Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Review

Image Borrowed from www.samsung.com

I've been living with the Galaxy Note II for a about a month now.

I recently had the LG GX2 Google phone. The biggest problem with the GX2 was its battery life. I was always carrying a second battery with me and that still would not guarantee I would make it through the day doing emailing, calendaring, and other business tasks. If I was streaming videos or playing games, forget about it. The battery life was terrible.

Also, due to the lack of internal memory, I was having to take out the battery and restart the phone on a daily basis.

So, when I was in the market for a new phone, several items were key:

• Large internal memory
• Long battery life
• Ability to take notes 

Galaxy Note II fit the needs perfectly.

So here's my take on the Galaxy Note II.

The Goods:

iPhone, Galaxy Note 2, iPad

• My oh my! Look at that screen! Who doesn't love a big screen? And the clarity is fantastic. 
• Battery life. Even playing games, surfing the internet, streaming videos, the huge battery lasts me all day long.
• S-Pen. I wasn't sure I would like a pen on my phone, but after living with it for a month, I'm not sure if I ever want to go back to a phone without it. As soon as you take out the pen, no matter what app you might be in, the note taking feature pops up so that you can make notes while talking on the phone, surfing the web, making appointments, etc. It's quite brilliant. I still haven't learned all the things I can do with the S-pen but that will come with time.
• Although the Galaxy Note 2 is a huge phone, it doesn't feel that way in your hand. In fact, after using this phone, every other phone just looks tiny.
• The huge, enormous internal memory. This makes the phone mostly glitch free as it goes from one app to another. 
• Android app market is huge. 
• Camera and video is clean and sharp
• Google maps function has been improved a ton. Compared to Google maps functionality on GX2, the Galaxy Note 2 Google Maps is light years ahead. The Galaxy Note 2 Google Maps totally replaces a portable GPS navigation system. 
• It's fast, fast, fast.

The Bad

• S voice - This is samsung's attempt at Siri. Well...to put it bluntly, S voice is a joke compared to Siri. I can't even say it was a good try on Samsung's part. S voice needs huge improvements in voice recognition and its capabilities. I never use it because, well...it's kind of useless.
• Hate all the apps that come loaded on the phone that I can't take off. Most of it are apps that I won't use but Samsung makes it impossible to take them off your phone unless you jail break it or root the phone.
• I would not recommend the Galaxy Note 2 to a relatively new smartphone user. The phone has tons of capabilities, but one really has to study and read up on how to use them. Where as most of the capabilities on the iPhone are intuitive, the Galaxy Note 2's not so much. I find myself having to read the manual, look at youtube videos and actually practice how to make the most use of the capabilities of the S-pen and the phone. Not everyone has the time or the interest to do so.

So far so good. 

• The Galaxy Note 2 has been what I've expected thus far. It's a very fast, huge screen, long battery lasting, fantastic phone.
• After purchasing this phone, I gave my iPad to my wife. The Galaxy Note 2 has completely replaced my need for an iPad. 
• Having said that, I still carry a MacBook Pro notebook and Kindle with me at all times.