At least that's what it appears Samsung learned, as they have cranked
the productivity features up to 11 on its successor, the aptly named
Samsung Galaxy Note II. The screen is bigger, up from 5.3-inches to
5.55; it's more powerful, complete with a quad-core 1.6GHZ Samsung
Exynos processor; the S Pen now supports 1024 points of pressure
sensitivity, up from 256 on the previous stick; and there are a ton of
Galaxy Note II software features, not to mention Android Jelly Bean 4.1.
The Galaxy Note II is certainly "more" than the Galaxy Note, but is
it better? One knock on Samsung is that while its devices are
feature-rich, those features often either lack polish or are implemented
poorly (see the Samsung Galaxy S III and S Voice). Let's find out in
this full Samsung Galaxy Note II review.
Build and Design
The Samsung Galaxy Note II is big, and probably the
biggest mainstream smartphone release ever, at least judging by
corner-to-corner screen size. It's a phablet, for lack of a better term,
that straddles the line between smartphone and tablet -- though it's
more the former than the latter.
The device measures 5.95 x 3.17 x .37 inches (HWD), and weighs 6.35
ounces. It's taller than the original Galaxy Note to account for the
0.2-inches of added display, but thinner and lighter too.
As with other recent Galaxy devices, the Note II is heavy on the
glossy plastic, which lends itself to the relatively light build, but
isn't especially grip friendly. The back plate is removable, allowing
users access to the battery, SIM card and SD card slots, and Samsung
offers a variety of colorful flip-cover accessories that work well with
the design.
In
use, the Note II's large size presents a few issues. It's large, thin,
and the glossy plastic makes it somewhat hard to grasp effectively for
extended phone calls. The flip cover works very well to alleviate that,
however, providing added grip. It's surprisingly pocket friendly, though
-- at least compared to any other high-end smartphone not named the iPhone or Droid RAZR M, which are both around four inches.
Consider that the Samsung Galaxy S III has a 4.8-inch display, and
the benefits of the added screen real estate from the extra .7 inches
outweigh any issues from the overall added size, in the pocketability
regard at least. Still, I suspect many users will find the Note II
unwieldy as a smartphone, particularly those moving up from 3.5- and
4.3-inch devices.
