I’ve been a fan of the bigger sized phones for some time and Samsung has been paving the way in terms of quality large phones. I remember when I had the 4.5in screened Samsung Infuse and it was considered large. I’ve had a Note and Note 2 and loved both. Note 3 continues the tradition of keeping everything that worked, improving where needed, and adding features I wouldn’t have even thought to ask. So many of the little annoyances I had with my Note 2 have been addressed. Its clear they put a lot of thought into finding out what people loved and wanted changed.
When I first held the phone I fell in love. The form factor is just great and the screen is a noticeable jump up. That’s saying something when the Note 2 already had a stellar screen resolution. I don’t feel the need to have this one in a case. The slippery back of the Note 2 required a case as I dropped it a couple times when holding it bare.
Rather than go on feature by feature I’ll suffice to say everything feels like a great and noticeable improvement. S-pen, camera, screen, on and on its the phone I loved before but better in every way I could have asked for. I’ve tried dozens of smartphones over the past 5 years. The Note 2 was the first one I actually held onto for a year. I easily see myself holding onto the 3 that much or longer( depending on when they bring out a 4th;) .
I highly recommend this phone.
- Update a week in. I’m still just as impressed with this phone if not more so. The biggest thing I’ve found since my review is how much battery this phone offers. The battery size is insignificantly larger than the Note 2 which means they really improved the performance greatly to have increased battery efficiency this much. With the Note 2 most days of average us( lots of music streaming but not much else) I’d be about out of battery by end of work 5pm-ish. Now I’m at around 50% . I can make it through a full day without charge using the phone a good amount throughout. I did a test a couple days ago purposefully trying to drain it as fast as possible. Screen on high brightness near continuously while downloading several GB of data over 4G( I still have unlimited) and it lasted over 6 hours! I remain extremely happy I got this phone.