The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 which I purchased 18 months back from Croma Retail is still serving me like a loyal terrier.
The product is quite robust in its utility while remaining above average on looks.
Let us evaluate the pros and cons
Pros:
5.5 inch screen - Very good clarity while watching movies\using navigation. Touch screen has very good sensitivity and the GC 2 glass is quite good.
1.6 Quad core Processor and 2GB Ram - Excellent for most apps+ games.
Battery - more than 30hrs of back up on combined usage(9 hours on WiFi with 2hours of browsing\chatting; 5hrs on 3G\mostly Whatsapp\hike for an hr; 3hrs of calls+ few text messages; 20 mins of games). Hence recommended for travelers.
OS - Upgraded to Kitkat 4.4.2 since Aug’14 - very stable hardly crashed since beginning.
Business apps - Good performance of Email, Airwatch encryption, other proprietor apps .
Sound quality - Speakerphone is quite good.
Signal reception is far superior in comparison to the Chinese make phones of similar spec(my wife uses a Xolo and my cousin uses Micromax - both with similar spec).
In built music player is surprisingly feature rich and sound good too.(I though have purchased another player - Rocket player - long ago for my Xperia, which I am using in the Note2).
Cons
It likes to be restarted once a week. Else whatsapp and few other app performance drops
5.5 inch screen - keeping this big device into your jeans’ pocket is a bit of a task and it bothers more while I am driving my car. You need big palms to hold it. :)
Flimsy build quality of headphones(though as expensive as INR 599, a speaker got damaged in a couple of weeks since I started using).
Bought another Samsung headset for INR 899, which also is not great in quality, but the sound output is decent in both the units with neodymium drivers.
Back cover gets scratched pretty easily(I use a silicone cover - bought from eBay for INR 199 which does the job pretty well)
Camera quality - 8MP Primary and 1.9MP secondary camera are not great.especially the image stabilization feature. However, good to click pics for Whatsapp sharing etc. Camera in my Sony Xperia was superior with same 8MPx.
Few options I seldom used:
S Pen - rarely used as I honestly could not figure out occasions to use it:|
S Notes - I have been using another Android app for making notes, which I am continuing in my Note2 too.
Drive\Dropbox - An excellent app for sure, but I do not have so much content to save\share.
Overall - A product with strong performance and battery back up from Samsung for the money you pay.
I saw advt in ecomm portals where it is now at 20k, which is a steal deal! Go for it!