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My dad was in love with the 4.3 inch screen of Desire HD...BUt there are more issues that positives...
So the next best option was the Incredible S... However, before jumping the gun, I wanted certain things clarified as the Desire HD and Incredible S share the same OS and more or less the same firmware...
1. The battery issue...does the battery die out in the Incredible S also as soon as in Desire HD??
2. The memory card seems to die, anytime, anywhere, without a reason. Does this happen on Incredible S too??
I want to buy a smartphone for my dad that is minimal on issues and problems...Can you guys suggest one???
PS: the screen has to be a minimum of 4...
If the screen has to be a minimum of 4" and you want zero issues, and you want one now, you have very few options. The IS is a great phone, both myself and my fiancée have one (and she is very non technical) and she loves it. The battery lasts quite a bit longer on the IS for two reasons (a) the screen is slightly smaller (the screen is always the biggest powerdraw on any phone) and (a) the battery is of a larger capacity. I had problems with my original SDCard slot, but once I had the phone swapped I have had zero issues. It comes bundled with a decent 8GB memory card, and I haven't heard of anyone with persistand SDCard issues.
In the interests of fairness, the other phones that are avalible that fit your requirements are the Nexus S and Galaxy S. For me, the build quality was quite cheap and tacky, and in my office I have an IS, one friend has a Nexus One and the Other a Nexus S and the Nexus looked very yellowy and dull compared to our phones (he is on 2.3.3), the colours were brighter and more vibrant on the Nexus One compared to the IS, but the screen was a lot sharper and brighter on the IS (the Nexus One is also only 3.7"). The TouchFlo UI on the Galaxy S ruled it out straight away for my, I found it ugly and not very helpful where as Sense is a welcome addition, brings some nice features and eye candy without havign to download loads of apps (great for someone who wants an easy to use phone).
You could wait for the dual core phones, but to be honest unless you are going to game on the phone I really can't see the point. When you compare the IS or DS to the HTC Sensation or Galaxy S II, thumbing through the UI or photographs, or searching the web is just as fast on the 1GHz snapdragon as it is on the dual core, sure they are more powerful gaming machines but I assume that's not why your dad wants it.
Just to clarfy, I have mentioned the DS several times but not recommended it, only because it has a 3.7" phone, other wise it is just a very slightly more compact version of the IS, it is a great phone.
thats a great review prophet and obvious i cant make it sound worse nor better
all i can recommend is don't ever buy an sony ericsson
l0st.prophet said:
If the screen has to be a minimum of 4" and you want zero issues, and you want one now, you have very few options. The IS is a great phone, both myself and my fiancée have one (and she is very non technical) and she loves it. The battery lasts quite a bit longer on the IS for two reasons (a) the screen is slightly smaller (the screen is always the biggest powerdraw on any phone) and (a) the battery is of a larger capacity. I had problems with my original SDCard slot, but once I had the phone swapped I have had zero issues. It comes bundled with a decent 8GB memory card, and I haven't heard of anyone with persistand SDCard issues.
In the interests of fairness, the other phones that are avalible that fit your requirements are the Nexus S and Galaxy S. For me, the build quality was quite cheap and tacky, and in my office I have an IS, one friend has a Nexus One and the Other a Nexus S and the Nexus looked very yellowy and dull compared to our phones (he is on 2.3.3), the colours were brighter and more vibrant on the Nexus One compared to the IS, but the screen was a lot sharper and brighter on the IS (the Nexus One is also only 3.7"). The TouchFlo UI on the Galaxy S ruled it out straight away for my, I found it ugly and not very helpful where as Sense is a welcome addition, brings some nice features and eye candy without havign to download loads of apps (great for someone who wants an easy to use phone).
You could wait for the dual core phones, but to be honest unless you are going to game on the phone I really can't see the point. When you compare the IS or DS to the HTC Sensation or Galaxy S II, thumbing through the UI or photographs, or searching the web is just as fast on the 1GHz snapdragon as it is on the dual core, sure they are more powerful gaming machines but I assume that's not why your dad wants it.
Just to clarfy, I have mentioned the DS several times but not recommended it, only because it has a 3.7" phone, other wise it is just a very slightly more compact version of the IS, it is a great phone.
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Thanx l0st.prophet,
I was actually looking for a fair review...I believe Engadget and other well known websites are very biased and dont want to piss off any giants...anyways...I just wanted to know about the battery and the memory card issue and I got my answer. Thanks a lot anyways..so over all, the Incredible is a good phone, minus the Desire HD worries and its screen, the 4.3
I am thinking about upgrading from S2, can someone with both phones compare - what advantages (if any ) / disadvantages Note has over S2 ?
Obviously Note has bigger screen - but screen aside - did you notice any other area where Note triumphs S2 ? (GPS, wifi, battery life with screen turned on, sound quality, camera, sotware issues...) How about heat problems ? S2 can get pretty hot under high workload, is Note any better ? (afaik it basically runs the same chip just clocked higher which makes me wondering)
Also regarding the screen - are the colors / brightness / outdoor visibility etc. the same and the difference is only in size / resolution / ppi ? And finally: is there someone who tried both and actually preferred S2 ?
They're almost the same. For me the major difference is battery life and spen ... I love to sketch. So I switched. Battery is superb.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA App
I don't own either, but from what I've seen the battery is way better on the Note than basically any other Android phone. Colors will be slightly less vibrant because it's not a SAMOLED+ display, it's just SAMOLED. But honestly, who cares? It's 720p!
Yumunum said:
I don't own either, but from what I've seen the battery is way better on the Note than basically any other Android phone. Colors will be slightly less vibrant because it's not a SAMOLED+ display, it's just SAMOLED. But honestly, who cares? It's 720p!
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The colors are amazing. I find them just as vibrant as the S2. The only real difference is the pentile display, but the dpi is so high you can't even tell. I find the screen to be far more useful than the S2 with the extra size and resolution.
Battery life wasn't great at first but once I turned off latitude and froze a few samsung apps it got MUCH better. Oh, and using minimum brightness is a major factor too. I wasn't too happy about turning the brightness down but after a day you don't notice it. I just have a widget on the desktop so I can quickly turn up the brightness if I need to.
After using the phone for a bit more, the Note is better in some ares:
-GLONASS satellite system allows it very fast lock in and response, although its not as precise as GPS, maybe 5-10ft off, but realky isn't an issue at all.
-Better PPI, but can see grains if eyes 6" from the screen.
-Screen is slightly brighter.
Cons: Can't operate it one handed at all due to size.
Sound quality is the same, not bad but not great. Same camera I think. Both can get pretty warm, but a case helps.
battery life: qualitatively it seems note lasts longer.
sound quality: equally good but note louder esp on speaker.
heat: i suppose any phone will heat up under stress e.g. video, charging but by and large i have never felt much heat from either.
camera: this is one area note is better than S2. S2 had weird pink hues but this is less noticeable in note. the screen seems to respond better in camera mode for note too.
in short, unless size and portability are major concerns, note is a better get. hope this helps!
comrad said:
I am thinking about upgrading from S2, can someone with both phones compare - what advantages (if any ) / disadvantages Note has over S2 ?
Obviously Note has bigger screen - but screen aside - did you notice any other area where Note triumphs S2 ? (GPS, wifi, battery life with screen turned on, sound quality, camera, sotware issues...) How about heat problems ? S2 can get pretty hot under high workload, is Note any better ? (afaik it basically runs the same chip just clocked higher which makes me wondering)
Also regarding the screen - are the colors / brightness / outdoor visibility etc. the same and the difference is only in size / resolution / ppi ? And finally: is there someone who tried both and actually preferred S2 ?
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Allrighty.
I currently own both, and can help you out with answering a few things.
I'll start off with something that I haven't seen many if any even, touch base on:
Typing is a dream. I used the stock Gingerbread keyboard on my Galaxy SII as it was the most comfortable one for me, but found it a tad cramped at times and landscape was just too wide to type anything on naturally. On the Note using the same keyboard, I personally had fewer mistakes and found that my typing speed had stayed near dead on to my thumbing on the smaller brother. I'd say it hits that sweet spot for completely comfortable portrait typing.
The sound quality in call is right on par with that of the GSII, dare I say even a little bit better. In any of the time I've spent talking on it, I haven't had an issue and it's clear on the other end.
Battery life is most certainly better. It's not worlds better, but I have no worries that I won't kill my battery come the end of my day and get home, whereas there were days were I was cutting it too close for comfort on the GSII. I'm a light to moderate user, with locally stored music playback anywhere from 1-7 hours, screen on time around 3-4 hours, bluetooth always on (for MBW-150), and no wifi every day.
I've found the software for the camera to be improved. It's not Nexus-fast in terms of snapping off a photo, but it's easily much faster at taking a photo on the Note than the GSII. Image quality and detail is on par with the GSII's snapper.
The Note is the same as the SII in terms of heat. That hasn't changed, but this is only if you're actually working it by playing games or watching HD video. Likewise, it stays cool with regular use, as does the SII.
Screen saturation is almost that of the SII's screen, but not enough to fret about. I've found the colour on the Note's screen to be a touch warmer, but that could very well be because it's a newer screen with less on time than my GSII. Outdoor visibility isn't an issue, at my usual screen brightness of 25% I have no problems making out what's on the screen throughout the day, even in near direct sunlight. This was the same case with it's smaller sibling, so no real differences here.
As a note about the Note's screen (pardon the pun), the screen is fantastic. Flat out. Text, images, and video are easily more crisp and enjoyable to view on the Note than the SII. Because of the high pixel density, you can't even make out the sup pixels while reading unless you bring the phone less than 6" away from your face and even then it's difficult.
I absolutely love my Note. Everyone I've showed it to has had the same reaction: "Wow. It huge!". So it most certainly stands out if that might matter to you. There are times where I miss the GSII for it's size and general 'feel'. It's definitely been tamed and feels a touch more responsive while moving through the OS, and the light weight was always a plus. There have been times where my hand was slightly fatigued from holding the Note, but again this really is a two handed device.
To sum it all up, I bought my Galaxy SII in August. I just got my Note about a week ago, never handling or seeing one in real life and I feel it was a worthy enough upgrade. My reasoning is of course biased for my wants in the device, but chances are if you're looking into getting this device, you'll surely be impressed.
It is interesting to see different experiences with SGS2 and Note. I own both, and here is my quick comparison.
Screen - I like the bigger format ( I love the bigger format) but the screen is not as bright as SGS2. White is little bit grayish. Colors are pretty much same, I don't see the problem with RGB or pentile display. So Note: 1 point.
Sound - I absolutely love the sound, all notifications are louder, in call volume louder, speaker louder and more bass. Note: 1 point
Wi Fi signal: I tested SGS2, Note, Galaxy Tab and my wife's Iphone 4G wifi signal strength in my house, I have latest Linksys router, super fast cable internet with latest modem capable up to 100 mbps, in real I am getting 54 mbps. Note performed worst of all of them. Around 16 mbps versus 22 for SGS 2 and iPhone. Very dissapointed with wi fi signal strength as well, loosing signal in places where SGS2 and iPhone still works ok. Note: 0 points, SGS 2 : 1 point.
Camera: oh boy, much much worse than SGS 2, I couldn't believe how bad this camera is. I will post later side by side pictures from both phones with same settings, you will be surprised. Not focusing as quickly as SGS2, white balance off, takes ages refocusing between light area and dark area, etc... SGS 2: 1 more point here.
Stylus: since SGS2 doesn't have it, Note gets 1 more point here, because I find this feature very useful for my business and it was one of the main reasons I bought this phone. (screen and Stylus)
Scrolling between home screens is little bit laggy, much more noticeable than SGS2. Stock browser scrolling is jerky, not iphone smooth as SGS2. Wake up screen delay is 1.5 sec from pressing any button ( home or power) compared to almost instant screen on with SGS2.
Both phones running stock firmware, SGS2 is on UK unbranded 2.3.4 rooted, Note is on 2.3.6. German firmware not rooted.(yet)
Using it on USA AT&T carrier. Phone signal more less same,somewhere SGS2 performs better, somewhere Note has better signal, but I am satisfied with both phones performances.
Overall I prefer Note right now, it may be because of it's novelty versus my "old" SGS2, but it will be very hard for me to go to smaller size screen phone after using Note. Probably the best phone I ever had so far. I bought Note without seeing it in real from Amazon.de and I am not dissapointed with the purchase.
enjoy it, life is short.
Well thanks everyone, my general impressions from what has been said are:
1.) Screen is much better
2.) Battery is much better
3.) Pen is a potential advantage (I almost forgot about the pen)
4.) Experience with remaining features can vary (probably due to manufacturing differences ?) but overall they are all more or less comparable to Galaxy S2
5.) With one exception being GPS, at least based on this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=arOYNNux_mg
it seems the Note's GPS should be quite superior (it may be the best GPS in any phone yet ?)
So if screen, battery life and GPS are improved over S2 then it's probably good enough for me. However it would be much cleaner cut if there would be more horsepower under the hood as well I'd love some faster CPU, 32GB of storage and faster stock sd cards. (Actually I'd love to see some SSD on it You can put SSD into a netbook so why not to a phone ? )
Also one thing I would probably prefer is to have 16:9 (720 height instead of 800) display and about 4.8 - 5" big, slightly more portable and less funny looking while making a call. Maybe they've opted for Note's aspect ratio as to give better support for note taking ?
ive had my galaxy note for a month. just picked up a free galaxy s2 today on vodafone AU's $29 cap. personally, i think i'll stick with the note. everything about the note is just more convenient for me. bigger screen makes portrait keyboard awesome, higher res makes everything look better. battery life is only better on the note with gaming and video watching, both are on par for web browsing battery life due to the weakness of samoled.
gps is much much better on my galaxy note. locks down fairly well when im indoors whilst the s2 cant even lock after running it for half an hour in navigation mode.
as for the screen ratio, samsung havent made a phone that uses 16:9 screen ratio for a fair while (if they have made any at all, cant seem to think of any). the slightly wider/taller (depending on how you look at it) makes portrait keyboard useful, but i must agree, the extra pixels are wasted on videos. if you want a 16:9 screen ratio, look towards the lg nitro hd and galaxy nexus.
one thing the galaxy nexus has that these phones dont seem to have is the correct positioning of the 3.5mm socket. the galaxy nexus has it positioned on the bottom, like my old n900. this is the perfect place for the socket since it means you can pull your phone out of your pocket when headphones are plugged in and it will be the right way up. it also means if youre plugging it into anything in your car, it wont have any silly cables coming out the top. its one of those little things that are nice and much appreciated. but im digressing a bit here.
overall, the phones will be similar, with the screen being the main difference and the unique advantage of the note will be the S pen. but that may be a bit of a downer in terms of update speed. for the galaxy s2, all samsung need to do is refine the experience, add touchwiz, and its all ready. for the note, they need to add touchwiz and then modify the S-Pen apps to run correctly as well. shouldnt delay the release of ICS for the note by too much considering samsung should have gained experience with ICS when working with the galaxy nexus, but its still a bit of a delay.
and i dont think SSDs will be needed on phones for a fair while. honestly, when will you need a read speed faster than 20mb/s? or a write speed faster than that? its only really useful when transferring files to and from a PC, but as to actual device usage, it has little impact. videos are encoded at what? 17mbps? thats still only 2-3mb/s of write speed needed. theres very little on the device that could take advantage of the added speed of an SSD. its just something that will drive up the product cost with very little benefit in realworld usage. apps load quickly enough so i dont think samsung would bother to consider an SSD for phones anytime soon.
Souai said:
and i dont think SSDs will be needed on phones for a fair while. honestly, when will you need a read speed faster than 20mb/s? or a write speed faster than that? its only really useful when transferring files to and from a PC, but as to actual device usage, it has little impact.
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Faster than 20MB/s - yes it's mainly for data transfer. But note also that while most android apps are small, some (especially games which can have couple of hundreds of MBs) should benefit from faster storage. And if you bench seq. write speed of S2 it's nowhere near to 20MB/s. It's more like 5-7MB/s - very slow for large data transfers (I don't know if Galaxy Note is any better). The internal memory of S2 is of course optimized for fast random reads/writes rather then seq. speeds. But if we can have high capacity USB3 sticks with read / write speeds above 100 MB/s and still very good random read/write speeds (e.g. 64GB flash for about 100€) then maybe to have phone with 32GB-64GB internal memory and 50/30MB/s and USB3 etc. could be done for similar price (which would be very fine with me).
Note seems to be well suited for video playback but with typical 720p movie at about 5GB I find the 12GB internal + 32GB external SD cards quite limiting in capacity as well as in transfer speeds (esp. considering that I need permanently at least 16GB for my music collection and lot's of free space for 1080p video recording) Surprisingly most netbooks have comparable RAM capacity and CPU speeds (at least for non floating point tasks) to those of highend smartphones, yet the storage capacity and seq. transfer speeds on netbooks is order of magnitudes higher.
I got it today ! It's very big AND unfortunately the side panel has annoying squeaking problem. It's only on one place - below the volume button, exactly where I tend to leave my fingers. Anyone else with the same problem ? Never had any squeaking problems on SGS2.
Is there a possibility that the back cover has not been clicked in place properly? I get squeaking too when that happens.
I have both phones.
When I got the Note I wanted to sell the S2, even had a buyer for it.
But after I used the Note for a day I start to have serious second thoughts.
The S2 is so much smoother ... Honestly, in this respect the Note is much closer to SG1 than SG2.
Hey mates
I have both of these phones myself, and I'm just wondering is there any possibilities to move memos from SGS2 to note??
Chagrim said:
Hey mates
I have both of these phones myself, and I'm just wondering is there any possibilities to move memos from SGS2 to note??
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With the backup feature on the PC, with syncing them to google, with the option to back them up with MyBackup, there are a lot of options Probably the easiest would be go into the options of your SGS2 Memo app and sync it to google, and then just redownload them on the Note. I like everything OTA. I dislike having to plug everything in to get stuff done.
zkyevolved said:
With the backup feature on the PC, with syncing them to google, with the option to back them up with MyBackup, there are a lot of options Probably the easiest would be go into the options of your SGS2 Memo app and sync it to google, and then just redownload them on the Note. I like everything OTA. I dislike having to plug everything in to get stuff done.
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Ok, now I feel myself really dumb! Thanks for that
holgalee said:
Is there a possibility that the back cover has not been clicked in place properly? I get squeaking too when that happens.
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That's not possible because I tripplechecked (by removing and putting back) the cover prior to asking here.
But there is more to Note than that: I saw videos of Note compared to S2 etc. on youtube I saw pictures in reviews etc. but nothing could prepare me to how big it actually is in real. I will be probably in minority here but I can't avoid thinking that it's actually too big - for calling it a phone at least. At the same time I could live with larger screen and res than S2 (mostly for comfortable video watching) So I think if I could spec and ideal phone for me, based on interpolation between S2 and Note it would have display comparable to Galaxy Nexus (1280x720 ~ 4.7" - 4.8", 120g - 140g) that should be a perfect balance between display usefulness and overall portability. Too bad they've crippled Nexus with missing SD slot and missing flash support. Hope that Galaxy S3 will hit it all right (I already can't wait ) Btw any chance Note's awesome GPS making it to other Samsung phones ? (can it be put to any phone regardless of it's size ?) As far as GPS goes the difference is stunning (basically a toy like implementation vs. state of the art awesomeness)
Now I have hard time deciding what to do with Note: I should probably return it but then the screen is so awesome that it's very tough to just return it, even when I don't need it Btw about the screen and pentile vs. non-pentile debate: there were only few occasions when I noticed there was some grain on the Note without looking for it, e.g. the red birds in Angry Birds Rio and orange balloon in Samsung demo video (from 0:36) On galaxy2 I never noticed any grain (even when looking for it), so yes Superamoled Plus would be even nicer but for 99% of practical cases it doesn't matter to me.
Where are those comparsion photos that someone mentioned. Has anyone had the camera perform poorly?
I own both, well I gave the S2 to the missus when I got the Note.
The Note is equivalent too, or better then the S2 in everything. I would find it impossible to have an S2 as my main phone now after having used the Note for almost a month.
You will hear a lot of negativity about the size of the Note, I kept hearing it is too big, it is uncomfortable to carry etc etc. Nonsense. It took me a day (max) to get use to the size, it fits in all my pockets comfortably and is very portable. Dare I say it I think it could even be a tad bigger, maybe 5.5" All other phones now seem tiny to me, and this has become the standard. I don't think I will be able to go back to a small(er) phone after using this.
I have found the camera and video recording similar to the S2. GPS on the Note is amazing, I get a lock in seconds, it beats every other satnav/phone I have ever owned. The screen... wow. One month on and it still impresses me. Games, Videos, Satnav, Internet Browsing even Ebook reading is all a joy on the Note, it is the ultimate all in one device imo.
hey y'all..
I currently own a nokia n96..it used ta be the bomb a few years back before android dived out of nowhere..
I am guna buy the gnote in 1st week of june..
I just am in luv wit it, but with the galaxy s3 coming on may 3rd.
Should i go for gnote monster, or order the samsung s3 when it comes..due to the quad core reason nd rumored 12MP camera.
Still i think that the gnotes screen and the upcoming special luxury ics update coming, it cud be betr.
But plz stil heeeelp.!
Frankly, I don't see why would one actually need a quad-core, except for heavy gaming. Note's dual-core is more than capable to deal with any tasks I can think of, and then some. Also, 8mpix picture quality is more than enough for photo amateurs.
OTOH, Note's screen experience is second to none. You can even run it in tablet mode if you wish.
Note's only drawback is that you won't be able to switch to small phones once you start to use it.
SGSII feels like Toys-R-Us to me now.
chasmodo said:
Frankly, I don't see why would one actually need a quad-core, except for heavy gaming. Note's dual-core is more than capable to deal with any tasks I can think of, and then some. Also, 8mpix picture quality is more than enough for photo amateurs.
OTOH, Note's screen experience is second to none. You can even run it in tablet mode if you wish.
Note's only drawback is that you won't be able to switch to small phones once you start to use it.
SGSII feels like Toys-R-Us to me now.
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SCREEN! The Screen is amazing, and honestly after using it a while I can't use any other screen anymore. Once you used this since all other phones seems for me as they are wrong. Childish, I not understand how I used them all the years.
To the Galaxy S3, let's wait what we actually are getting. quad-core, well sounds great, but the Note is flying compared to anything I had in my hands so far. I am not saying I have no look to the S3, but still the Note is the business tool I use 24/7. I even retired my ipad. The size and weight of the Note is perfectly fitting my needs.
The only reason to go with Quad-Core S3 is that Note might be too big. If it's not - go for Note. Seriously, you won't use even 50% of this CPU, not now, probably not even in a year.
should i b scared of buyin gnote, as i throw my phone a lot!?!
duudes.., main thing..should i root it after buying 'coz i reali dnt kno how cud it make the 'gnote' any betr..
I was thnking of getin launcher like adw ex launcher and make my fone like the one on youtube..just search for 'coldfusTion' on youtube nd i luv his homescreens.
Is ther anythin betr than that, if so plz inform?
Nd any tips?
Hollâ
begimaad said:
duudes.., main thing..should i root it after buying 'coz i reali dnt kno how cud it make the 'gnote' any betr..
I was thnking of getin launcher like adw ex launcher and make my fone like the one on youtube..just search for 'coldfusTion' on youtube nd i luv his homescreens.
Is ther anythin betr than that, if so plz inform?
Nd any tips?
Hollâ
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i have adw and its great. If you do your homework you can get stock rom to your liking without flashing custom rom. Just takes a lot of time. Also remeber to backup your settings in adw.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA
Well LG is coming out with a large screen phablet. And HTC seems to be working on one with one nice specs as well (1080p screen!) Who knows when they are hitting though.
as a note owner, I would say if you are going to make the jump, wait for the quad-core note to come out. Then go
if the quad-core note should ever come out.. im not going to jump to the bandwagon unless Sammy can compensate the battery performance of a quad-core device...
we all know what's going on in OneX forums.. their primary concerns are though they have a quad-core phone up on their sleeves... the battery is better left unsaid... it last for just hours, barely making it even a day...
If we have to wait for quad-core phones, Manufacturers like Sammy itself should make up their ante to put a battery that would match it's processing power.....
I'd say wait for the SIII then decide , I've used an SII and now the note ,they are both fine devices but the S2 felt that little more refined than the Note.
Samsung takes more care of it's S- flagships than other Galaxy members.
as for quad cores being not needed now ,true but what about the future?
all I'm saying is wait and see ,in the end they are both very high end devices .
just got two mails conforming 1.4ghz exynos quad core on siii.
Is adw supported on ics?nd shud i format my fone when ics comes for gnote.
the quad core exynos yields 20% in battery savings compared to the dual core, from what sammy reports
also, pin to pin, it is the same as the dual core, so if samsung ever decides to upgrade the Note, it'll be a quick and easy update.
how nice it would be if we could change processors on our mobiles just like how we do on our own PCs.....
that aside, wait for the S3 and see what kind of screen it has. Super AMOLED on the Note is vibrant, no doubt, but the S2's SA Plus looks even better.
yeaaa..that wudave been great..installing new processors..bt i dnt thnk tht wud happen fr abt 5 or 6 years lol.
May 3rd cumin closer nd closer..
Any guess that how much would the s3 cost in euros!?my budget is €500..
guitarplayerone said:
as a note owner, I would say if you are going to make the jump, wait for the quad-core note to come out. Then go
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Quadcore anything would devour your battery in a couple of hours.
jeremy.chan said:
the quad core exynos yields 20% in battery savings compared to the dual core, from what sammy reports
also, pin to pin, it is the same as the dual core, so if samsung ever decides to upgrade the Note, it'll be a quick and easy update.
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+1
This means that the Note2 will be able to use LESS power for the same load - i.e. for anything when not running 100% load.
Sure, if you are running it flat out then it will eat battery faster, but then there's a good chance if you're using maximum performance (recoding a video?) it'll take the same amount of energy just use it faster!
I can't see Samsung not producing a Note2-QC/4412.
What would also be nice is a super-amoled-plus-plus-true-hd+ screen.
I have sat on the fence about buying a Note, if the Note1 was heavily discounted I would consider one, but, I would probably regret not waiting for a couple months to get a Note2 once initial prices settled below "crazy".
But then I also like the padfone, which also has a pen.
Was curious what sound chip this phone uses? And if there is any differences between regional like the galaxy s3?
I'm tempted to get Galaxy S4 just because it has better specs but at the same time, if the processor of the S4 isn't that big of a difference to this snapdragon 600, I might as well get One.
I own the S3 and the snapdragon on this phone is pretty bad, lags often happen, slow too and not to mention some games don't run well either unless they are simple games such as temple run. However games such as real racing, MC 4, NOVA 3, etc often lag or graphics are not that great.
What is making me even consider an HTC phone is because of the design, GUI, and the solid finish. I've always been a fan of the Sense layout
Benchmarks right now shows that HTC One can compete with SGS4. And of course HTC One is way off the level on the like of HTC One X or SGS3. But SGS4 has a much more powerful GPU on it but problem is 90% of the latest android handsets uses Adreno GPU which is not the case with SGS4 that uses PowerVR instead. So game compatibility would be rare if you ask me.
And by the way I hate samsung so you really won't expect any good about SGS4 from me but still what I have said are all correct so depends if you will believe me or not.
Thanks for the info, I guess we won't be able to know which sound chips both phone uses until it's fully dismantled. I literally love music and could be considered an audiophile and that is one of the major problems when it comes to non-removable back - no microSD. FLAC files are big and a phone is something I have at all times which makes it really convenient for me to add music to.
Now, the American variant galaxy s3 sucked hard, processor, gpu, sound card all lacked and pretty much sucked compared to the iPhone 5 aside from the removable back but even then, what's the point when rest of the hardware sucked.
I'm just skeptical of the Snapdragon cpu and the Adreno GPU as again both were in the American variant of the S3. And at the same time was not very efficient, lags are very noticeable even with a 2gb RAM.
I know benchmarks are not everything and real life usage is, and I'm curious how the CPU and GPU of the ONE competes with the S4. I saw a video of Real Racing 3 running on the ONE earlier today and it seemed to have all the rendering/graphics properly in place such as reflections on the mirror and car itself, which what the iPhone is running right now. That's good news as it can run that game well.
I currently own an S3 and the ONE seems like it'll be neat phone to try out but the concerns are the hardware competition and 3rd party development such as rooting, ROM's, etc - I heard HTC phones don't have a larger "hacking" community compared to Samsung or any other phones.
Intercrew said:
Thanks for the info, I guess we won't be able to know which sound chips both phone uses until it's fully dismantled. I literally love music and could be considered an audiophile and that is one of the major problems when it comes to non-removable back - no microSD. FLAC files are big and a phone is something I have at all times which makes it really convenient for me to add music to.
Now, the American variant galaxy s3 sucked hard, processor, gpu, sound card all lacked and pretty much sucked compared to the iPhone 5 aside from the removable back but even then, what's the point when rest of the hardware sucked.
I'm just skeptical of the Snapdragon cpu and the Adreno GPU as again both were in the American variant of the S3. And at the same time was not very efficient, lags are very noticeable even with a 2gb RAM.
I know benchmarks are not everything and real life usage is, and I'm curious how the CPU and GPU of the ONE competes with the S4. I saw a video of Real Racing 3 running on the ONE earlier today and it seemed to have all the rendering/graphics properly in place such as reflections on the mirror and car itself, which what the iPhone is running right now. That's good news as it can run that game well.
I currently own an S3 and the ONE seems like it'll be neat phone to try out but the concerns are the hardware competition and 3rd party development such as rooting, ROM's, etc - I heard HTC phones don't have a larger "hacking" community compared to Samsung or any other phones.
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Regarding flac and big files: You could use the USB OTG connectivity and add any sort of USB storage. It's not as slick as a microsd but at home in front of the stereo it really doesn't matter.
BTW, I'm also very keen on knowing what DAC they've used. Hoping it's the Wolfson
I figured it might be a good idea to share my thoughts on the Note 4, since I always put a lot of research into smartphone buying and someone might find it useful There are some of you that are still leaning toward different flagships all of the time (like I did!), so I hope this helps.
First of all I would like to mention that about a month ago I made up my mind to give up my LG G2 and switch to a new smartphone.
The Xiaomi mi4 came up first.
I liked the design, UI, price, specs. Everything about the mi4 is just above average, but thats about it. It didn't have that even slightest "wow factor" that I needed to push me to buying one. It's a very good phone, but the warranty would require me to send the phone far into the unknown in case something was wrong, I wasn't sure If I would pay tax as well. Nobody had the 64 gb model either (16gb and no card expansion, really?!). I decided that this would probably be a wise choice but it didn't offer anything more than what I already had on the G2, and in some cases, it was worse (camera). I passed.
My second choice was the LG G3.
So like always, I started researching, checking out different variants and prices, digging through the specs, looking for its strong sides and flaws. I liked the quad hd display at first, the SD 801 SoC, good camera with laser autofocus. The UI was a nice upgrade from the LG G2's cartoonish look. The 32 gb model seemed a good option with its 3gb of ram (although I didn't like the design as I wanted something different from the G2).
As I started to dig deaper though, I noticed that the display isn't all that awesome, as there is more to it than just resolution. I think they might have made the phone much better if they sticked to a 1080p panel and focused on other aspects like color reproduction, brightness, power consumption. I found out that the 801 chip is stretched to its limits (even over them..) with that display, which caused overheating, throttling and lagging in demanding tasks and games. I believe a smartphone should be able to handle anything you throw at it so I dumped the G3 from my plans.
Then the Z3 came up.
So again- researching, digging, looking at the cons and pros. I liked the design a lot better than the G3 (besides the plastic corners, although I can justify the reason they used them for). The display was beytter than the Z2, with very good brightness and color reproduction after making some adjustments to the stock settings. The audio quality is superb as well, the whole phone is waterproof and its battery life was very well above the current smartphones.
The camera in the Z3 is top of the line, but I didn't like how it overheats. Making the phone thinner wasn't necessary in my opinion and sony might have thought about the component allocation in the device, as putting everything in the top part of the phone wasn't too smart of a choice. The UI was something that I didn't like the most though. I know I could throw a custom ROM at it in a while, but I wasn't sure how that would work with the camera, battery life and other features sony offered in the stock ROM.
I almost made my mind up on the Z3, as it had everything I wanted and I could live with its cons but then the price came into my mind: 515 pounds including tax.
Thats the part the note 4 came into play.
I watched the Note 4 presentation: the phone impressed me in overall, I liked the design, UI, hardware etc. So I started digging again.
I've always wanted the best out of my phone, no matter if I was going to use all of the functions it had or not. I used my phone for calling, texting, making notes in google keep, gps, playing games, listening to music, browsing the web, taking pictures. Usually I endep up rooting it and putting a stock like ROM on it (although I used the stock LG G2 ROM all the way). The design of the phone was always important for me, thats why I had an iphone 4s and 5 for a month before ditching it cus of the awfully simple and boring OS.
The Note 4 seemed to be a very good phone that offered what I wanted and much more beyond that:
1. The display
It's resolution could have been not increased. Samsung could have stayed with a 1080p panel. But thats not whats important about this panel. This is what the DisplayMate test results are:
"The Galaxy Note 4 delivers uniformly consistent all around Top Tier display performance: it is the first Smartphone display to ever get all Green (Very Good to Excellent) Ratings in all test and measurement categories (except one Yellow for a Brightness Variation with Average Picture Level) since we started the Display Technology Shoot-Out article Series in 2006, an impressive achievement for a display. The Galaxy Note 4 has again raised the bar for top display performance up by another notch. "
The display is a window through which you interact with your phone, and it is a component that must be top of the line. There should be no compromise here. Samsung exceeded my expectations in this matter.
2. Performance
There are 2 variants of the Note as most of you know. I'm still having a hard time with both of them. At first I thought the Snapdragon is an obvious choice considering it was superior to all of the other chips last year.
But then the 64-bit affair came into place. Anyone would like their phone to be futureproof, and a 64-bit SoC would be a wise choice. The exynos and snapdragon chips offer pretty much the same performance. I tried looking at the benchmarks, real world usage, gaming, but one outpaces the other in different things and it is very hard to tell the difference. I believe the fluidity of the UI and overall performance must be taken into consideration the most, as I believe both chips will handle anything you throw at them when apps and games are optimized. The choice is either taking the 20nm exynos and hope for better battery life and 64-bit support OR the snapdragon one and expect better dev support.
I wanted the Exynos for the wolfson chip, as I like good quality music from my phone. I'll be using good headphones and PowerAmp so I figure I wouldn't notice much difference anyway. At least not enough to pay extra and import the exynos variant.
I'm pretty much set on the Snapdragon 805 as I believe the battery life should be good on both (the andreno 420 is powerful with lowered power consumption). Like I mentioned earlier I might change the ROM after a while if something good comes out. It's a matter of personal taste- NOT performance of the chips. Thats my opinion on the matter.
3. User Interface
Touchwiz was out of the question for me up until I saw the Galaxy S5 UI. I actually liked the flat style and functions it offered. The note 4 UI is pretty similar. I really like the S-Pen experience, it should be a great change for people who haven't used it before. I love taking notes and I'll use it often. I like the functions it offers, the selection in different UI elements, the ease of copy/pasting, more precise touch input.
Touchwiz has a lot of useless apps that I might not like, but I'm sure it will be possible to get rid of the ones you don't like later on, the dev community in here will surely help. I could go on about the stamina mode, multi-window, the ability to resize apps etc, but you've all seen that on videos. The most important fact for is that touchwiz had been improved, it is eye pleasing, smoother and faster than ever. It is the best custom android OS you can get atm.
4. Camera
On paper both of the cameras looked really good to me, but I wanted to wait and see the real world results. I wasn't disappointed. there were some early comparisions done, but some of them were pictures or videos not taken with the note 4, so getting a correct view at the performance was quite hard. We have these results now and the note camera is a top notch performer. I find day pictures top of the line, the details are there, colors are popping, OIS helps as well. 4k shooting isn't all that important to me but its a nice addition. The camera seems to be very capable and will perform great in a day-to-day user's hands as well in an experienced person ones.
You may find the night shots worse than of the lumia or z3, but thats just terribly trying to find a flaw to me. Come on- who the hell is going to photograph a piece of paper in the dark of the night!? insane. There are pictures taken with the note at night, i like how the lights aren't blurred and everything seems very crisp and detailed. Do remember what you'll be using the phone camera for, and the Note 4 delivers more than I want in those terms.
5. Battery life
Many people find this very important. I thought the Note 4 might get bad results cause of that screen so I checked out some vids of the LTE-A Galaxy S5 with the higher res display. The results were the same as the standars S5.
I am not sure if its the chip that is more power efficient, some power saving changes in the OS, or the screen, or maybe all of these at once, but the results people are having on the Notes they recently picked up are very pleasing to me.
Final words
I probably shouldn't, cause its so ridiculous, but I'll mention the gap gate as well- I don't give a crap about it. I wont even notice it. Especially with the case I'm going to put on the phone. And its something that samsung probably addressed already in the new batch of phones. There are other things I should maybe mention, but these 5 are most important for me. I really like the performace of the Note 4, its UI, functions, metal frame design, micro SD storage expansion, camera, battery, IR blaster and everything else that seems to be a full package that many will find good enough to put their money on. I surely will. On the black one of course
You have really done some good work digging up info and comparing them.
Just to add couple points to OP's excellent write up:
The battery life concern in #5 is actually addressed in already mentioned DisplayMate article, right towards the bottom it clearly states that the new screen, despite having larger number of pixels is more power efficient than 1080p screen of Note3 (0.05W for 50% and 0.2 W for 100% brightness), about 5 to 10% more efficient and Note 3 has proven itself to have very good battery life already.
The gap between screen and frame around might be by design, due to combination of plastic, glass and metal having different expansion rate due to temperature changes. My thinking is that if the phone was brought from very warm room into very cold outside, metal frame would cool and shrink much faster than the rest and could even possibly crack the glass, doing so. The gap possibly allows for contraction/expansion without doing any damage. Either way, outside of aesthetics, it doesn't affect anything and it's a non issue. Probably blown out of proportions as an attempt to shift attention away from bendgate.
pete4k said:
The battery life concern in #5 is actually addressed in already mentioned DisplayMate article, right towards the bottom it clearly states that the new screen, despite having larger number of pixels is more power efficient than 1080p screen of Note3 (0.05W for 50% and 0.2 W for 100% brightness), about 5 to 10% more efficient and Note 3 has proven itself to have very good battery life already
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I think he was referring to the increased GPU load due to the higher resolution which is a valid concern.
But as it has already been said, even the S5 LTE-A with its Snapdragon 805 and QHD resolution has the same battery life as the regular S5 with Full HD and Snapdragon 800.
Still, it would be interesting to see the battery life on a Snapdragon 805 device with only a Full HD display.
I would prefer the note 4 to have a 1080p panel with the same characteristics. But how many people actually use their head before buying a phone? It's a spec war for android phones..
han4mi said:
I would prefer the note 4 to have a 1080p panel with the same characteristics. But how many people actually use their head before buying a phone? It's a spec war for android phones..
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Normally I would agree that FHD 1080p would be more than enough. However, since the GN4 is going to host the Gear VR, with magnifying lenses, I'm happy it went for the QHD
Sent from my Surface Pro 3 using Tapatalk
Audio Quality
Thanks for taking the time for the write up.
One area I would really like to know about is the quality of the rear speaker.
The sound quality is much more important to me than the placement (and sometimes the rear placement actually helps when you put it on a flat hard surface). I ruled out the Note 3 because its speaker was worse than the Note 2 which is still my current phone. The Note 2's speaker is actually pretty decent if the 4's is equal or better I would be thrilled.
Any input?
ymmp said:
Thanks for taking the time for the write up.
One area I would really like to know about is the quality of the rear speaker.
The sound quality is much more important to me than the placement (and sometimes the rear placement actually helps when you put it on a flat hard surface). I ruled out the Note 3 because its speaker was worse than the Note 2 which is still my current phone. The Note 2's speaker is actually pretty decent if the 4's is equal or better I would be thrilled.
Any input?
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I have the same question, ´cause I am afraid, that speeker-quality will be on low level and I am used to fantastic stereo sound of my current htv one m8.
I think, the price for Note 4 ist extremly high. Meanwhile Samsungs flagships are playing in the same €-league with the latest iphons. So I want to hold it in my own hands first before buying it. In center of Europe the Note 4 will be available in about 2 weeks.
Maybe the new Nexus 6 has a better balance between price and specs. We´ll check it out.
Just read Phone Arena's review. Here's a quote:
"Unfortunately, the audio portion of the media experience isn't so spectacular. The single speaker of the Galaxy Note 4 is rather quiet and lacking any depth, making it sound thin and weak. It's not too bad, but it's far from the best we've heard"
How disappointing! The new Moto X is supposed to have an amazing front speaker. I just wonder if it is more like the Note 2 or 3.
I believe the speaker will be good enough to play the ringtone I choose. I prefer earphones+ Poweramp for my music. Like I said, it depends what you're expecting to use the phone for. The Note 4 meets my demands in key aspects and thats why I'm going for it. I don't want THE BEST PHONE. Such a phone does not exist. All of the flagships have their strenghts and weaknesses and a smart person would take the one with the most personally suitable set of features.