The Samsung Galaxy Note II (GT-N7100) is an improved version of Galaxy Note with enhanced features and a bigger screen of 5.5 inches. The Note II is indeed big and is not pocket friendly, but an excellent hybrid (phone / tablet) smartphone option.
Note II Box pack
The box packing almost looked identical to the Wammy note that I recently reviewed in fact even the Wammy handset closely resembles the Samsung Galaxy Note II.
Inside the box there is the Note II, travel adapter, USB to Micro USB cable, earphones with spare earplugs and manual / warranty card.
Galaxy Note II (GT-N7100) Design
The handset is slim (9.4mm) but too big to fit in most pockets. The screen size is 5.5 inches. The handset is big with little space around the touchscreen. You need to hold it in a perfect way so as to avoid accidentally touch, it will take some time getting used to it.
The Stylus or the S-Pen is another unique feature. The S-Pen comes with a button for specific use in certain apps and the pen pointer also goes in when you press a little bit. S-Pen is very useful when creating sketches / drawing where you need to apply pressure for a darker or lighter output.
There is a center home button at the bottom and two more buttons, one on the left and other on the right. The two touch sensitive buttons seem hidden all the time but they do get lighted up when you press them.
There are the sensors and a 1.9MP camera on the font top. The volume rockers on left, power / lock on right, 3.5 mm jack on top and micro USB at the bottom. The rear side is plain glossy white (depending on the colour you choose), with 8 MP camera / flash.
Do note that the Note II comes with a micro SIM slot.
Note II inside the hood
The Note 2 is powered by a 1.6 GHz Quad Core processor (SMDK4X12 board) with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. The battery is of 3100 mAh capacity. The handset runs on Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) OS. Features and Specifications listed at the end of the article.
Display
The 5.5. inch HD Super AMOLED screen is a please viewing. The resolution is also at an impressive 1280×720 pixels. Touch is silky smooth and responsive. You can use the S-Pen with Handwriting recognition – really impressive.
Galaxy Note 2 Performance
It’s quad core – no doubt the performance will be outstanding and indeed it is. No more further talking just check the benchmark score.
Qualdrant – 5827
Antutu – 13616
NenaMark2 – 57.8
LinPack – Single (64) | Multiple (180).
You can play many games, watch full HD movies and run apps smoothly without any lags. The stock browser works pretty smooth, no lags when rendering. Gaming users this one comes with Mali 400 GPU.
Note II S-Pen
The S-Pen is really special. First of all it’s so smooth it feels like a real pen. There is a button on the pen which works on certain apps, press it and you can switch options (Pen -> Eraser etc.). Another interesting feature is the hovering effect. Just bring the pen closer to the screen (without touching the screen) and you will see a circle on the screen.
Now this hovering circle feature is very useful in many apps. When you point the circle on say an image (in the image gallery) you can preview the image, well that doesn’t makes sense as you can preview the image before opening it, however this feature works great when you have list of messages / Email. Just Hover over any list and you can preview the content without tapping / opening it. The same feature can be used when viewing videos just hover on the video position bar and you can preview the content at any specific timeline. Check the video review to get a feel of how it works.
8MP Camera
The camera does an excellent job outdoors as well as indoors. Do check out the sample images taken using the Note 2 camera. You can also record videos in full HD and HD mode.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gogirana/sets/72157631826534573/
Battery
The 3100 mAh battery will last for 24 hours of moderate to high usage. The handset does get a bit hotter when using it for a longer time.
Samsung Galaxy Note II (GT-N7100) key features and Specifications
- Single SIM (Micro SIM).
- Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) OS.
- 1.6 GHz cortex A9 quad core processor with Mali 400 MP GPU.
- 2GB RAM, 16GB internal (10.1 GB for user / app) and Micro SD card 64GB supported.
- 5.5 inch Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen with 1280×720 pixels resolution (16M colours).
- 8MP rear with flash (LED) and 1.9 MP front cameras. Full HD and HD videos supported.
- Dimensions : 80.5×151.1×9.4mm. Weight : 180 grams.
- 3G (HSDPA – 21Mbps), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, NFC, GPS with GLONASS, S-Pen and 3.5mm jack.
- SAR Value – 0.171 W/Kg.
- 3100 mAh Li-ion standard battery.
Samsung Galaxy Note II review
Excellent phone, with cool features. Though not so pocket friendly – size wise as well as cost wise. But if you can – what are you waiting for!
Image Gallery
Samsung Galaxy Note II Unboxing and Review
Sample video (1080p resolution)