one beastly of a smartphone in every way, shape, and form. From its hardcore specs sheet, to its lovely looking 5.5-inch HD Super AMOLED display, it’s donning hardware that’s no doubt fitting for any top-shelf smartphone. And just like with the international version, we have to give a mention to the handset’s 3,100 mAh battery, which has proven itself to us in being more than equipped to handle our needs. Ultimately, it’s the heavy incorporation of the S Pen combined with the deep features of the TouchWiz Nature UX that truly makes the Note II a one-of-a-kind device at the moment – mainly because there’s nothing close to it right now. Simply put it folks, it’s in a level of its own!

Software version of the review unit:
Android Version: 4.1.1
Build Number: JR003C.T889UVALJ1
Kernel Version: 3.0.31-260018

Samsung Galaxy Note II Video Review: