To Note (2) or not to Note (2)...that is THE question

By L1520
in Android Support

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L1520

Posted
Posted

Thought i'd ask around...

I have a Galaxy Nexus on sim only paying ?12.90/month on three UK...I have been frustrated with the Android 4.2 random reboots that are driving me nuts.

I am considering a Note 2, however I am loathe to go back to a contract with any phone provider if I can avoid it.

I have been offered the Galaxy Note 2 (no upfront handset fee) for ?38/month on 3. This has 500mins, unlimited data, 5000 texts...

I ONLY need 200 mins & three are not offering me a cheaper deal that covers 200 minutes which is pretty annoying!! Their contract plans are rigid even for long term customers which sucks.

Do you guys think I should stick it out with a randomly rebooting sim only Galaxy Nexus or is the Note 2 really that good that I would be silly not to upgrade with their offer?

Thanks guys

Regards

Grand Master

neo1911

Posted
Posted

I would say, upgrade. Note 2 is a refined phone. A bit big but cool if you have no problems to lug it around.

Galaxy Nexus is last year tech.

Whatever your plan, 3 is always the cheapest. I never had any problem with their customer care as I always used to speak in our native language. :D

Their call centre is based in Mumbai and Pune.

If you like Note 2, you will never want to downgrade screen size in future handsets.

Mentor

Luis Mazza

Posted
Posted

Do you guys think I should stick it out with a randomly rebooting sim only Galaxy Nexus or is the Note 2 really that good that I would be silly not to upgrade with their offer?

If you're considering upgrading only because of the reboot bug, then stick with the Nexus because certainly that is going to be fixed soon.

But... If you want the best smartphone in the market, then TAKE IT NOW. :D

Keep in mind that once you go Note, you never come back: either you hate it or love it. If you can live with a huge phone (you get used to it) and you can afford it, then it's a go.

Rookie

Labbybear2294

Posted
Posted

I have owned the Note 2 from AT&T here in the states for the past 3 weeks............AWESOME PHONE! Yes the first thing that anyone says is wow that phone is so big but to be honest after a few days you wont even notice. The battery life on mine has been giving me about 1.5 days on moderate use with a recharge time of about 4 hours. This phablet is fast and sleek and the best thing that is one the market today.

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L1520

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks Guys

I uninstalled HD Widgets & reboot issues seem to have one (for now). However I am certainly tempted by the upgrade to Note 2 - its just too damned expensive @ the moment!

If I could get a tariff with 3 for 200 mins for ?30 or less (with no upfront cost) I'd do it in a heartbeat

Veteran

2xSilverKnight

Posted
Posted

Changing phone because you are having random reboots ??

Wow

How about trying to fix your issue instead, which is probably caused by a specific application.

Just saw that you did exactly that.Now wait and see, until the dev update the app.

Veteran

ZakO

Posted
Posted

The Note 2 is a great phone, but I returned mine after a week, couldn't get used to the size (I have small hands though). Apart from the size everything else was perfect, so if you have big hands (and are unhappy with your current phone) go for it.

I just gave up my iPhone 4S for a Galaxy Note 2 and I couldn't be happier. The Note 2 is a great phone. Go for it.

I bought a Note II Wednesday and I returned it today and exchanged it for an S3. The reasons:

1. The Note II was just too big to carry around

2. The screen was not as bright and sharp as the S3.

3. The text messenger UI was laggy. The S3 for some reason is not.

4. The Home Button was also laggy. The S3 did not have that problem.

5. The Email UI was doing funny things earlier today. Flashing and stuff. Not good.

Maybe in the future I will get a Galaxy Note 3 or 4 or 5. We'll see down the road.

Did you end up exchanging the S3 back to the Note 2, what did you dislike about the S3?

Grand Master

Scorbing

Posted
Posted

The Note 2 is a great phone, but I returned mine after a week, couldn't get used to the size (I have small hands though). Apart from the size everything else was perfect, so if you have big hands (and are unhappy with your current phone) go for it.

Did you end up exchanging the S3 back to the Note 2?

Yes I did..LOL...LOL...LOL

Dude after taking the S3 home and playing with it, I realized how small the screen was compared to the Note 2 and I began to hit myself on the head for returning it. I really missed that big screen and the power of the Note 2 so lucky for me, my GF liked the S3 so I gave it to her and I used her upgrade to get another Note 2 and I will keep it this time....LOL...LOL...It's a fantastic phone. The size takes getting used to, but its worth it.

Oh by the way, the lag issues I do not have on this Note 2 I got now. I guess there was something wrong with that other one after all so I'm glad I returned it.

Grand Master

Robbie Khan Reviews

Posted
  • Reviews
Posted

I have a Note 2 now, My S3 died so it's being sent for repair, I bought the Note 2 yesterday, rooted and Wanamlite ROM and here are my thoughts:

First full day at work with the N2 and given the same kind of usage as I used to give the S3 running Wanamlite as well.

Verdict?

Awesome!

The battery life is much better, I unplug the phone around 7AM when the alarm goes and normally by the time I'd get home at 4:30PM I'd have between 30 and 50% battery left (maybe less if screen on time was higher) as I like to listen to music, surf, whatsapp and email on the way to/from work but on the N2, even with the bigger screen I'm sitting here right now (as of 18:55) with:

note2battery_wanam.jpg

I use auto brightness and at work have WiFi switched off. One big thing I noticed was that even in places at work where the S3 struggled to load the web as signal strength peaked -90dBm, the Note 2 has no trouble even at -107 :eek:

The audio quality was a surprise as well, I use PowerAMP and the bass on the Note II is a little lower than the S3 but the treble and spaciousness of the sound is more clear, there's more warmth in the sound playing through the Vsonic GR07 IEMs, it's less 'closed room' than the S3 is.

The built in speaker is WAY louder and clearer than the S3, I played the latest Star Trek movie trailer and I properly enjoyed the big screen and big sound.

One handed operation? It's not as easy to use one handed as the S3 of course as it's quite slippery, once the case arrives I'll decide further on this as the S3 was slippery one handed as well but I had little issue using the phone one handed on the walk home listening to music.

Portability vs the S3... It is a bit thicker than the S3 but it fits in my top pocket without a huge problem, feels at home even.

What I like about it most compared to the S3 is how it's faster at doing everything, the camera loads faster, apps switch faster and there's over 700MB of RAM free whereas the S3 was always reaching within 100MB of the limit.

The screen is amazing, simply put! I haven't actually made proper use of the stylus properly yet, I need to download stylus enabled apps to play with as well but the responsiveness of it is near instant and I'm liking it a lot.

Here are a few comparisons to the Galaxy S3 showing audio quality of the speaker vs the S3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wfblwK9aBFo

If anyone wants me to compare anything else against the S3 then I'll be happy to do whatever :)

As of (20:55) the screen on time is 3hrs 16mins, uptime is 12hrs 15mins. I've been doing the tests above at 100% brightness so that took some off but at this rate I can see 6 hours screen on time and 24 hours battery life :eek:

I have noticed one bug and maybe it's Wanamlite ROM but if you turn off autobrightness then the screen won't autorotate even if autorotate is enabled. Bit weird but I use auto brightness anyway. Speaking of this, autobrightness is better on the NOte II than on the S3, it's less jumpy and more pleasing, more battery friendly too.

Grand Master

Scorbing

Posted
Posted

I have a Note 2 now, My S3 died so it's being sent for repair, I bought the Note 2 yesterday, rooted and Wanamlite ROM and here are my thoughts:

First full day at work with the N2 and given the same kind of usage as I used to give the S3 running Wanamlite as well.

Verdict?

Awesome!

The battery life is much better, I unplug the phone around 7AM when the alarm goes and normally by the time I'd get home at 4:30PM I'd have between 30 and 50% battery left (maybe less if screen on time was higher) as I like to listen to music, surf, whatsapp and email on the way to/from work but on the N2, even with the bigger screen I'm sitting here right now (as of 18:55) with:

note2battery_wanam.jpg

I use auto brightness and at work have WiFi switched off. One big thing I noticed was that even in places at work where the S3 struggled to load the web as signal strength peaked -90dBm, the Note 2 has no trouble even at -107 :eek:

The audio quality was a surprise as well, I use PowerAMP and the bass on the Note II is a little lower than the S3 but the treble and spaciousness of the sound is more clear, there's more warmth in the sound playing through the Vsonic GR07 IEMs, it's less 'closed room' than the S3 is.

The built in speaker is WAY louder and clearer than the S3, I played the latest Star Trek movie trailer and I properly enjoyed the big screen and big sound.

One handed operation? It's not as easy to use one handed as the S3 of course as it's quite slippery, once the case arrives I'll decide further on this as the S3 was slippery one handed as well but I had little issue using the phone one handed on the walk home listening to music.

Portability vs the S3... It is a bit thicker than the S3 but it fits in my top pocket without a huge problem, feels at home even.

What I like about it most compared to the S3 is how it's faster at doing everything, the camera loads faster, apps switch faster and there's over 700MB of RAM free whereas the S3 was always reaching within 100MB of the limit.

The screen is amazing, simply put! I haven't actually made proper use of the stylus properly yet, I need to download stylus enabled apps to play with as well but the responsiveness of it is near instant and I'm liking it a lot.

Here are a few comparisons to the Galaxy S3 showing audio quality of the speaker vs the S3:

http://www.youtube.c...d&v=wfblwK9aBFo

If anyone wants me to compare anything else against the S3 then I'll be happy to do whatever :)

As of (20:55) the screen on time is 3hrs 16mins, uptime is 12hrs 15mins. I've been doing the tests above at 100% brightness so that took some off but at this rate I can see 6 hours screen on time and 24 hours battery life :eek:

I have noticed one bug and maybe it's Wanamlite ROM but if you turn off autobrightness then the screen won't autorotate even if autorotate is enabled. Bit weird but I use auto brightness anyway. Speaking of this, autobrightness is better on the NOte II than on the S3, it's less jumpy and more pleasing, more battery friendly too.

Great!!!!!. The autorotate deal must be your ROM because mine is not rooted and that doesn't happen to mine.

Grand Master

Robbie Khan Reviews

Posted
  • Reviews
Posted

Great!!!!!. The autorotate deal must be your ROM because mine is not rooted and that doesn't happen to mine.

Weird it seems to be working fine now, I just cycled auto modes and it works now lol.

Anyway, here's the lowdown on battery + screen on time:

rps20121207_053602_863.jpgrps20121207_053230_340.jpg

7 hours screen on time!!!

Grand Master

Scorbing

Posted
Posted

Weird it seems to be working fine now, I just cycled auto modes and it works now lol.

Anyway, here's the lowdown on battery + screen on time:

rps20121207_053602_863.jpgrps20121207_053230_340.jpg

7 hours screen on time!!!

One question, how did you root your phone? What did you use? Mine is on AT&T - U.S. version.

Grand Master

sanctified Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Just a piece of my mind: I tried a Note 2 for several hours and the note taking ability it's still not quite perfect. If you heavily rely on note taking you're better off saving a few bucks and getting an SIII or a ONE X.

Grand Master

Teebor

Posted
Posted

I tried an S3 and a note 2 and found the Note 2 to be slower and laggier than the S3 (which was quick and smooth)

This was an odd situation as it shouldn't have been that way logically but at the time I opted for an S3 as I also didn't need the larger screen.

Can anyone who has used both confirm or deny what happened when I tried it please? as I would expect the note 2 to be as fast if not faster and smoother

Grand Master

adrynalyne

Posted
Posted

Changing phone because you are having random reboots ??

Wow

How about trying to fix your issue instead, which is probably caused by a specific application.

Just saw that you did exactly that.Now wait and see, until the dev update the app.

It is caused by Android 4.2 and likely 4.2.1 as well and is a fairly common issue. The fix is to roll back to 4.1.2 until Google resolves it.

Grand Master

tsupersonic

Posted
Posted

Check XDA. It's easy to root these phones, especially devices that sell well - they'll have a lot more ROM's from the community.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Note 2. It's just too big, but the hardware is impressive. I'd rather have the newly released Droid DNA.

Grand Master

Robbie Khan Reviews

Posted
  • Reviews
Posted

I tried an S3 and a note 2 and found the Note 2 to be slower and laggier than the S3 (which was quick and smooth)

This was an odd situation as it shouldn't have been that way logically but at the time I opted for an S3 as I also didn't need the larger screen.

Can anyone who has used both confirm or deny what happened when I tried it please? as I would expect the note 2 to be as fast if not faster and smoother

The Note II probably wasn't updated while the S3 was.

I've had the S3 since launch, both running the exact same ROM and Android version and the Note II is faster at everything thanks to the extra GB of RAM mostly.

Grand Master

Scorbing

Posted
Posted

I tried an S3 and a note 2 and found the Note 2 to be slower and laggier than the S3 (which was quick and smooth)

This was an odd situation as it shouldn't have been that way logically but at the time I opted for an S3 as I also didn't need the larger screen.

Can anyone who has used both confirm or deny what happened when I tried it please? as I would expect the note 2 to be as fast if not faster and smoother

Nothing like that here. My Note 2 flies.

I tried an S3 and a note 2 and found the Note 2 to be slower and laggier than the S3 (which was quick and smooth)

This was an odd situation as it shouldn't have been that way logically but at the time I opted for an S3 as I also didn't need the larger screen.

Can anyone who has used both confirm or deny what happened when I tried it please? as I would expect the note 2 to be as fast if not faster and smoother

Another thing. If you find the UI slow, why not replace it with this lightning fast alternative - no need to root your phone at all!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobint.hololauncher.hd&hl=en

Grand Master

tsupersonic

Posted
Posted

Another thing. If you find the UI slow, why not replace it with this lightning fast alternative - no need to root your phone at all!

https://play.google....uncher.hd&hl=en

Haven't seen a launcher require root. Not saying it's not possible, just haven't seen it. I've tried many launchers, my current daily driver is Nova (It can use root)
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