In a turn of events this week the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 moved to the top of the Official Smartphone Rankings with the experts, while remaining #2 with the fans. Check out what PhoneDog fan Hank. S., feels about the Note 3.
"Best Android Technology Yet" By HANK SEARFUS on October 22, 2013
Now that I've had the phone for 11 days, I thought I could do a review some justice. I have nothing but good things to say about the newest Note from Samsung. First of all, the display is absolutely beautiful. It is bright, richly colorful, and of course HUGE! The multi-window feature can really take advantage of that massive real estate. Even with such a large display, the battery life continues to impress me! I'm an extremely heavy user and I can easily get through a full day of school until about 4 or 5 in the afternoon before I have to plug in again. Of course, the huge size will not be for everyone, but it is definitely an asset for my productivity. School and business apps work wonderfully and the handwriting recognition across the software is mostly stunning (the one exception is the handwriting feature on the Samsung Keyboard which can sometimes lag and jump around). The new suite of S apps is much better than in previous devices, and I actually end up using things like S Voice, S Translator, S Note, and others quite often. Of course, the S Pen is one of the bigger bonuses to a phablet like this. Samsung has really kicked it up a notch in this latest iteration of the S Pen and bundled software; it's far more intuitive than previous devices and I use it about half the time when I'm on the phone. The LTE connectivity isn't the best possible in a phone, but my region is prone to signal dropouts anyways so it's not a huge deal to me. The mobile hotspot on the Verizon version actually works without sputtering unlike some previous handsets I've used from there. While I haven't taken advantage of every single camera feature, I can tell that this 13MP beast takes some great photos! You'll likely stay in Auto mode most of the time, which does a great job of detecting the situation you're in and adjusting the shooting mode accordingly. I haven't tried 4K video yet since I have no way to play it back in full quality so I'll hold off on making a judgement on that for now. Android 4.3, while only an incremental bump from 4.2.2, definitely brings a better overall experience to the device and TouchWiz doesn't seem as overbearing as the GALAXY S III (my previous personal device). While many of the software features may seem gimmicky at times, I find most all of them useful, especially the ones that take advantage of all the great motion sensors and the Wacom digitizer in the S Pen. Overall, I TOTALLY recommend this for anyone who wants THE top-tier Android smartphone for late 2013.
Display 5/5
Battery Life 5/5
Apps & Media Support 5/5
Reception & Call Quality 4/5
Design/Form Factor 5/5
Overall 4.8
