Review: Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Samsung really is trying to win the smart phone wars by having a diverse lineup. The have “mini” smartphones, they have tablets, they have “phablets” and they have regular smartphones. The latest addition to this lineup is the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 “phablet” that was provided to me by Telus. Say what you want about “phablets”, Samsung invented the category and is selling a lot of them. Thus they will likely end up on your shopping list if you’re in the market for a phone.
The first thing that you notice about this phone is the screen. It is absolutely stunning. It is a 5.7″ 1080P HD Super AMOLED display which to my eyes is brighter than the Galaxy S4. This alone is the biggest selling point to this phone. It feels really solid but those with small hands should be warned that this is not an easy phone to hold. One person I gave the phone to said that he would be dropping this phone right, left, and center because he couldn’t properly hold it. A case for this phone would be mandatory in my mind. The outer shell doesn’t retain fingerprints and the screen does a great job resisting them. Though, putting the phone in your pocket is going to be difficult. Guys, get a man purse for this phone. One thing that I thought was cheesy was the back of the phone. It’s a plastic back that is meant to simulate leather with stitching around the edges. Samsung might have done better by not doing that at all or doing something far less cheesy. Another thing to note is that this phone is pretty thin.
This phone feels fast and the reason for that is the 2.3Ghz quad-core processor. This phone is easily as fast as the LG G2 which I tested recently. You also get WiFi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, and an IR blaster. Speaking of fast, it racked up a respectable average of 20 Mbps downstream and 14 Mbps upstream on Speedtest.net. The most important thing is that comes out of the box with Android 4.3 with Samsung’s usual suite of software and customizations which work really well. The more that I use Samsung products, the more I like these customizations because they quite frankly make the Galaxy Note 3 easier to use. But the star of the show is the pen. Called the S-Pen, it turns the phone on when you pull it out of the bottom of the phone. It is not only responsive when you use it, but you can even use it without touching the screen for certain tasks. It’s called Air Command and when you remove the pen from its holster or tapping the side button, the on-screen pen tip comes into view and options on how you can use the pen appear. The interface also lends itself to the usage of the pen by allowing you to do things like quickly take notes quickly and use the buttons beneath the screen. I’m impressed.
Now when it comes to the camera, you get quite a bit. The still camera shoots at 13MP in the 4:3 aspect ratio and it does 1080P video. First the pictures. This picture was shot in the 16:9 aspect ratio which limits it to 9.6MP. Click the picture to see it in full resolution:
One thing to note that you have complete access to every aspect of the camera. You can adjust white balance and ISO for example. It will appeal to power users and the point and shoot crowd. Now to the video. Make sure that you put it up to full screen and set it to 1080P:
The sound and video quality is pretty good, though I did note some auto-focusing near the start and the end of the video. Now, if 1080P isn’t good enough for you, The Galaxy Note 3 shoots in 3840×2160. That’s right. It shoots 4K video. Though I can’t think of a practical reason why you’d want to shoot in 4K. If you do plan on using it, make sure you pop a 64GB MicroSD card into the phone to add to the 32GB of storage that it comes with as 4K video files are huge.
What about battery life? It’s outstanding. It lasted well beyond a day when I used it as my daily phone. I was impressed with that.
What’s my bottom line? Samsung has the “phablet” category nailed. The Galaxy Note 3 is nothing short of impressive on every level. Other than some issues with autofocusing issues while shooting video, and the back case that quite frankly they could have done a better job on, there’s not much here that isn’t from the top shelf. It’s $299 on a two year term or $750 outright from Telus. Not exactly a cheap price, but this isn’t a cheap phone. It’s a quality phone that you will enjoy using. Just make sure that you have something to carry it in.
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