New Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Black 32GB (Sprint)
This is My Opinion About This Product
After I buy this New Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Black 32GB (Sprint) (Wireless Phone)
UPDATED 11/12/2013
I know I may not appear a "Verified Buyer", but I purchased this phone through our primary's Amazon account. I most certainly do own this device. With that out of the way, here are my thoughts after a week of ownership. Also, if you have questions, go ahead and ask. I'll answer them as time allows - I know what it is like to plop down 250 bucks on something and not know that ONE thing you just can't find out about it anywhere. Anyways, on to my impressions.
First of all, I did not have this phone prior to the update that was issued to fix call quality. I cannot say for certain the update fixed it, as I never experienced the problem, but what I can tell you is that while I've used it (I immediately installed the update when I got the phone), all the calls I've made have been crystal clear both on my end and on the the callers end. So if that was a worry for you, I would say you can cross that off the list now.
Let's quickly talk about who this phone isn't for. Go ahead and skip this section if you are a tech head like me and already poured over tech specs and sheets well before it released. This phone is, unquestionably, huge. It is able to be HELD with one hand, but it's usefulness one handed is somewhat limited. I'm a 6'0 tall guy, slightly above average sized hands. I use Thumb Keyboard as my replacement for stock, and I cannot easily reach the left hand side of the keyboard. It can be done, but it requires some finagling in the hand (that incidentally has it resting precariously on the tips of my fingers near the center of the back of the device). Using the "one handed operation" setting within Thumb Keyboard (or stock for that matter) squashes it to to the side and one handed typing can be accomplished easier that way. But there are plenty of buttons still out of reach. Any keys on the top, for example the Search button on the top of the Play Store, is impossible to reach with your thumb one-handed. You also can't easily reach the capacitive menu button (located to the left of the home button) while operating one handed. The latter two are obnoxious to say the least. So long as you plan to use it mostly with two hands - hold it in one and touch with the other) - usability is perfectly fine.
Given that, I can't recommend this phone to anyone who truly wants a phone that can be fully operated one handed. The absolute tips of the scale in terms of one handed operation that I can recommend would be the HTC One (that is what the other two people on my plan got - also great phones) with their 4.7 inch screens. The Note 3 also hase has an incredible amount of power. It will crunch through anything you throw at it, but it is rather overkill at the moment. If you want a future proof level set of internals, this phone certainly fits the bill. But if you are basically going to take phone calls, do some texting, emailing, web browsing and casual gaming, this will be overkill. You can easily get away with the HTC One (or phones of its ilk) with it's previous gen Snapdragon 600 processor.
I'll keep the rhetoric to a minimum and get down to brass tacks afterwards. You've probably read a million reviews on this phone already trying to determine if you'll pull the trigger so you don't need me to wax poetical. This phone, aside from it's still somewhat underwhelming construction (it's not cheap, just not HTC One typed premium), is nearly perfect in every other category. The screen is fantastic - I leave mine set to about 35% brightness and that seems to be the sweet spot for me between readability and power-usage. The ear-piece speaker is pretty good, though not great. Same can be said for the external loudspeaker, but at least it is in fact loud (you can even press a button on the upper right hand side of the stock dialer for "Extra Volume"). I don't care for it's placement though. It's not ideal for directionality, but it is also placed in such a way that my hand covers it when I hold the phone in landscape orientation for gaming and video watching. That is one of the only knocks I have against it actually.
Going back to its internals - its Snapdragon 800 processor, Adreno 330 GPU and 3 gigabytes of RAM are all incredibly powerful top tier components. It's basically overkill. I noticed while playing games that the phone would get hot - borderline excessively so - after 5 plus minutes of gaming. That was true of games ranging from Plants vs Zombies 2 to Modern Combat 4. I decided to enable "Power Saving Mode - CPU Power Saving" - something I basically never do on anything ever. I want it to perform above and beyond. But I can say that this phone doesn't see any ill effects from enabling this in day to day performance, or in gaming. I do gather it only limits the CPU clock and not the GPU clock, but it saves you a bit of energy AND keeps the phone cool even after fairly decent length gaming sessions. The framerate on PvZ2, Modern Combat 4, NOVA 3 and others all remained consistently high. In fact, I ran the Epic Citadel benchmark with settings on "Ultra High Quality" and "100% Rendering Resolution Percentage" and got 54-55 FPS whether I left the CPU Power Mode checked or unchecked. So given that, until I find a task that needs it, I'll be keeping this "power saving" feature on - I'd suggest you probably do the same.
One handed operation is also aided by the fact that you can dig into the Settings menu, under the Controls tab and find One-handed Operation. Here you can enable "use for all screens" which will allow you to use a quick left to right swipe gesture from the edge of the screen to minimize the window down to a fraction of the screen. I use this the few times I want to reach the top-most corners of the screen one handed (or the menu button, as virtual keys for the main buttons also show up in this windowed mode).
I would also suggest grabbing "Folder Organizer" by Fabio Collini. It allows you to group things into folders where you can change the layout to be a list with icons and text (a scrollable list that you can select individual items across a row encompassing nearly the width of the screen making one handed selection very easy). It has other benefits, I've been using it for ages. Makes changing individual app shortcut icons very easy as well.
I've found battery life on this device to be well under what I've read in professional reviews. They struggle to kill the battery in a 24 hour period. With a 3200 milliamp battery in this beast, I'd imagine it should be. And still, I find myself looking at the battery stats and seeing 3 hours of screen time and 12 hours of up time with around 20% battery remaining fairly regularly. How power users stretch the Note 3 to have over 24 hours (and some cases closer to 36-48 hours) is beyond me. I turn off features I don't need, keep the brightness down, keep my wireless radios in check - all for naught. It will definitely get you through a work day, but if you are going to be away from an outlet for 12+ hours, I'd be a bit antsy if I've done any medium to heavy usage that day. In standby mode, you'll get plenty of life out of the battery though. I do wonder if there were some ill effects to battery life after the update to address call quality - the discrepancy in battery life seems a bit too drastic and stark in comparison.
The S-pen is nice, I will certainly use it, but I wouldn't let it sway you if it was going to dissuade you from getting another phone/phablet. Clearly if you need finite control in certain applications for work or what have you, the stylus on this thing cannot be beat. It does do handwriting quite well and it's pin point precision allows for very fine drawing - not pencil/pen level, but very good nonetheless. I'll also take this opportunity to touch on the "pen-window" functionality. It's limited app selection makes it less appealing in practice than it sounds in theory. I like to use it to have quick access to a Google Hangouts chat window, or maybe a web browser. This also goes for the "mutli-screen" mode. The fact only a fraction of your apps will support either makes this really killer multitasking feature fairly useless. Until they give us access to all our apps via these methods (already done via custom ROMs so it's clearly possible, just restricted by Samsung), it's largely gimmicky. Useful sometimes, but you'll more than likely end up in my shoes - using it because it's there when you get the phone and then never using it again. It's just that limited.
One other thing to note is the expandable SD storage is good for files and such, but don't expect to be moving apps over to it. I have a ton of games and other apps that command large file sizes. If you try to use "move to SD card", you'll be able to...but the kicker is that the SD card in this device is actually an emulated one - it simply sees your internal storage as the SD card. You cannot move items to the external SD card, which is a bummer to me. I still have a ton of apps, and you get around 25 gigs for app storage, so it's not like you are limited. But it is a con I didn't anticipate, and imagine others may find this restriction a bit too limiting for their needs.
In any event, there are my kind of rambling thoughts on the phone. As I continue to use the phone, I will probably come back and add to the review and update or correct my opinions as I have more time under my belt with this juggernaut. Hope there were some useful bits in there - and your fears about voice quality have been assuaged. Again, feel free to ask questions.
I know I may not appear a "Verified Buyer", but I purchased this phone through our primary's Amazon account. I most certainly do own this device. With that out of the way, here are my thoughts after a week of ownership. Also, if you have questions, go ahead and ask. I'll answer them as time allows - I know what it is like to plop down 250 bucks on something and not know that ONE thing you just can't find out about it anywhere. Anyways, on to my impressions.
First of all, I did not have this phone prior to the update that was issued to fix call quality. I cannot say for certain the update fixed it, as I never experienced the problem, but what I can tell you is that while I've used it (I immediately installed the update when I got the phone), all the calls I've made have been crystal clear both on my end and on the the callers end. So if that was a worry for you, I would say you can cross that off the list now.
Let's quickly talk about who this phone isn't for. Go ahead and skip this section if you are a tech head like me and already poured over tech specs and sheets well before it released. This phone is, unquestionably, huge. It is able to be HELD with one hand, but it's usefulness one handed is somewhat limited. I'm a 6'0 tall guy, slightly above average sized hands. I use Thumb Keyboard as my replacement for stock, and I cannot easily reach the left hand side of the keyboard. It can be done, but it requires some finagling in the hand (that incidentally has it resting precariously on the tips of my fingers near the center of the back of the device). Using the "one handed operation" setting within Thumb Keyboard (or stock for that matter) squashes it to to the side and one handed typing can be accomplished easier that way. But there are plenty of buttons still out of reach. Any keys on the top, for example the Search button on the top of the Play Store, is impossible to reach with your thumb one-handed. You also can't easily reach the capacitive menu button (located to the left of the home button) while operating one handed. The latter two are obnoxious to say the least. So long as you plan to use it mostly with two hands - hold it in one and touch with the other) - usability is perfectly fine.
Given that, I can't recommend this phone to anyone who truly wants a phone that can be fully operated one handed. The absolute tips of the scale in terms of one handed operation that I can recommend would be the HTC One (that is what the other two people on my plan got - also great phones) with their 4.7 inch screens. The Note 3 also hase has an incredible amount of power. It will crunch through anything you throw at it, but it is rather overkill at the moment. If you want a future proof level set of internals, this phone certainly fits the bill. But if you are basically going to take phone calls, do some texting, emailing, web browsing and casual gaming, this will be overkill. You can easily get away with the HTC One (or phones of its ilk) with it's previous gen Snapdragon 600 processor.
I'll keep the rhetoric to a minimum and get down to brass tacks afterwards. You've probably read a million reviews on this phone already trying to determine if you'll pull the trigger so you don't need me to wax poetical. This phone, aside from it's still somewhat underwhelming construction (it's not cheap, just not HTC One typed premium), is nearly perfect in every other category. The screen is fantastic - I leave mine set to about 35% brightness and that seems to be the sweet spot for me between readability and power-usage. The ear-piece speaker is pretty good, though not great. Same can be said for the external loudspeaker, but at least it is in fact loud (you can even press a button on the upper right hand side of the stock dialer for "Extra Volume"). I don't care for it's placement though. It's not ideal for directionality, but it is also placed in such a way that my hand covers it when I hold the phone in landscape orientation for gaming and video watching. That is one of the only knocks I have against it actually.
Going back to its internals - its Snapdragon 800 processor, Adreno 330 GPU and 3 gigabytes of RAM are all incredibly powerful top tier components. It's basically overkill. I noticed while playing games that the phone would get hot - borderline excessively so - after 5 plus minutes of gaming. That was true of games ranging from Plants vs Zombies 2 to Modern Combat 4. I decided to enable "Power Saving Mode - CPU Power Saving" - something I basically never do on anything ever. I want it to perform above and beyond. But I can say that this phone doesn't see any ill effects from enabling this in day to day performance, or in gaming. I do gather it only limits the CPU clock and not the GPU clock, but it saves you a bit of energy AND keeps the phone cool even after fairly decent length gaming sessions. The framerate on PvZ2, Modern Combat 4, NOVA 3 and others all remained consistently high. In fact, I ran the Epic Citadel benchmark with settings on "Ultra High Quality" and "100% Rendering Resolution Percentage" and got 54-55 FPS whether I left the CPU Power Mode checked or unchecked. So given that, until I find a task that needs it, I'll be keeping this "power saving" feature on - I'd suggest you probably do the same.
One handed operation is also aided by the fact that you can dig into the Settings menu, under the Controls tab and find One-handed Operation. Here you can enable "use for all screens" which will allow you to use a quick left to right swipe gesture from the edge of the screen to minimize the window down to a fraction of the screen. I use this the few times I want to reach the top-most corners of the screen one handed (or the menu button, as virtual keys for the main buttons also show up in this windowed mode).
I would also suggest grabbing "Folder Organizer" by Fabio Collini. It allows you to group things into folders where you can change the layout to be a list with icons and text (a scrollable list that you can select individual items across a row encompassing nearly the width of the screen making one handed selection very easy). It has other benefits, I've been using it for ages. Makes changing individual app shortcut icons very easy as well.
I've found battery life on this device to be well under what I've read in professional reviews. They struggle to kill the battery in a 24 hour period. With a 3200 milliamp battery in this beast, I'd imagine it should be. And still, I find myself looking at the battery stats and seeing 3 hours of screen time and 12 hours of up time with around 20% battery remaining fairly regularly. How power users stretch the Note 3 to have over 24 hours (and some cases closer to 36-48 hours) is beyond me. I turn off features I don't need, keep the brightness down, keep my wireless radios in check - all for naught. It will definitely get you through a work day, but if you are going to be away from an outlet for 12+ hours, I'd be a bit antsy if I've done any medium to heavy usage that day. In standby mode, you'll get plenty of life out of the battery though. I do wonder if there were some ill effects to battery life after the update to address call quality - the discrepancy in battery life seems a bit too drastic and stark in comparison.
The S-pen is nice, I will certainly use it, but I wouldn't let it sway you if it was going to dissuade you from getting another phone/phablet. Clearly if you need finite control in certain applications for work or what have you, the stylus on this thing cannot be beat. It does do handwriting quite well and it's pin point precision allows for very fine drawing - not pencil/pen level, but very good nonetheless. I'll also take this opportunity to touch on the "pen-window" functionality. It's limited app selection makes it less appealing in practice than it sounds in theory. I like to use it to have quick access to a Google Hangouts chat window, or maybe a web browser. This also goes for the "mutli-screen" mode. The fact only a fraction of your apps will support either makes this really killer multitasking feature fairly useless. Until they give us access to all our apps via these methods (already done via custom ROMs so it's clearly possible, just restricted by Samsung), it's largely gimmicky. Useful sometimes, but you'll more than likely end up in my shoes - using it because it's there when you get the phone and then never using it again. It's just that limited.
One other thing to note is the expandable SD storage is good for files and such, but don't expect to be moving apps over to it. I have a ton of games and other apps that command large file sizes. If you try to use "move to SD card", you'll be able to...but the kicker is that the SD card in this device is actually an emulated one - it simply sees your internal storage as the SD card. You cannot move items to the external SD card, which is a bummer to me. I still have a ton of apps, and you get around 25 gigs for app storage, so it's not like you are limited. But it is a con I didn't anticipate, and imagine others may find this restriction a bit too limiting for their needs.
In any event, there are my kind of rambling thoughts on the phone. As I continue to use the phone, I will probably come back and add to the review and update or correct my opinions as I have more time under my belt with this juggernaut. Hope there were some useful bits in there - and your fears about voice quality have been assuaged. Again, feel free to ask questions.
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