Galaxy Note 2 Review...and comparo with iPhone 5

[stanleybb50]

I appreciate the fair and honest review!

I have a GS3, and must say that it's a real pleasure to have an Android phone that will stay updated for some time (GS2 for example). It might not be immediate updates like my Nexus 7, but pretty darn good for a non nexus phone. Also glad to see the GS4 is so similar!

Anyway, thanks for the fair and honest review. I love my Androids, but also respect the crap outa what Apple has done/is doing.

 

[Thai]

I have updated my review and adjusted a few of the ratings. New sections were added at the end of Post #2. Note 2 has remain a solid phone for me. I like it.

 

[Thai]

How S-pen works? Break It Down - How Does The S Pen Work?

 

[Thai]

UPDATE: Samsung Media Hub movies are indeed HD!! I downloaded Lincoln HD and the quality is on par with iTunes...in other words, true HD quality. In addition, one can easily tell because the download size of the HD file is several GB's! HD movies from PLAY store is less than 1 GB. The problem is that Media Hub movie selection is not as good as PLAY store nor iTunes. So, right now, iTunes definitely holds a huge advantage to both PLAY and Media Hub because it offers both selection AND quality. PLAY offers decent selection but poor HD quality. Media Hub offers good quality movies but lacks selection.

 

[Thai]

With the latest official Chrome update, i am hitting 880ms (avg; lowest of 849.9ms) on Sunspider benchmark! This beats even my iPhone 5 Safari by a tiny bit. So, Chrome is super fast for sure now on the latest build.

Octane v1 benchmark gives a score of 2461.

Browsermark 2.0 gives a score of 2611.

Here are the benchmarks if you guys want to run them:

Sunspider: SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark

Octane v1: Octane JavaScript Benchmark

Browsermark: Browsermark 2.0 - Welcome

 

[Thai]

And for those iPhone 5 owners, yes, Galaxy Note 2 camera (same as GS3) does indeed suffer from lens flare (aka "purple haze defect") quite a bit (on par with my iP5):

 

[Thai]

Link: Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Android 4.3 Update Details Pulled

Well, it looks like Samsung Note 2 (Galaxy S3) will not get any updates anytime soon...probably much later this year, more likely next year. This unfortunately is the fatal flaw of Android.

This will be the last update of this thread. Next month, i will likely go to iPhone 5S if compatible with Sprint tri-band LTE. If not, then LG G2.

The camera on my Note 2 is not as good as iPhone 5 for sure. I did have to restore my Note 2 once during this ownership period because it was lagging and crashing constantly. This was because i was installing and deleting a lot of Play Store apps. (I was using my phone to screen apps for my son's Nexus 7...if it sucked, then i deleted if off my phone.) Apparently, a few of these apps leave behind stuff that causes lag and crashes despite you deleting them! Android app security ain't that great. The screen remains nice and big. I did manage to scratch the display (Gorilla Glass 2??).

All in all, this was a pleasant Android experience...but yeah, you have to be careful of what you download even if you're just using the PLAY Store. Android (and Samsung) has come a long way since i first owned it a few years ago. More stable. But, when comparing to Apple, Android still has some ways to go in terms of integration and stability. Games and apps come out on Apple first for the most part and are more stable. PLAY Store movies are horrendous in quality. Although Samsung Kies tries to be like iTunes, it is far from being reliable in both booting up and connecting with my phone (thru laptop USB). It can't remember personal settings on my phone if i had to restore it.

And lastly, my Sony laptop for whatever reason has episodes of not recognizing my Note 2 (and Nexus 7) even though the correct driver has been installed (and updated). This is very annoying because i use the USB connections to transfer photos and movies.