Samsung Galaxy Note II First Impressions (Sprint)

I’ve had the Samsung Galaxy Note II for a few days now, and it is a huge step up from the original Note. When I first took the phone out of the FedEx box that it was sent to me in, I thought it was an international version of the device. Sprint has absolutely no branding on the device whatsoever, until you power on the phone and find a few Sprint apps pre-installed. Other than that, there’s nothing. Seriously. The box is untouched. I think some carriers need to take note of that (Verizon).

The device itself is aimed at a select market. If you feel like a 5.5-inch display is too much, don’t get the phone. Simple as that. Opt instead for a Galaxy S III, or even an iPhone 5 if the S3 is too big. For those that do like the 5.5-inch form factor, you’ll love almost everything about the phone. There are some standard things that Samsung always lacks that still come in play with the Note II, such as build quality. I know that some people are gonna say that plastic absorbs a shock better, etc., but the phone just doesnvt feel premium. Another drawback is the resolution. Similar to how the Galaxy S II felt in the US (4.5-inch versions), everything seems blown up. When I initially got the phone, it was amazing; I had no complaints whatsoever. Until the next day when an HTC EVO LTE arrived on my doorstep. The display and build quality of the EVO LTE are near perfect, and it feels like a much more solid, sharper device.

The Note II is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos CPU backed by 2GB of RAM. If I had to sum it up with one word, it would be fast. But, fast just doesn’t do justice. This phone runs so smoothly that it didn’t even seem real. Games ran flawlessly, and nothing could force the phone to stutter. It truly is one of the fastest phones available at the time. For some reason, the US Galaxy Note II isn’t being shipped with Samsung’s multi-pane multitasking that was showed off as a main selling point. This disappointed me, as I was really looking forward to it.

With the Note II, comes a new S Pen. The new S Pen has a multitude of new features, one of the coolest being the hover feature. Holding the stylus about an inch or two away from the display still allows the user to manipulate objects to view previews, scroll to the top of the screen, etc. However, I didn’t see myself using the S Pen for much other than showing people the new features that it possessed, and the occasional S Note drawing.

Remember, these are just my first impressions, and they are subject to change over the 3 week course that I have the device.