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Techgoondu > Blog > Mobile > Cellphones > Hands on: Samsung Galaxy Note II LTE
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Hands on: Samsung Galaxy Note II LTE

Alfred Siew
Last updated: June 13, 2014 at 5:04 PM
Alfred Siew Published October 20, 2012
5 Min Read
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When the Galaxy Note was unveiled a year ago, I saw it as a niche product aimed at folks who might do a bit of sketching on the go. Why would people go back to a stylus and isn’t a 5-inch screen too big for a phone?

Well, if you see the queues this weekend in Singapore for the Galaxy Note II, the followup to the surprise hit last year, you’ll know how wrong many geeks like me have been.

The new S$998 “phablet” – a cross between a phone and tablet – comes with a slightly bigger screen and now looks even more like a sure-fire crowd pleaser.

Firstly, if you liked the Galaxy S III, you’d be happy that the same touch-and-feel is here. The previous Note’s squarish shape has been replaced with the slightly smoother edges now.

The softer, more streamlined look will attract so-called “lifestyle users”, who have taken to the Galaxy S III very well. Yet another winning feature here is the S-pen stylus, which lets them sketch whatever they fancy or jot down notes.

What are the major changes? The new 5.5-inch screen is slightly upsized from the 5.3-incher on the previous model, while the girth is a slim 9.4mm, a hair’s breadth skinnier than the previous 9.7mm, despite the extra features packed in.

That means if you’ve always felt that the Note was too big for your pocket, the Note II will not make it easier to squeeze into your skinny jeans. Having said that, size is no issue if you are carrying a hand bag.

What I’m most impressed with the Note II is still its screen. The HD Super AMOLED display is sharp, with a resolution of 1,280 x 720, and also very bright and comes with excellent contrast that really shows in images and videos.

I’ve always been pleased by the Korean phone maker’s Super AMOLED screens, and on the Note II, the experience is no different. Just try playing an HD movie on it.

Yet another important draw is how smooth the Android operating system (Jellybean 4.1.1) is on the phone. Even with all the junk apps and widgets that Samsung somehow feels obliged to fill all the screens with, there’s none of the lag you’d expect as a result.

Software-wise, I’m also wowed by a new “hover” feature presented by the S-pen, the stylus. Place it over a menu on screen and it brings up a preview, of say, a movie. It acts as if you have pressed on something on screen and held your finger there.

A gimmick, I thought, when I first saw the demo on stage. Yet, when I tried it out later, the feature proved pretty nifty. Very importantly, no lag there either.

Perhaps it helps that the Note II has a 1.6GHz quad core chip. For folks looking to jump on 4G services, there’s also 4G LTE, promising theoretical download speeds of up to 100Mbps, if your operator supports it.

How will all that impact the battery life? I can’t say for sure, until I get a review unit to test it for a few days. But there’s more juice in the battery – the 3,100mAh now an improvement over the original Note’s 2,500mAh.


(Queue for the Samsung GALAXY Note II LTE at M1 Paragon on Saturday. Credit: Samsung.)

Just to make sure that this is the “complete” phone, Samsung has also added to the Galaxy Note II a microSD card slot that lets you pop in your own movies should you run out of space with the 16GB of storage onboard the basic model.

Then there’s near-field communications (NFC), which offers an option to tap and pay for an widening range of services in Singapore now.

All in, there’s little not to like about the Note II. It’s a nice followup after the Korean electronics firm had hit gold with the Galaxy S III. This time, it’s surely not a niche product.

Got your hands on the Note II? Tell us what you think of it so far?

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TAGGED: 4G, Android Jellybean, availability, Galaxy Note II, LTE, price, review, samsung, Singapore

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Alfred Siew October 20, 2012
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By Alfred Siew
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Alfred is a writer, speaker and media instructor who has covered the telecom, media and technology scene for more than 20 years. Previously the technology correspondent for The Straits Times, he now edits the Techgoondu.com blog and runs his own technology and media consultancy.
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6 Comments
  • Syam says:
    April 5, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    Hi All,

    My Note 2 LTE crashed with in 15 days … bad experience for me …

    Reply
    • techgoondu says:
      April 6, 2013 at 12:18 pm

      Hi Syam, any idea what happened?

      Reply
      • syam says:
        April 6, 2013 at 12:30 pm

        As per singapore support mb crashed, and they highlighted that new ios update is having some bugs that caused the problem. They are not approved my request of one to one replacement. The support was very poor , even they missed to put screws after repair.

        Reply
  • tina tan says:
    December 8, 2012 at 11:54 am

    Compare to note 10.1 3G that comes with Adobe® Photoshop® Touch and Chrome Lite (supports Adobe® Flash® Player 11), which will be a better buy not comparing on the high resolution feature for note 2?

    Reply
    • Alfred Siew says:
      December 9, 2012 at 9:49 am

      Hi Tina, do you mean the tablet that is the Note 10.1? I think the tablet would be much different from the Note 2, which is very much still a smartphone despite its large screen.

      Reply
  • Robert Heng Woo Lim says:
    November 20, 2012 at 7:49 pm

    Wow !!!

    It’s the fastest thing on the planet !!!

    Reply

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