[Mintmaster]

This phone is fucking BOSS

Improves on the Galaxy Note in every way:

• Larger screen yet slightly narrower body
• RGB per pixel (though not the regular stripe pattern, but that shouldn't matter) as opposed to Pentile, making up for the 10% resolution reduction
• More precise S-Pen with a larger diameter, nicer nib, and button texture
• Notices if you forget the S-Pen somewhere
• Better handwriting recognition and camera OCR
• 3100mAh battery
• Exynos 4412 (1.6 GHz), 2GB RAM, tops the benchmark charts
• Nicer build?
• Jelly Bean with a gazillion software enhancements:

The most useful IMO is the notepad popping up during a call once you take out the S-Pen

Europe/Asia release in a few weeks, NA later this year. I bought a used Note a couple months ago as the S3's release seemed to reduce the asking price to <$400, and I love it, but it's becoming a hand-me-down once I can get my hands on this. I hope T-Mobile's refarming will let me use the international version.

[Lazy8s]

I had just been reading up on the Note II before and had watched the promo video, and I'm extremely impressed with a lot of the software additions/innovations Samsung has implemented.

The hover-to-preview will do a lot for productivity. The 'best face' feature for photos could be really useful if it delivers seamless edits. The ability to easily cut out sections of a page/image and use it in a variety of ways from sending it as an MMS or putting it into a scrapbook has great potential. The screen/audio recording feature is also a long-awaited, welcome addition. A few of the other features could have some potential too with a bit more polish and exploitation.

[sebbbi]

I have owned the original Galaxy Note for almost 9 months now...

My opinion about the original:
- Battery life in normal usage (messaging, calling, email, idling, light web browsing) is excellent. Better than any smartphone I have owned before. I had to charge my old smart phones every night (every other night is enough for Note).
- Battery life in heavy usage (GPS navigator, graphics intensive 3d games) is not good. It's dead in just a few hours. But if you have a car charger plugged in, it becomes a very nice GPS navigator indeed (big screen is very good for this).
- The size is not an issue for me. It (barely) fits in my jeans pocket. But I must warn that the size is likely an issue for those who use very slim jeans and are not willing to carry it in a bag. Try before you buy!
- I still find iOS slightly better than Android (I used to have an iPhone before the Note, and I have an iPad as well). Even with ICS (4.02 currently) the scrolling isn't always smooth. That's unacceptable for a 1.4 GHz dual core CPU (as an 800 MHz single core CPU can scroll/animate iOS smoothly).
- The Android market is becoming better all the time, but AppStore still has some games and software that are not available for Android (for example a good symbolic calculator is missing).
- Galaxy Note is the best pocketable web browser. Nothing comes close. If web browsing is your most important task in addition to basic phone functions and email, this is the phone to get. Web browsing on Note is very close to browsing net on iPad. It's so much better compared to my old iPhone.
- I don't use the pen much. Basically I use it only during winter, when I have gloves on and need to use my phone outdoors (it can become really cold here in Finland, so taking gloves off is not a good idea).

My thoughts about the new one:
- Bigger screen is of course welcome, as is is mostly done by reducing the up/down bezels instead of making the phone just physically larger. The original one was already very well optimized for size, but this seems even better.
- At first I didn't like the idea of 16:9 screen aspect ratio (16:10 is perfect for web browsing after all). But after noticing that the phone has a physically narrower body (even with the bigger screen) I changed my opinion. Narrower body would make it easier to hold it in hand when using it as a phone. The current model is slightly awkward to hold with a single hand. Narrower body also makes it easier to slide the phone in/out of jeans pockets. Current model is not easy to get out of your pockets when you are sitting.
- Hopefully Jelly Bean (4.1) finally fixes the Android choppiness problems. If not, at least it has bigger clocks and double core counts to reduce the problems further
- Bigger battery is always good. Especially as it doesn't seem to add any weight, and it's even slightly slimmer now (9.4mm).
- Personally I haven't noticed the pentile at 285ppi in the original Note, but RGB stripe in Note 2 is surely better. Makes up the slightly lower resolution (267ppi).

= very nice improvements. They have pretty much fixed all the "flaws" in the original design... and it has already sold over 10 million units. Pretty good for a "niche" product.

[Rys]

My major grip with the Note is that the pen is a complete pain in the ass to remove. I have no idea how you do it with gloves, sebbbi! Is that any better on the Note 2?

[wco81]

What are the killer pen apps?

If you're to a student or someone who's scribbling a lot of notes?

[Arwin]

Also hoping that 4.1 brings the smooth UI finally ...

As for the pen, yeah, I think there are still people more comfortable with the pen for writing notes, and drawing is also still quite a bit nicer. And of course as mentioned when it's really cold outside ...

[Mintmaster]

Originally Posted by sebbbi

My opinion about the original:
- Battery life in normal usage (messaging, calling, email, idling, light web browsing) is excellent. Better than any smartphone I have owned before. I had to charge my old smart phones every night (every other night is enough for Note).
- Battery life in heavy usage (GPS navigator, graphics intensive 3d games) is not good. It's dead in just a few hours. But if you have a car charger plugged in, it becomes a very nice GPS navigator indeed (big screen is very good for this).

Gotta agree, but since this is my first modern smartphone, I don't know if other phones do any better on the latter.

- The size is not an issue for me. It (barely) fits in my jeans pocket. But I must warn that the size is likely an issue for those who use very slim jeans and are not willing to carry it in a bag. Try before you buy!

I think the size is perfect as my hands are big enough to use it one-handed if I need to and it's perfectly pocketable, even when sitting down. What I found interesting is that even many girls are fine with the size because they rarely put their phone in their pocket anyway. I can understand the concern that it looks a tad goofy talking on it, but one would have to be rather shallow to let that be a serious factor, IMO.

- Galaxy Note is the best pocketable web browser. Nothing comes close. If web browsing is your most important task in addition to basic phone functions and email, this is the phone to get. Web browsing on Note is very close to browsing net on iPad. It's so much better compared to my old iPhone.

Yup. Aside from my Note, I can't foresee ever needing or wanting an ARM tablet.

- I don't use the pen much. Basically I use it only during winter, when I have gloves on and need to use my phone outdoors (it can become really cold here in Finland, so taking gloves off is not a good idea).

Interesting, I never thought of that.

I agree with all your other points. Would enjoy the few millimeters narrower body, not bothered by Pentile but RGB is better (FYI, it's not a simple stripe pattern) and should make up for the lost pixels.

Originally Posted by Rys

My major grip with the Note is that the pen is a complete pain in the ass to remove. I have no idea how you do it with gloves, sebbbi! Is that any better on the Note 2?

You must have some junk in your pen slot or a defect somewhere. I think it comes out very easily, but has just enough resistance to prevent any accidental removal.

Originally Posted by wco81

What are the killer pen apps?

If you're to a student or someone who's scribbling a lot of notes?

From what I've heard, the native Samsung apps are the most responsive. Their simple organization features are good enough for me, and the only minor complaints that I have is that the button is underutilized (which seems to be addressed in the Note 2 software).

I'll probably mess around with Photoshop Touch at some point.

[wishiknew]

Going to try a Note 2 though I might never put a sim in and just leave the unit at home. Weight wise I'm quite happy its about the same as e ink book readers.

[kache]

I'm curious about battery life with that 3100mah battery, since i have battery life issues on the note 1.

[seeingwhite]

I am still interested to find out what SoC will be used in the US variants. S4 pro perhaps?

[wishiknew]

Thought they weren't doing that with the Note 2.

[Lazy8s]

The Mali 400 MP4 in the Note II will apparently clock around 500 MHz. Whatever the uknown device near the top of GLBench 2.5 is (may be or may not be a Note II itself), it would seem to share the same SoC config, showing that 1.6 GHz for the CPU cores.

[PatrickL]

I use the note since march. It 's up to ICS 4.0.4 now (got mine from amazon.de). I really enjoy it and I will give it to my wife while I ll get the note 2 for me

[seeingwhite]

Originally Posted by wishiknew

Thought they weren't doing that with the Note 2.

Samsung hasn't confirmed this one way or the other.

[seeingwhite]

It looks like the US version might just include the Exynos 4412 + LTE modem after all. I thought for sure they would go with a quadcore S4 pro, but looks like I was wrong. The rumor is here: http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09...ing-to-sprint/

[Mintmaster]

Release dates are out.

Europe is getting it in a 1-2 weeks:
http://www.sammobile.com/2012/09/20/...ed-in-2-weeks/

US version is coming to five carriers in mid-Nov
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7...th-5-carriers/
Should have the quad-core Exynos. This US launch is much better than the AT&T exclusive for the original Note that came 5 months after the international launch with a weaker CPU.

[wishiknew]

Gsmarena finished their battery test. I've seem some comments here and there about how much its improved but that is a lot.

[wco81]

Is the main appeal the screen or the pen? In the commercials they're showing in the US, they're using the pen to drag things around, something that can really be done with touch just as well.

Main advantage of the pen would be for drawing, maybe using spreadsheets, scribbling notes (assuming the handwriting recognition works)?

How much of a size and weight difference is there between carrying this and a 7-inch tablet?

Between carrying this and a 7-inch tablet and phone?

[Mintmaster]

wishiknew, thanks for the heads-up about the very thorough gsmarena review. Twice the talk time of the iPhone5, more or less same battery life for browsing/video, which makes sense. That 3100mAh battery is for real.

The most recent firmware also brings Multiwindow, and it works with a lot of apps (unlike the Note 10.1).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6c7XaDWmJg

Quite an amazing device...

[itsmydamnation]

i dont normally get excited about phones, but this one has me all wet . Looking like its time to replace the old 3GS, perfect xmas present ( rumored dec lunch in oz for the LTE version, could get 3G now as a grey import).

[french toast]

Looks amazing...that multi window app feature as well as the battery life has got me interested....gsm arena gave it an astonishing 72hrs endurance rating!!!....firmware updates will likely improve that a bit further.

Also proper rgb sub pixels for better colour and clarity....the exynos 4412 has been up clocked in both gpu and cpu, as well as ram doubled...so speed is awesome also.
Camera is very very good..especially compared to every other tablet out there..jelly been out of the box....

All round nearly perfect..only really you might complain about the plastic materials...but that also keeps weight down.

[LittleJ]

Originally Posted by Arwin

Also hoping that 4.1 brings the smooth UI finally ...

As for the pen, yeah, I think there are still people more comfortable with the pen for writing notes, and drawing is also still quite a bit nicer. And of course as mentioned when it's really cold outside ...

I have the galaxy nexus and the difference in UI smoothness between 4.1 JB and 4.04 ICS is IMO very noticeable, I dare say profound. The Note 2 should scream on the quad Exynos. I look forward to picking it up when it hits the states in Nov.

[Prophecy2k]

I just picked this up at the beginning of the week here in the UK. It's by far the best phone i've ever owned.

It's my first Android experience, so it takes a bit of getting used to for be, but generally speaking the phone just screams quality at every turn.

The battery life is insane, I can go 2.5 days at least on a single charge. And that's with bluetooth and Wi-Fi constantly on, and with me spending quite a bit of time talking on it.

The screen is glorious, really one of the most beautiful screens on a mobile device i've seen. And I love that it's a stonking beast of a phone. It's the kind of thing you pull out and gets looks and interest from people who merely want to marvel at your phone

The S-Pen features are pretty sweet too, although I havn't had much use for them yet. I'm still installing all the apps i need so that I can eventually retire my first gen iPad.

For sure this is the phone I would recommend to anyone who wants to have a truly all-in-one device.

[french toast]

Originally Posted by Prophecy2k

I just picked this up at the beginning of the week here in the UK. It's by far the best phone i've ever owned.

It's my first Android experience, so it takes a bit of getting used to for be, but generally speaking the phone just screams quality at every turn.

The battery life is insane, I can go 2.5 days at least on a single charge. And that's with bluetooth and Wi-Fi constantly on, and with me spending quite a bit of time talking on it.

The screen is glorious, really one of the most beautiful screens on a mobile device i've seen. And I love that it's a stonking beast of a phone. It's the kind of thing you pull out and gets looks and interest from people who merely want to marvel at your phone

The S-Pen features are pretty sweet too, although I havn't had much use for them yet. I'm still installing all the apps i need so that I can eventually retire my first gen iPad.

For sure this is the phone I would recommend to anyone who wants to have a truly all-in-one device.

Really REALLY like the wording of that post....want one really badly.

#Onejealousdude

[LittleJ]

Originally Posted by Prophecy2k

I just picked this up at the beginning of the week here in the UK. It's by far the best phone i've ever owned.

It's my first Android experience, so it takes a bit of getting used to for be, but generally speaking the phone just screams quality at every turn.

The battery life is insane, I can go 2.5 days at least on a single charge. And that's with bluetooth and Wi-Fi constantly on, and with me spending quite a bit of time talking on it.

The screen is glorious, really one of the most beautiful screens on a mobile device i've seen. And I love that it's a stonking beast of a phone. It's the kind of thing you pull out and gets looks and interest from people who merely want to marvel at your phone

The S-Pen features are pretty sweet too, although I havn't had much use for them yet. I'm still installing all the apps i need so that I can eventually retire my first gen iPad.

For sure this is the phone I would recommend to anyone who wants to have a truly all-in-one device.

May I ask how much you paid for that beast? Did u buy full retail or on contract, subsidized pricing? I'm hoping pricing isn't as huge as the phone