Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Well you could always use a miniature bluetooth keyboard.
as demonstrated with the dell streak
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/24/d...i-in-more-way/

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Excellent suggestion! Although may need to keep it fixed with duct tape...

Does anyone know of a reputable importer that currently sells the Galaxy Note in US?

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Expanseys is reliable seller but they charge through the ***. Their is also mobile city online

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Quick 2 questions... Anyone heard/seen anything about a US release date? Any news on if this phone will use NFC (described as NFC Optional) once ICS is on it?

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

The Note is a great phone and a good tablet. An electronic notepad etc.

With ICS I think they will allow MHL to do HDMI-out in 1080p format.
Also I think they will add in a lot more driver support for HIDs, making it less of a smartphone and more of a PC.

And I know a lot of people here have their own remote serves/ssh/whatnot and I think this makes a great companion for that.

Enjoy the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEb-D...layer_embedded

P.S. Perhaps some of you should hold up on the purchase, there is an LTE equipped SGNote which is to be released in South Korea and probably USA (AT&T) and Australia (Telstra-2012).

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

hey there. i got myself a galaxy note but i think i will return it, the time for me to change the n900 just hasn't come yet obviously. the screen, stylus and flash support really rock but that's about it, the os still has some bugs and it's just kinda stupid, i mean i can't even use the phone while i'm copying a movie on it for example, wtf. it surely can't fill the n900's shoes but i decided that i'll give it a try and for now it looks like i'll be returning it. the biggest surprise for me is that i don't miss the hwkb so much, i just write slower.. but i miss maemo as hell. if anyone has some questions i'll be happy to answer them, will be having the phone till tuesday it seems.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Is the note too big to be practical?
It's between the note and the nexus for me so far.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

well i have big hands but not the biggest and i can use it with one hand so no problem there but i did catch myself getting a pair of jeans on me, reaching in the pocket with my hand and saying to myself, it won't fit in there and changing to another pair of jeans :D so.. yes sometimes.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Pretty impresive device is this Samsung Note :) I would love to have one.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

So my N900 is out of service now. Got a Galaxy Note from getgoods for 450 Euro.
It is a really big phone :-)
1. The Display is big and amazing. Not even comparable to N900.
2. It has the same weight as the N900 and is pocketable
3. Using it normal you see a big keyboard. The remaining screen is still 3.5 inch
4. The phone is fast
5. Gps works instantly
6. I have to learn Android. It is usable.
7. I write this using the stylus It works capacitive. When the phone recognizes the stylus it ignores other touches.
8. android market ...
9. the Display ...

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

For me, the most useful video on youtube regarding the Galaxy Note:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItUPm3xMUb4

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

waiting for the white version of galaxy note.. :)
http://priceinfoworld.com/mobile/fil...Note-White.jpg

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Regarding the stylus and its function, Steve Jobs once said "If you have to use a stylus on a tablet, you've already lost". Well, the N900 and now the Note are alive and kickin', and Mr. Jobs...

Ok, a bit harsh.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

built in 32gb memory: good.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Where you have seen that? I'm looking for a new phone, and this Samsung Note is one of the candidates:) But here in the Netherlands it is shipped only with 16GB of memory.

I would like it to have 32GB just like N900:):)

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

today i experienced a black screen when i tried to open the camera to take a photo. the phone stopped responding like it was dead, had to remove the battery.. 30mins later it rebooted while it was in my pocked (LOCKED). I'm not impressed, i'm using stock phone, version 2.3.5, no customization at all, barely got 5 apps from android market. I'm returning the phone tomorrow.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Olympus, can you comment on how well the stylus fits in the slot? Is it likely to fall out? Is it magnetised?

Hopefully finally getting mine on Wednesday, finally given up waiting for Three to stock it, jumping ship to Orange.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Just got mine this evening (CPW on Vodafone).

The stylus is pretty well bedded into it's slot. Not magnetised but clicks securely into place. in fact I am finding it quite difficult to get it out in landscape mode without pressing the power/volume rockers and/or the capacitive front buttons.

Will post initial impressions tomorrow.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

No there is only the 16 gb version now. But 64Gb mini-sd is reported to work by a user. So you can have 80GB.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

OneStopPhoneShop in the UK are selling the 32GB version, but you can only get it through uswitch.com, it doesn't appear anywhere on their own website.

Just ordered mine, in the process of the credit check right now. Bloody nervous about it, even though I have no reason to be!

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

In US it is available from popularelectronics.com and mobilecityonline.com Both offered at 799.99. Mine is supposed to arrive on Thursday. What is the best way to carry it? Not interested in putting it in pants pocket. I may order a new sports coat so I can keep it close to my heart...

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

ok, so after a couple of hours of play:

1. for some reason it takes an age to acquire an IP from my netgear router (sems to have to try many times, not sure if that's the phone or the router, but n900 never had any such problems). Once it eventually connects, it seems to hold the connection fine - slightly better than N900 in the semi-dead spot in my bedroom.

2. screen is very impressive, tried it with an xvid DVD rip, iPlayer and some youTube content, and it looked great particularly with HD content. I did notice some quite severe horizontal banding on the iPlayer (frozen planet episode #3, right near the start when the polar bear is swimming - the sky above seemed to have bands that fluctuated with the audio on the soundtrack? The android iPlayer app also sucks - if you tap the screen during playback (to pause or skip ahead etc) then the overlaid status bar seems to get stuck on - it doesn't auto hide again, WTF? Anyway, these are minor quibbles. The samsung video clip pre-loaded really shows the capability of the screen, trully awsome.

3. sound is ok but not as loud as I'd been expecting based on some reviews - pretty similar max volume level to n900. On speaker, it has a bit more bass than n900, which I like - but it's mono & the speaker is on the back, so muffled unless you flip the phone over when playing. I love the N900 stereo, and it still sounds more "spacial" and is generally a better audio experience (if a bit thin & tinny for serious listening). Through the supplied (white!!) headphones the quality is ok.

4. memory - I was a bit surprised on 2 counts ... reviews had mentioned the pack included a 2GB microSD, but no sign of that (I guess that must be country specific, or was just for pre-release review samples?). Secondly, it's a 16GB internal memory, but only 11GB free to use for general user files & data out of the box. I should have expected this I guess, but I'd hoped for a bit more. Oh well, 32GB microSD on order from Amazon at £26 so no problems. I resisted the 64GBeven though I also saw a review confirming that it works in the Note: £100 is stil too much for a memory card :-)

5. The S-pen is very fiddly, it's quite hard to extract it from it's slot and near impossible to locate the black on black button without close scrutiny (why they didn't make the button yellow or whatever I have no idea). I'm not yet used to it, it's quite fluid and fast reacting but the "nib" can be a bit tricky to place at the point on screen you actually intend when doing fine work. I just noticed in settings that you can set it up for "dominant" hand (left/right) and I'm a leftie. Just made that setting, I'll see if it improves things.

6.web surfing is a joy. I've had a go on the native browser and also downloaded Opera mobile (which I was a huge fan of on n900 owing to reflow). Opera still has some benefit on the note for the occasional text heavy site with small fonts (my eyesight is not great) and for forcing desktop sites to load when desired, but for the vast majority of content the native browser is pretty darned good, renders very quickly and beautifully clear & smooth when scrolling around.

7. VKB - I've never had to use one before as I was a smartphone virgin when I got the N900. the note's VKB is nice and big but (for now at least) it remains vastly inferior to the real thing. I am sure I'll get used to it but I haven't yet got up to speed with swype or predictive text (which is currently annoying the pants off me). Anyway, it's basically usable which is as much as I was expecting.

8. apps - bearing in mind I've never used android before and I've been exposed to the "app hatred" culture that wafts around TMO, I was half expecting to be annoyed by the 10000 fart apps etc. on offer with no decent "serious" software to be had for free. So far, however I've been pleasantly surprised. I've downloaded:

- pocketCloud (VNC/RDP client) which is just superb on the big screen, presencerVNC on n900 is a great app but pocketCloud has a virtual pointer that's really useful and in general I'm already finding I can do any remote access tasks more quickly and confidently than on N900 (I've used the s-pen at first as I was accustomed to that on n900, and I'll continue that for any delicate work, but TBH pinch zoom and fingers are pretty accurate too).

- some random Wake on LAN app, does what it says on the tin!

- dropbox: very nice, one click shortcut on the desktop to my often used subfolders. Which reminds me - freoffice/gnumeric etc. were just about liveable with on n900, so polaris office on the note is such a pleasure to use. I am no MS lover but politics aside I'm glad to finally have a bundled office app that appears to "just work" (only thing it failed on so far was a complex spreadsheet graph where the source sheet did some jiggery pokery to have the graph display the mid-portion of a 20 year monthly timeline, while polaris shows it from the axis origin - a small point and nowt to complain about, the same graph wouldn't display at all on my N900!).

- tvCatchup (have to suffer the adverts now unlike tvcplayer, but the big screen view compensates for that).

- skype (have only done a call to test service so no real feedback there yet)

- grooveshark: the free version is crippled, booo! I also noticed that there are some very minor glitches in playback when its running in the background in the native browser via the full desktop Grooveshark site (just a very slight pop or click as another internet related action is being performed. Again, nothign to complain about).

- the only big ommission from my regular n900 "apps" is openVPN. I know that's avalable for android but it needs rooting and I'm not quite at the point of being willing to do that yet (owing both to my own novice status on android and the newness of the note). Hopefully I'll take the plunge fairly soon though once I have confidence in the rooting process and my note has had a monto or so to shake out any potential manufacturing niggles that might need the warranty.

9. O/S: as I say I was an android virgin. What can I say? .. maemo had totally spoiled me for the past two years, android is a poorly organised jumble of cr@p by comparison :-) I'm still coming to terms with the pretend multi-tasking, though at least I've found out how to exit unwanted apps from memory! having said that, I have to concede that with all the memory and processing power on the note, it's still great to flick between open app's without any of the n900's slow response under load. I think that when the note gets the promised Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade, I'll probably be happy enough to live with it as I'm a pragmatist.

10. last (but certainly not least) SIZE: I did a pretty exhaustive physical test with the phone in the shop before buying it - made sure to arrive in a reasonably slim fitting pair of jeans (by no means hipsters, but tighter than the jeans I normally wear) and I di a bit of walking around with the phone in my pocket & headphones plugged in and doing a lot of sitting & standing and grabbing the phone as if it was being called. It is not at all bad, quite comfy in fact. In the hand, it's still undeniably big but I'm 6 foot tall and I don't see it as unacceptably big, though I'll certainly be using the headset to answer calls where possible :-) Its width does make one handed portrait use slightly tricky - I can more or less access all of the screen with my thumb but to do so does involve balancing the phone in the hand with a looser grip than I'd like. I was always a landscape-only user of n900, but I'm finding I use the auto-rotate on the note a lot already to best suit the task I'm performing.

Whats in a name? I'm already calling my note "The Phablet", but my wife just calls it the "giganto-phone" and laughs :-)

oh and an afterthought - I frequently used the n900 as a torch with the flashlight status bar applet. The note has a flashlight too (hidden away under "accessibility" settings). It is a bit fiddly to access (though you can put accessibility in the power key menu which helps a bit) but the light from the LED is really powerful.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

after that long post, just wanted to briefly add that I went straight from a Nokia 3310 to the n900 as I'd refused ever to upgrade my mobile phone until Ifound what Iconsidered to be a fully converged device. The N900 has been exactly that, I could not have been happier with it's performance and functionality and I still love it dearly. However, N900 did gradually indoctrinate me into relying almost exclusively on my mobile phone for most computing & communications tasks. It's largely because of that that I now feel the need for the much larger (but still pocketable) screen & higher resolution, as I spend way too much of my life peering at the N900 screen these days. For me the Note is now the best form factor, as it will make the hours of reading books/websites/remote server screens much more pleasant on the eye. It's not an N900 beater on by other measure, but in the end, size DOES matter, and the note might just manage to converge another device (my desktop PC) out of existance - or at least into the spare room, instead of whirring away connected to the big screen TV in the loaunge!.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

How about comparing to this
http://thetechjournal.com/electronic...c-tablet.xhtml
if it ever comes out.
It triple boots android, winho's and meego
http://www.evolvethree.com.au/produc...nvertible.html

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

I'm still using 2 year old N900 as my primary mobile. I've not found any replacement for this. I was excited about N9 but MeeGo's future is no so bright. So I think my next device will be Android. Galaxy Note looks very attractive and has great spec too. But I like hardware keyboard which is missing on Note. I'll be getting a Galaxy Note review device from Samsung within 1-2 days. I'll share my experience after using it.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

@pigro, cc debranardis, chuck norris

Any chance you checked out Polaris?

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

whats that? nope, since i dont know what it is. :D

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

buried in my long post above, I did mention that I had viewed a couple of documents and spreadsheets via polaris. I haven't had time to do anything beyond just a quick look to verify that it is displaying the documents correctly (it is, except for one spreadsheet with embedded graphs where the displayed portion of the graph is not the same as on Exel. I haven't edited or created ay new office docs yet. One thing I did notice is that it has a print option but if you try it says it on;y works with Samsung printers.

If you have any specific questions post them and I'll try to answer.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

had a quick look on uSwitch but can't see anything other than network subsidised contracts for the note - got a link? Just curious to know how much they are selling the 32GB for as I'd dearly have loved the extra onboard space if CPW had had one available.

Oh and - Nervous, why?

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

It's a document/excel/ppt editor that is preinstalled on NOTE (I think).

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

I have used it for a while and its working very well. Read edit end create. I have not used alll the advanced features. Played around with docs and ppt. Great app.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

@Pigro Did you try sip calls on Note?

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

No, I don't have a sip account. I have Skype but I haven't tried it yet other than for a quick call to the echo test service. Planning to try Skype video tomorrow.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

@mscion:
Polaris is nice but has drawbacks. It does not open several doc files I was able to open with Thinkfree office (bundled with the Galaxy Tab), but when opens a file, shows it in the same graphical format it was intended, while Thinkfree shows kind of a text version.

One problem of Polaris is that when a doc document has an email address (which Word or similar programs tend to automagically transform in a mailto: link), it truncates the document parsing. Unbelievable and quite disturbing.

Presentations seem to open nicely. I haven't edited one yet.

I dearly hope in libreoffice for android, which has been announced.

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

Skype performance (video call over my home LAN to a win7 laptop with video quality set to high) was really excellent. used about 15% CPU on the note for the video chat, so it was still very responsive, I could mess around on the web and email etc. concurrently no bother at all.

I also tried it with the note & N900, video call worked fine too (at both ends).

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

After 2 years with my N900 I decided it was time for a change, there are areas that the N900 is showing it's age. My bitter disappointment with Nokia abandoning NIT/Maemo/MeeGo meant I started looking for alternatives, none really existed, which meant compromising and going with an N9, until I saw the Note. From a pure hardware perspective it looked a too good a device to pass up on, I don't like the idea of multiple devices, i.e. tablet, smart phone etc. I done some reading on Android and looked into some reviews of the Note, and decided to bite the bullet, my initial thoughts below:

• The display is simply stunning, the sheer size, HD display, contrast, black levels, sharpness are outstanding. Concerns about the Pentile display can be disregarded, I don't care what the pixels look like magnified 50 times over or the science behind it, real world viewing is what counts, and it is brilliant. My personal opinion is that this is the best display on a mobile device, including Apple's Retina display. That said there are two issues that I've noticed, white pages on a browser keep changing shades, very strange, doesn't really happen on anything else for me, as I'm convinced it's a software issue, I'm not too bothered at present. Due to how good the screen is unfortunately standard definition or low bit rate content can look very poor, especially blacks, which will have blocky artifacts and washed out greys, but the HD demo video that comes with the device proves it is an issue with the content not display.

• The display translates into unparalleled web browsing, the stock Samsung browser is GPU accelerated, Flash heavy web pages open up very very fast and without any issues, I've never seen Flash working so flawlessly on a portable device! Browsing the web is epic on the Note, it's made even better with the Opera browser that has perfect text re-flow, on demand Flash, intelligent link handling. The Note was made for the web

• The S-Pen can be used anywhere, it works well without any lag. The applications like S-Memo are a little basic at the moment, but with Samsung releasing the API already, I'm sure developers will come up with some great applications. It has the potential to replace a notebook, just needs the right software. The only two issues I've found with the S-Pen are that it doesn't start exactly from the tip when you start drawing, but slightly above the tip, nothing that can't be fixed. Also if you lean with your hand on the screen it may register as input!

• The 8MP camera and 1080p HD recording are great, nothing much more to be said here.

• The navigation deserves a very special mention, the device's chip set supports both GPS and GLONASS (Russian alternative), and hand's down it's the best navigation implementation I've seen from a mobile device, I can easily get a lock within seconds from indoors sitting away from a window. Again the screen size and pixel density means viewing maps on this is simply excellent and an unmatched experience. I believe the Note can replace dedicated Sat Nav device without any problem.

• It's got Polaris Office installed by default, had no problems opening Word documents, installed Adobe Reader to read the PDF manual, with over 100 pages, zips through that without any problems.

• It's a really nice size to be a e-book reader or Kindle replacement. Using something like FBReader with Night Mode means the text is white and background is black, as the AMOLED screen switches off the LED pixels for black colour, what this means is eye strain is greatly reduced for a backlit display, making it I think the next best thing to an E-Ink display for reading.

• Another area where the display truly shines is gaming, I've got one or two on here and all I can say is that the Note has the potential to be best in class for gaming!

• Battery life is important to me, as it's the one big thing that my N900 lacks. Coming from the N900 I was really impressed, after about 3 discharge cycles I can get 5/6 hours of web browsing with the screen on before low battery (10%), I think that's quite a feat given the display it has to power. Bear in mind that I don't have a SIM card in it at the moment and I am running it in Flight Mode with Wi-Fi turned on.

• I'll make it clear now, Android is no Maemo, and I am struggling with it despite all the favourable points above. Multi-tasking, if you can call it that, is rubbish, nothing beats Maemo for real multi-tasking and Shortcutd on the N900 for task switching. No root access out of the box, looking at some of the Android rooting/ROM guides, they don't look particularly straightforward and very messy. The magic of D-Bus for things like integrated messaging/IM/Skype gone. Although Android uses a Linux Kernel it doesn't support the full set of GNU libraries and no X Windows. No FM transmitter like the N900 that I love. No running of desktop Java applications like JDownloader, I'm going to miss this sorely.

I'll update the thread as and when I have more time with the device. I really wished Nokia had kept Maemo and paired it with the kind of hardware the Note has (plus a physical keyboard!). I will move to the Note being my main phone, but I will keep the N900 within arm's reach too, as even two years later it's simply irreplaceable, outstanding really given the almost monthly depreciation of smart phones.

The only unanswered question in all of this is, why Nokia, why?

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

You have missed the free asphalt 6 HD free from samsung apps. Cant stopp playng...

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

It's a software issue and is due to its charge saving algorythm. Go to the Display properties and uncheck charge saving, and it's over :)

This works :)

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

My trusty old N900 still works for now, but so orphaned it makes me sad.

The Galaxy Note is the first phone that make me feel like changing horses -- probably because it's "different", in its own way.

I have spent enough time with a 7" Galaxy Tab to know what to expect on the Android side.
It won't be any match for Maemo, but the hardware is too good to pass by...

Re: Samsung Galaxy Note
 

I have Note for 24 hrs now and I can only second everything Rav wrote above.

What I'm really happy about is that the Graffiti Pro by Access Co. runs so smoothly as input method. It's the real good old Palm experience!

https://picasaweb.google.com/1184025...74084429408754

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