AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note Review

Posted by Jacob Krol on Apr 20, 2012 in Mobile Phones, Reviews | 0 comments

Our friends over at Samsung have sent us the Samsung Galaxy Note for us to review. It is the phone with what might be the largest display on the market, yes it has a 5-inch screen. It is running on AT&T’s 4G LTE Network and has the famous S-Pen. But, is 5-inches to big for a phone? Read on to find out the answer to the question. Now, let’s get started with the full review of the AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note!

 

Design

The Samsung Galaxy Note is a big phone, now there are both pro’s and con’s to the size. For one it will not fit into all of your pockets. However, on the other side you have a nice big screen. On the top of the device you have a headphone jack and microphone.  The left hand side is home to the volume rocker. The sleep/power button can be found on the right hand side. The bottom of the phone has the micro USB port, morphine, and the S-Pen. The back is home to your 8 mega-pixel camera with LED flash, speaker, and Galaxy Note logo. Like most smartphone’s back covers they are now built by plastic and are quite flimsy. This holds true on the Galaxy Note as well. If you pop the cover off you will find the 2,500 mAh battery, AT&T Sim Card, and microSD card slot. Above the display you will find the AT&T logo, earpiece, and a 2 mega-pixel front-facing camera. Under the screen you have the Samsung logo, menu, home, back, and search buttons. There is a mirror aluminum finish going around the sides of the device.  You can get the Galaxy Note in either “carbon blue” or “white”. And that is the design of the AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note!

 

Hardware

Now, the Samsung Galaxy Note has some good hardware inside. It has a  5.3 inch HD Super AMOLED Screen, which shows that Samsung is still great at making displays. While the brightness is great and colors are shown very vibrant on the display. This not a 720p display, keep in mind this display is found on the Galaxy Nexus, LG Nitro HD, and several other devices. This device has a resolution of 1280 x 800. This was expected, as it is not a “plus” display. However, the quality of the screen is pretty good and is better than some other devices on the market. The phone performs very well, as it is powered by a 1.5GHz Dual-Core Processor. It is a very fast phone, it opens applications quickly. The only place it seems to lag is when unlocking the home screen after it is turned on. However, most phones do lag every once in a while, so do keep this in mind. The battery is pretty good, it lasts the day with normal use. However, if the screen is on full brightness it will take a toll on the battery life. Space for storing all of your applications is important, and the Galaxy Note has 16GB of internal storage. If that is not enough for you, just pop in a microSD card to the device. Samsung is known for their cameras, and the Galaxy Note has the same 8 mega-pixel camera on the back that is found on the Galaxy S II’s. Samsung has some competition with cameras now, after HTC unveiled their new One line of devices. However, the camera does take some impressive still photos and videos. On the front you have a 2 mega-pixel camera that is great for taking “onsies” and video chatting. Now, we move onto network speeds this is a 4G LTE device. Keep in mind that AT&T is still rolling out their 4G LTE Network. If you are not yet covered yet, you will be running on 4G HSPA+ and if that is down you go to their 3G Network. Speeds on the 4G LTE network are pretty good, but we were not always on the network during our review period. Overall, the hardware in the Galaxy Note is great!

 

Operating System And S-Pen

No Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy Note, yet. Currently it has Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, no word on when the release dat is for 4.0 but it is coming. Sometimes I wonder why they didn’t wait to release it with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It also has Samsung Touch Wiz running on top of the operating system. The unlock screen that is pre-set on the phone, is quite difficult to use. I suggest you change the unlock screen. The Android Market has gotten upgraded to the Play Store. In terms of pre-loaded applications you get AllShare, Amazon Kindle, AT&T App Suite, Books, Crayon Physics, Facebook, Featured Apps, Google App Suite, Media Hub, Messages, Messaging, Latitude, Kies Air, Mini Diary, Movies, Music Player, myAT&T, Play Music, Polaris Office, Qik Lite, S Memo, Samsung Apps, Social Hub, Voice Recorder, and more. Now, let’s move on to the S-Pen it is integrated very much so into the application. It is also the biggest feature f the Galaxy Note. I will say that using the pen is much easier than writing with you finger and ,believe it or not, is usually more accurate. Being able to customize photos and screenshots that you take is very cool. For instance if you need to show someone where you are take a photo of the place and write directions on with the S-Pen, than send it to them via a text message. You also have S-Memo built-in, which will allow you take notes. It is basically like having a digital notebook, and this cab come in very handy. Overall, the S-Pen fits right in to the operating system!

 

Bottom Line

Overall, the AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note is a good device. If you don’t want a phone that has a super large screen, than I would not recommend the device to you. It does look a little bit silly talking on this device, meaning that some people did give us a look while using it in public. However, having the features of the S-Pen and the very fast hardware does make up for this. With the S-Pen you get many new creative possibilities that you will most certainly enjoy. The only other issue would be the price of the device. It retails for $299.99 with a 2-year contract. If you are okay with putting that much money out for a device, be sure that you will want it for the full term of the contract. As switching in the middle will most likely cost a lot of money. Without a contract it will cost you $649.99 . For More Info On The AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note, Please Click Here. We would like to thank Samsung for providing us with a copy of the “AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note”.

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