All right here is an honest review about the note 3. It's something that I will approach from the perspective of someone in the Medical field, who needs to get things done quickly, and efficiently.
First of all, I received my phone on October 10th, and I had pre-ordered it but DID NOT pay 299. Well initially I did, but there is a promo code of VERIZON30 that drops the note 3 down to 209.99. I bought the Note 3 for myself and the LG G2 for my wife. Needless to say, at the price of 139.99 for the G2 and 209.99 for the Note 3, we returned the G2 for the note 3 despite the G2's incredible low light camera performance. Here is why.
Backstory: prior to buying the note 3 I have had the Droid Razr Maxx, which for its time was a great device. Now that apps are becoming more memory intensive, something needed to change. I needed a phone that wouldn't lag on me, and I really don't care about gimmicks such as scrolling while looking up or down, or pausing a video if I look away. Who really cares about that stuff? If I want to pause, I tap on the screen, which is less time consuming that looking away and ensuring my phone has paused playing a video. In addition, I really don't want that front facing camera on unless I am using it. Also, I was always reluctant to buy a Samsung phone because of the plastic build, but you know I always keep my phone in a safe case. I will talk about this a little later.
Now, right before I let go of my razr maxx, I briefly upgraded to the note 2 for 2 days. I chose the note 2 because I was in best buy and was comparing the HTC ONE which best buy had on sale for $50 and all of a sudden I decided to listen to the note 2's speaker. I was blown away in comparison to the razr maxx, but blown away which how much more I got in comparison to the HTC one. We are all going to large screens now, and frankly who the heck wants to hold the phone closer to their face? I certainly don't so I upgraded to the note 2. I really did not fall in love with it until the day I was sitting in my senior human cadaver anatomy course, and realized I had forgotten my Anatomy atlas and my notebook. I frantically searched the note 2 and found an app called S Note. I opened S note and began using it. I was blow away, there are blood vessels that are large and really thing, and I used to be able to only differentiate that on paper. Not this time, with the note 2 I was able to use the thin and thick lines as differentiators thanks to the S-pen. I then made my decision that I would return the note 2 and wait for the note 3 because of the larger screen, and faster processor. In addition, I had a memory intensive Anatomy app running on the note 2 that smoothly ran it, when my HP touchpad running android decided to begin hiccupping.
Now with all that said, this is why I feel the note 3 is the best choice on the market. First of all, if your going to purchase a phone that you are spending your hard earned money on it, it should be in the most secure and safest cases. It's an investment, that when 2 years later you sell back, you can almost pay for your new device. Second of all, we will ALL drop our phones at SOME POINT, and its important to protect them. I purchased the Spigen Bounce case despite it being slightly ugly; I got the gray one because Incipio NGP tpu cases are NOT yet available for this phone. That case kept my razr maxx in like new condition.
Now, I really protect my phone because I have my entire life on it, my class schedule, my hospital schedule, my family schedule, my kids doctors appointments, my appointments, my tests etc. EVERYTHING. So I needed a phone that was behind me 100% and never let me down. It has been the case with the note 3. I have customized it and it still hasn't hiccupped yet.
Now the actual review:
Screen & Productivity: The large display is fantastic. It is large enough to hold a full month calendar on one home screen and 3 days on another. I absolutely love the vivid screen because my anatomy apps, as well as using it to take notes is an absolute breeze. My only recommendation is to add many pages before you begin in lecture or whatever you want to take notes in.
There are many times where I find inspirational quotes on Facebook (FB) and wish I could save them and tag them to share not via FB but text messages etc. Scrap book has allowed me to do just that, I can share inspirational quotes and pictures with anyone and it's a breeze to look them up by placing my OWN PERSONAL tags for each photo. I hold the menu button, type inspiration and BAM; I have all my things that are tagged inspirational.
Sometimes I also need a list of diagnostic medical conditions, and it's easy to quickly create a scrapbook memo or create a flow chart in S-note. Etc. In fact the other day, I was talking to Verizon and needed to write down the conformational code etc. for my second note 3, and you know what I did? I was on the dialer page, pulled out the S-pen and circled the page, then I notated it with all the information, it contains the date, the time, and all the information I need to have in case something went awry.
I absolutely love this feature and it is very important.
Another feature I love is that when I am on YouTube, I can load HD very quickly, the LG g2 did a good job in this too, but the razr maxx despite being an LTE phone did not handle this very well. Another thing I really love on this phone straight out of the gate is that it tells me how many text messages I have (like an unread count). Its something I like, it also has many accounts built right in, such as amazon, Facebook etc. I was able to disable most of the bloat ware by going to manage applications and clicking disable in some of the pre-loaded Verizon apps.
The IR blaster is great, I've already started using it on all my TV's however, it wont turn the volume up on my LG TV but do every else. In addition, I am able to have in memory which room has which TV and so when I switch rooms, I also switch rooms on my phone, which allows me to use it as a remote. Great when you have to hide the remote from your little ones.
Battery Life: Used it for an entire day hardcore, and its still at 31% at the end of the day after about 6 am to 1 am usage.
UPDATE 10.23.13see the attached screen shot of battery usage. I was pretty impressed. I do know for a fact though that Shealth eats battery life like crazy.
Also I LOVE the speaker placement on the bottom of the phone, because it's just smart. When I hold my phone, it cups around the speaker channeling the sound directly to me, and not the entire audience behind my phone. Smart.
People have complained about the flip board app, but keep in mind, this is android and not IOS. We have choices here. Download an app called home 2 shortcut and it allowed me to configure double tapping the home button to start Google now rather than anything else. Its fantastic and a great use of android capabilities.
(I will update more here)
The S-pen I received was faulty with my phone, and so Verizon sent me a brand new one for free. Not taking off stars for that, during the pre-order stage stuff like that happens every once in a while. The Spen was completely usable I just had to add a little extra pressure. But no worries, it's taken care of and all is well.
The power button has a slight lag when you just tap it to turn on the screen; if you give it a robust tap it comes on quicker. It is quickest to turn on the screen using the home button when it's sleeping. It kind of irritates me that it is that way.
NOTE 10.23.13 It maybe quicker to use the HOME button to do the same thing.
I wish Samsung allowed customization of the LED colors for the types of notifications.
Note 10.23.13 Re: reception issuesI know people have complained about reception issues, but truly I haven't had many. Just a couple here and there. I think the reality is that the Note 3 is SLOW at switching networks etc. So rather than wait, I have just downloaded a refresh network app, which does what I need in less than 15 seconds and gives me a fresh connection. I don't see it as much of an inconvenience especially because the many positives of this device outweigh this one negative. I haven't had no reception anywhere.
Tethering by the has been pretty amazingly fast with this phone, and it DOES NOT GET HOT!!!! I love that! My razr maxx used to be a meteorite when it was tethering.
More to come.
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