The Galaxy Note II is pegged as a smartphone, but it's easy to mistake this huge 5.5in screen handset for a tablet. A smartphone this broad and tall falls more naturally into two handed operation.
We like the user's introduction to the handset: upon thumbing the power switch on the upper right, the lock screen shows an elegant white feather quill on a sky blue background, evoking images of a creative writing device. And that's the major attraction in this powerful slice of hands held computing.
The Note II includes a Wacom licensed pressure sensitive stylus called the S Pen. which slots away underneath when not required. Pulling out the stylus and bringing it close to the screen (sometimes) lets the Note II know you're about to do some sketching or scribbling. Getting this Air View function to work effectively requires practice, as do many of the Note's other features.
Its recognition of cursive English scrawl is impressive, but we were still frustrated by transcription errors. These took more time to correct than they would using a virtual Owerty keyboard.
More complexity arrived with the Multi Window feature, which lets you view two apps side by side. This was added via an update, with no explanation of how to use it. An annoying rounded tab is left on the screen at all times; when dragged across, it reveals all compatible apps. You can, for example, play a video while browsing a web page. It's a neat way to underline a mobile's multitasking capability.
Tablet vs smartphone
There's no denying this is a large device, even by modern mobile standards. It's around 151mm high and 81mm wide, and 9.9mm thick.
Our sample weighed a not insubstantial 214g when fitted with an optional Samsung cover flap that wraps around the front. Without this, the Note is a trimmer 184g.
In use, we found the Note II is really a two handed device - one to hold, one to tap. Samsung offers an option within Android's Settings titled ‘One-handed operation’, which places the onscreen keyboard, dialpad and calculator to one side.
Bringing up the dialpad still requires two hands, since its icon is out of the reach of a thumb.
The build is plastic, but good, feeling weighty and all-of-a-piece in the hand. The screen quality is excellent, and it doesn't reveal the same over ripe colouring of other Samsung Super AMOLED displays.
Picture quality from the 8Mp rear camera is good. High contrast areas show purple fringing, although the camera is fast in operation.
Recorded HD video is usable, but it suffers from focus hunting issues even in good light. Shot footage looked smeary on even slow pans.
Internal specifications
The Note ll's innards are very similar to those of the Galaxy S III. Inside is a Samsung Exynos 4412 SoC based on a quad-core ARM, but clocked at 1.6- rather than 1.4GHz. This is the fastest-clocked ARM smartphone we've seen and, combined with Android's latest 4.1 Jelly Bean OS. it bodes well for performance.
Jelly Bean promises smoother graphics, here powered by an ARM Mali-400 MP GPU. It's relatively speedy, and faster than the nVidia Tegra 3, if well short of the fastest available mobile graphics solutions.
In our performance tests, the Note II approached the capability of the iPhone 4S. It managed 17fps in the Egypt HD test, against 19fps for the previous-generation Apple phone. The iPhone 5 played the same benchmark at 38fps.
To gauge processor speed, we use Geekbench 2. Averaged over five runs, the Note II scored 1,958 points, which is the highest score we've seen from this test.
In the SunSpider JavaScript test, the Note managed a very good 1,022ms. By comparison, the S III scored 1,447ms in the same test, and the iPhone 5 903ms (a lower score is better here).
The Note II works with EE's 4G LTE network. This wasn't available at the time of testing, so we measured 3G performance. The Samsung averaged of 11.1Mbps download, and 2.35Mbps upload, versus 15.4 - and 2.73Mbps for the iPhone 5.
We found battery life good enough to last two days of sporadic use, in part thanks to a large 11.78Wh removable battery packed inside.
Verdict
Whereas the Galaxy S II and III were Samsung's answer to the iPhone, the Note II's handwriting capabilities are targeted at a different type of user. It's faster and has a bigger screen than the S III. but too big for one handed use.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
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