It’s that time of year again! Samsung’s annual fall update to its Note series is here. The Galaxy Note 3 is biggest phone realize of the year is finally here and ready for the TGSB review treatment. We reviewed last year’s Note 2 and after putting it through its paces for a full 7-day period we are ready to break everything down for our readers.
Being that this is a Galaxy Note device, the S-Pen can’t sneak through without being talked about. The Galaxy Note 2 had major commercial success, far and away better than what any of the reviewers and tech pundits (and let’s be honest, probably a lot more than Samsung) ever thought it would be. However, the S-Pen wasn’t nearly as successful. Most users used their S-Pen’s for a few days or weeks (if at all) and then shoved them back in their sleeves (if they didn’t lose them) and never touched them again.
To put it simply, the Note 3 is BIG. Most people will have to use two hands with the device for just about everything. While the screen is bigger, the Note 3 is about the same physical size as last year’s Note 2. Samsung removed a lot of the bezel around the screen to add screen real estate without actually adding size to the device, just like they did with the Galaxy S4 earlier this year. The Note 3 also shares the style cues with the S4. The body is wrapped in a silver colored band and made completely out of plastic. To set the Note 3 apart, Samsung added a few design changes to make the device feel more like a “notebook”.
Who knew plastic could feel this good?
The silver band that wraps around the Note 3 has ridges curved into it to make it feel like pages of a notebook. The grooves are actually a nice touch as they make the massive Note 3 much easier to hold onto than the previous versions. But the biggest (and most talked about) design change made to the Note 3 is the “leather” back. Samsung added a faux leather back to offer a more premium feel and add to the “notebook” theme. Even though the back isn’t actually leather it does actually give off the look and feel of leather. Running fingers over the back of the device creates the same feeling as it would if you ran fingers over a leather book and despite all the criticism, it really does feel premium in the hand.
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| Note II (left), Note 3 (right) |
The screen on the Galaxy Note 3 is a substantial improvement over last year’s Note 2. It’s bigger, up .2 inches at 5.7 inches this year. But it’s not just a larger screen it’s a better one as well. The Note 3 is rocking a 1080p screen with a pixel density 386 ppi. That’s a massive improvement over last year’s 720p screen with 262 ppi. It’s sharp and bright. White’s look good, as well as color. It’s still a bit on the blue side, as most Samsung displays are, but it’s by far one of the best screens on the market. One of the biggest complaints about Samsung and their AMOLED displays is how poorly they do in direct sunlight, but the Note 3 is different than previous versions. While it is not amazing in direct sunlight it is still usable with the brightness turned all the way up.
Samsung spared no expense making the Note 3 a statistical powerhouse. The Note 3 sports a Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor (the international version is Octo-core) with an Adreno 330 GPU. But what really makes this phone impressive is the 3GB of RAM it has. The Note 3 flies through any task you put in front of it. It is a multitasking champ switching between apps better than any other device on the market, despite the intentions of TouchWiz to slow you down.
“Big phones get big batteries.”
Big phones get big batteries. Like the previous versions of the Note this phone has a HUGE battery. It’s sporting a 3200 mAh battery. Even some of the toughest power users are going to be able to get thru a full day on the Note 3. The processor and 3GB of RAM really go a long way to helping the batter be as efficient as possible. Through my testing with normal usage, I able to go well into day 2 before needing a charger. As someone who is particularly hard on phones I was able to get well over a day on the Note 3, and if I so chose, I could get well into the next.
The camera on the back of the Note 3 is a 13MP shooter on the back with a f/2.2 aperture. It is arguably one of the best shooter on the market today. It can hold its own with the G2s, Lumia 1020s, and iPhones of the world. The color reproduction is great, especially for a Samsung phone which until the Galaxy S4, wasn’t known for their cameras. The flash is acceptable. It’s bright and can easily wash out pictures if not carefully. The camera app itself, is a thing of beauty. It is fully of settings and features that offer up a robust experience. But surprisingly that’s still not the best feature of the camera on the Note 3.
Samsung wasn’t really known for their smartphone cameras but that is starting to change.
The American Galaxy Note 3 has a really special camera feature that no other phone in the world has. It can record 4K video, and surprisingly it’s actually good quality. It would’ve been nice if the phone had OIS (optical image stabilization) to keep from being so jump when free shooting, but other than that it’s great. And it’s really nice to shoot 4K video and then crop it to get an amazing 1080p video clip.
This is a Samsung device, which means it comes with Touchwiz. Love it or hate it, Touchwiz is there in full force. All of the new additions from the Galaxy S4 are there present and accounted for. Air View is back (a pretty pointless feature given the S-Pen), as well as all the new S-Health features. Everything works well and despite the massive size of all of the Touchwiz enhancements the Note 3 is extremely snappy moving between everything.
The new version of Touchwiz features a few nice improvements such as the ability to use the same app twice in multi-window. The new Magazine feature was a great way to take Samsung’s relationship with Flipboard to the next level. Copying what HTC did with Blinkfeed, Samsung made their news aggregator a part of the OS in order to give you a more personal and more polished feel. It’s a nice touch, but people who don’t use Flipboard currently will probably continue to not use this kind of service.
The new enhancements to the S-Pen should help to make it more of a prominent part of everyone’s Note 3 experience. Samsung added Scrapbook and Pen Window to the list of S-Pen apps along with making the old S-Pen apps more robust. Scrapbook is a way to collect all the things you see and do on your phone and keep them stored together and categorized, such as pictures from a trip along with locations and websites you used to set everything up.
Pen Window, one of the best new features on the phone, allows you to draw a box any size you want and then load an app into it. Its fantastic for multitasking and makes it a breeze to work on 2 or 3 apps at the same time. A feature that has been enhanced is the screen capture feature with the S-Pen. When holding down the button on the S-Pen a user could trace something on their screen and it would grab whatever was selected. Now, after tracing something with the S-Pen you can adjust it to make a better screen grab.
The Note 3 raises Samsung’s standard of a premium Android device.
Despite its big size the Note 3 is the best phone on the market. It is a premium powerhouse. It feels and looks just as nice as it runs. The camera is a contender for best 2013, and it has 4K video. Let’s say that again, 4K video!!! Samsung really out did themselves with this phone. Despite my compulsion to change phones at a whim, the Galaxy Note 3 will probably be my daily driver into the new year. As the TGSB team knows… that’s really saying something!
BUY IT! Unless you are someone who is completely turned off by the size of the Note 3, there is nothing better on the market now then this phone. We aren’t just saying it’s the best Android phone on the market, it is arguably one of the best phones on the market as a whole.
Words by Chris Mason
