Last night, Samsung held an event in New York to announce the launch of it’s phablet/hugephone, the Galaxy Note II, across all major U.S. carriers. I attended the event and took home a Note II to review, so expect comprehensive coverage of this major device here in the coming weeks.
Some first impressions and notes:
Samsung continues to load up its phones with a lot of unique features. While few of these features are earth shattering, they add up to a phone that does a lot more than any other phone. Less advanced users will, out of the box, have a top-notch phone, but advanced or curious users can turn on a surprisingly large number of features you don’t see on other phones or that are even provided (well) by third-party apps. Here’s just a sample of some special Note II features, some of which are on Galaxy S3 phones and coming to other major Samsung devices:
- The screen can stay on as long as you’re looking at it.
- The screen can rotate based on your eye plane, not the device’s orientation (for example, while lying down).
- Going from the lock screen to the camera by touching the screen and rotating the phone or using a customized voice wakeup command (“open camera”, for example).
- Getting the number of unread emails and texts, plus missed calls, and unlistened voicemails by waving at the phone while the screen is off.
There are probably anywhere from 10 to 30 little features like these (all optional), so you can choose the ones you like and not be bogged down by the rest. All that is available on the Note II, before getting into the major marquee features, like the S Pen stylus, Google Now and S Voice voice control, Android 4.1 (Jellybean), the amazingly fast quad-core Exynos processor, the giant 5.5 inch screen, NFC, and many other features that we’ll focus on for a proper review and follow up articles.
What I will say for now is that the Note II is a good looking phone, and its performance is fast and smooth. Coming from the original Galaxy Note, this doesn’t even feel like that big of a phone. The Note II is less wide, and thus less ridiculous compared to traditional handsets. That’s even with a bigger screen than the Note I, which is an impressive feat.
It’s also packing an unheralded killer app, one that makes me want to forsake all other phones and bow before Samsung: the keyboard. The stock Samsung keyboard, which already packed in S Pen handwriting recognition and Swype, now adds Swiftkey predictions. Yes, that means you get Swype and Swiftkey in a single keyboard, settling the “which is better” argument by giving you the best of both worlds, without compromising on handwriting recognition. That alone makes the Note II enviable. I know a lot of Swype and Swiftkey fans who wish this marriage of the top two onscreen keyboards could be available for them.
Impressive, fast, customizable, too many features to list without going in depth, the best Android keyboard ever, and all in a not-even-close-to-tiny package. More to come, but this phone looks like it can surpass the original Galaxy Note and be another hit for Samsung.
People lined up to see the Galaxy Note II and a performance by Kanye West.
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