Samsung Galaxy Note 2 review: the ultimate Android phablet

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is a very powerful smartphone in the phablet category, that means it’s a device bigger than most smartphones and smaller than tablets.

It has a huge 5.5 inch screen with great resolution, you can easily watch a movie on that screen.

The screen is quite durable because of the Gorilla Glass technology but don’t drop that phone, buy a case because all these devices are reacting really bad on drops.

On the front side you can see the screen, the front camera of 1.9MP and the three Android buttons, the physical one and the other two digital. All of these buttons can do different stuff we will see later on this review.

The front camera is great, you can video chat, it’s really clear, Note 2 has one of the best second cameras we have ever seen.

On tha back side we can see the main camera, 8MP for photos and high definition videos. We can see the LED flash. The camera is great, you have some options we have never seen on other phones, as the capability to recognise the faces of the people you take photographs of and choose the photo in which everybody is laughing.

The processor is quite impressive, the quad core processor and the 2GB of RAM are giving extra power to the phone. Multitasking is something you can do on the phone. When quadcoring, you never go back to lower processors.

The fast processor and the extra big screen can make multitasking a pleasure as there is an app for that. Hold the back button on your device and you can go to the multitasking and multibrowsing app.

Choose two apps to run at the same time, put these apps on the screen and you can watch photos while being on the net or visit Facebook and writte an email. It’s really useful and we like a lot that feature.

One other special feature of that phone is the magic pen that can do really impressive stuff. The pen is parked inside the phone and is associated with special features.

For exemple if you put the pen on front of the screen you can preview the photos hiding inside a photo album or see the next scenes of the video you are watching.

It’s impressive because you don’t need to touch the pen on the screen to see the magic pen work.

There are a lot of things you can do with the pen, you can access all your favourite apps just by making the right sign on the screen with the pen. Open your email, Chrome browser or YouTube just with a move on the screen.

Handwritting is also very easy, this device can understand your writting in English, French or even Greek so you don’t have to writte on your keyboard again. Just put out the pen and writte your notes.

With your pen you can also take a screenshot of your phone or a web page you have visited or a photo, it’s easy, just choose the part of the screen and send it to your friends, quick and easy.

You can writte a note on a photo or draw a sketch, there is a huge database of ready to use sketches so as to choose the one that describes your idea best.

We also like the Paper Artist app, it’s better than Instagram. You can transform a photo into a painting, just choose the photo from the gallery and the filter you like most.

As an Android device, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has access to Android market so you have plenty of choices on apps and games.

The device has a GPS receiver and access to Google Maps and also a radio app.

The battery is huge, 3.100mAh and although the processor is that fast and the screen that big, you have plenty of battery for 2 or 3 days.

Samsung has done great job on the notification bar and the gesture control options so you can manage your phone fast and accurate with your hands.

Video Review

Ratings

SpecSamsung Galaxy Note 2Compared to:with spec:ScoreBuy now:
Width9.4iPhone 57.676%

Weight183iPhone 511237%
Screen PPI267HTC One46957%
Camera MP8Nokia Pureview4120%
2nd Camera1.9Sony Xperia Z2.286%
Processor4 * 1.6Samsung S48 * 1.650%
RAM MB2000HTC One2000100%
Battery mAh3100Samsung Note 23100100%
Android4.1Google Nexus 44.283%
SAR0.17-0.0092%
Release Date2012-09Today2013-0375%
Our view80%-100%80%
AVP rating methodTotal Rating71.3%Get a better price for this phone

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