Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

With my N900 slowly fading, being a headphone killer it has killed 3 of my headphones. The latest casualty is the Nokia BH 905. I am searching for a new powerful device that is future proof for atleast 3-4 years. I am always a big screen fan and I always use my smartphone for daily purposes like

1) GPS
2) Internet
3) Music
4) Taking immediate notes and
5) Sometimes watching videos

Should I throw my money on Galaxy Note-2 that will be released sometime by the end of September? I don't like the look of Galaxy S3.

I usually prefer WP8 over Android devices. But time is running short, don't know how much more time next generation Lumias (920 and 820) will be available in market. If these devices take 2-3 months, I can't wait that long.

So what is your openion on GS Note-2?

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

You will regret buying a Note.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

definitely......may be!

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

show your palm and i'll read the future

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

I picked up a pre-owned Galaxy Note last month. Running CM10 Paranoid Android on it with the homebrew GNote apk, Memo for S-Pen and Freenote, and I love it to bits. Gives me the same "oooh nice!" sensation I had with my old SE P900 and Nokia E90 :)

Cannot see any reason to lash out on a GN-2 while there are cheap GN's out there to be had.

Superb camera that sparks up instantly, and 1080p video recording that doesn't miss a beat. Video playback of anything you chuck at it (e.g. streaming DVB-S over WLAN using TVHeadEnd and the TVHGuide APK ; a dedicated TVH client) or indeed XBMC native on the phone. It's really a fantastic piece of kit.

Battery life is very decent too, although it suffers in the same way the N900 suffers in the fact that it is so good that it encourages you to spend more time on it, hence battery drains quicker :)

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

Nope. Played around with a Note a few weeks ago, and it was really nice to use, assuming you had somewhere to put it in.

It's definitely awkward to use Phone-mode Android on it though, and Paranoid Android just doesn't cut it for me. It's simply too awkward. Ubuntu Unity native on it would rock the socks off everything else.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

The NOTE 2 is a slightly upgraded NOTE.

-Slightly better OS
-Slightly faster SoC (32nm, Quadcore, 2GB RAM)
-Slightly more polished (fatter S PEN, new S-Features, microSD above battery, Notifications light, slightly better camera, better screen).
All-in-all, its not a device worthy to upgrade from the NOTE 1.

If you don't have a NOTE 1, by all means go for it.
Android will be very clunky at first (coming from Maemo), but its got full of features and is getting better and better.

The Google ecosystem is also great. The only thing you can regret is price, availability and software upgrades (more than Nokia's support though). You can also chroot Ubuntu and get a fairly featured experience.

The next Android Kernel, version 3.4, will be joining the Mainline Linux kernel.
And there is an effort to port Qt-framework into Android OS. Soon you can dualboot into a (castrated) distro on the same stock kernel, or simply do Terminal and C++ processing from within. So despite the short comings, Android is the future. Sorry MeeGo, Mer, Tizen, Jolla won't be.

PS If you buy a Lumia device, even with WP8, you will regret it deeply. Its a "boxy iOS" with no relation to Maemo or N900, whereas there's some overlap with Android devices.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

Why can you elucidate?

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

I am 6'1 so my palm is big enough. For me single handed operation isn't important

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

A "mobile phone" is supposed to be portable and very easy to use anywhere. The Note, while it has all the good features you'd want, doesn't exactly fit that category. You can't keep it in your pocket and not be bothered by it. Also, it's very awkward to receive calls on it.

Having said that, if you are someone who can carry it in a leather case around in your hand, then it's alright. Also, since you're carrying it around like a tablet, you can use headphones to make your calls. So it's not much of an issue.

It's all a matter of personal choice, really.. I'd say use it for a while.. try out every scenario you'd use it in.. make quick phone calls, pretend to urgently look up something or take notes.. send messages, etc.. then you'll know if you want to buy it.

The videos never do any device any justice. Other people's opinion matter, but only to an extent.. since you're the one who'll own the device, go ahead and actually use it first.. maybe you'll love it or maybe not.

Good luck!

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

Android and "future-proof" don't quite go together. Nexus One is only 2 1/2 years old, where is it now?

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

@flopjoke

You're comment isn't correct.
I own an N900 and a NOTE. The NOTE is definitely wide and long, however it is also very thin. It's also not too wide, it fits into all my jeans pockets.

No, it doesn't look rediculous when making a phone call. And it can be used with one hand. The NOTE isn't a tablet or a "phablet". It's an oversized smartphone with a pen, and it strikes the perfect dimensions for me. In fact, the N900 feels more bulky in my jeans because of its thickness, so go figure.

But yes, definitely try before you buy. See if "the BEAST" is for you.

It runs some stripped down Linux distros.
It has every* version of Android on it (2.1, 2.1.1, 2.2, 2.21, 2.3, 2.3.1, 2.3.2, 2.3.3, 2.3.4, 2.3.5, 2.3.6, 2.3.7, 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.1, 4.1.1). It has all the popular Android builds on it (CMod, AOKP, MIUI, etc). It has many chroot applications.

For a 2.5 year old device, its working particularly well.
Compare it to the iPhone 3GS, and you begin to acknowledge how limited iOS is.
And what about the HTC HD2, that came with WinMo6. It runs everything from Android to MeeGo.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

@Threadstarter
If you don't like the look of the S3, why do you like the Note2? it looks exactly like an S3 increased in size by 15%.
If I had known that the Note2 will be slightly smaller than the Note I would have waited for it instead buying an S3.
I don't think youll regret buying a Note2

@Kangal
2x the Ram
2 more Cores at 30% higher Clock
1024 instead of 256 pressure levels SPen
Hugely improved Software for S-Pen (see engadget)
Super Amoled with completely new pixel layout
I hardly call this a slight improvement, more like MASSIVE.
But your reaction is typical for owners of soon to be outdated devices. I often feel the same way:)

I'll prolly buy a Note2 next year when it's under €500

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

@Kangal it's wide but it's not wide? It's not ridiculous but it's over-sized? You contradict yourself.

Compared to what a typical smartphone should be like, it is a bit on the extreme side. Also, my comment is correct, because I said it's a personal choice. If you like it, good.. if you don't then it's ok, there are other phones.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

@flop
No, you didn't comprehend it. The SGS3 is considered a big phone, and the Note is both wider and longer than it. However, its actually not too wide that it doesn't fit into pockets. I use a cover and it still fits into every pocket I have because I don't dress like a metro with skinnies.
Your comment makes it sound like the Note doesn't fit into the average pocket, or the average head which is not true. Though you can argue it doesn't fit to average hands.

2GB RAM does nothing 1GB RAM can't do. Its not a bottleneck.
The GPUs are equal.
Most of the time the Quadcores are shut, so most of the time performance will be equal.
1.6GHz is faster than 1.4GHz... and mines over locked to 1.6GHz and barely needs to run full throttle. So even at top speed theyre equal.
The screen is much better, but it isn't RGB so don't celebrate early.

= there's just no way around it, they perform equal in many circumstances. Its a refinement, not a major upgrade. The advantage of Note2 is that its future proof. While the Note1 will get stuck on 1.7GHz and Jelly Bean, the Note2 can go better like 1.9GHz and KeyLimePie.

If you think I'm biased because I feel ripped off from my Note1 then you are mistaken. I'm completely objective on the matter. In fact I've had my OG for a year now, so I was eagerly waiting to upgrade, if anything I'm biased against the Note1 which has so much untapped potential.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

Openion differs.
This is the only comparision I have with Galaxy Note-2 and S3 and you can see the clear difference. Note-2 looks much better than S3. S3 looks totally messed up specially from side as if it has got an irregular shape and then Note-2 looks only marginally larger than S3 but it has very less bazel

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

I'd still say use it, use it, use it a LOT.. Try out everything.. Before buying it. Whether it's average or not, whether the pics do it justice.. Whoever wants to buy it, read all info here.. Then go Use it and create your own opinion. That way, you'll know exactly what you're paying for.

unless it's N9. Then it's always the best phone :D

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

That is the problem bro. You can't use it before buying, thats why I created this thread. Everything about Galaxy S3 is uneven. Not only its corners but its top edge its side edge, everything is uneven. It looks like someone designed something with clay. But the look and feel of Note-2 is thousand times better than S3. The design of Galaxy S2 is marvalous (Although apple cliams that it copied the design from iPhone 4)

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

I was once considering to buy a note, because I'm a big fan of stylus input. I eventually decided against it because:
- Wacom+Capacitive is not the same as a resistive screen. You get the worst from capacitive (too sensitive) and the worst from Wacom (non-uniform sensitivity in the borders), and you still can't use the screen with nails or any other objects. So if you are looking for a replacement of a resistive screen -- it won't do for you.
- Android sucks. Even totally broken WP looks better to me. If you're coming from a N900 you will surely miss multitasking.
- Battery life reviews putting it worse than N900.
- Too thin (very very fragile-looking, enough to get me stressed about the idea of putting in my pockets).
- Price.
(I eventually bought a N9).

By the way, the Note 2 does look like another iPhone to me.... I ponder when will they stop using butt ugly Apple-like rounded corners.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

TC, if you want to buy an Android phone and experience the true Android to its fullest (plus having the new updates first) then go straight to Galaxy Nexus.

imo

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

Note 1 :
1) It might not fit into ladies pants pockets, it's designed to be smaller and more shallow than men's pockets
2) It also might not fit into average pockets of Asians, smaller height & size ;)
3) It is most certainly very large for the average Asian hand to hold if one wants to use it single handed.
Note 2 I havent seen, not released yet in my country.
____________________________________
As for thread starter, isnt there a display set for you to test out ? Samsung has the funds to even put up a few, if I want I can play with it many minutes if there are few customers in the shop.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

Nothing will beat resistive but resistive was killed by iPhones going so heavily to capacitive and everyone followed. Ah well. Ive used the Note's screen and it is very good with the pen. Yeah not as good as resistive but oh well.

Android doesn't suck. It has multi-tasking that works very well. Jumping from an N900 to an N9 then to a Galaxy Nexus. Yeah I miss the Swipe UI but I have gotten used to Android and I do like it alot! Its customisable there's heavy community development and Google actually supports Android unlike friggin Nokia..

Too thin is just a joke. The devices don't bend, your just picking at anything you can to put the device down now :P

They don't bend, snap, crack from going into pockets.. You think Samsung or any top phone manufacturer would release a phone that can't stand in and out of pocket use? No..

At release even the N9 was OVERPRICED!

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

@Javispedro are your fingertips hydrated enough? I can proficiently operate the capacitative screen of my Note 1 with finger nails if I want to. I have tested all 10 of them. Might be you should drink more water, and eat your vegetables? ;-)
Seriously, I don't have any problem with the stylus, not even near screen edges. Maybe you tested a slightly defective unit, or more recent firmwares have better performance.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

It's funny that you were to say this. At this moment I'm at my office surrounded by 2 empty 1.5 liter bottles of water, and a 3rd one which is half-empty already, and thinking about going to buy another 6-pack.
People that don't know me often think that I drink a dangerous amount of water.

And no, I can't use my nails. :)

Well, I don't want to troll, but Android doesn't have multitasking. Randomly switching between the builtin RSS/Google reader app and the browser app sometimes causes one of the two to lose its state. Losing the browser app's state means reloading all tabs. A total bummer if I just went outside of the range of Wi-Fi with some selection of ~50 tabs that I was going to read.
If the browser app hangs (and I can make it hang by just tapping on a HTML5 video without a active connection) then I cannot switch out of the task until the Not responding prompt shows up (and it DOES take its time).
You cannot really open more than one window for an app. Sometimes I've resorted to using two IM apps in order to have two IM windows open...
You cannot really force an application to go back to the initial state (which can be done with close & relaunch on true multitasking platforms and a plain relaunch on WP). The Google guidelines now mandate an extraneous additional totally non-discoverable "back button" in the top-left corner of the UI (apart from the hardware one) to try and fix this issue, but I find it a poor replacement and is not even implement on all of Google's own apps.
It is not guaranteed for an application to simply put, continue doing what it is doing when it is backgrounded. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they do not. Sometimes they do but they do NOT appear in the "open apps" list which appears under settings (what does it exactly list?). No logic at all. Same when suspending.
The entire system is designed with this monotasking in mind (global back button, "activities" concept, "recent apps" instead of "open apps", etc.).

I hate it. Now, you might say that monotasking works for you. Which I understand, because I've been there, as a 10-year user of PalmOS devices (they were technically "multitasking" too). But if you come from a N900 background, you will face a _big_ time getting used to this crap, and I must warn that for some weeks you will keep on trying to do things that were taken for granted on the N900 or even on the N9.
If you get used to it -- perfect.
If you don't, then you will spend all the time cursing the damn thing all while thinking why should I force me through this clearly inferior solution (specially having already done ONCE the opposite transition -- from PalmOS to a Nokia Internet Tablet).

</rant>.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

Not gonna quote your entire post.

But yeah, I see what you mean by not true multi-tasking. Also what works for some doesn't for others. For me though, it gets the job done.

Im sure itl'l be improved in a future release, and that's my reason for liking Android atm, it has a company backing it, as much as I love what the community did with the N900, it would have been a hell of a lot better if Nokia had worked with us! Things that we legally couldn't modify they would be able to ect.

Also I haven't seen any major flaws with android compared to my N9. Besides missing the swipe UI I have my needed apps (like 10 :P) also my double tap the screen to get to lockscreen is there. Nice battery life and solid performance. Tbh there isn't much more I expected from this Nexus and I am happy with it.

When I got my N9 I was happy but disappointed as I felt it wasn't anywhere near what it could have been if Nokia had just kept at it! But that's life. I will see how Jolla pan out but as it stands Android is perfectly suitable to replace my N9 as my daily phone :)

PS. The N9 still gets a good playing with when I am at home, I need my terminal fix otherwise ill feel depressed :p

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

As my N900 is slowly dying with more and more no-simcard-errors I'm looking for a replacement. Thus I have a few questions regarding chroot on a Galaxy Note:

• Can I switch between the chroot and normal android apps without the chroot shutting down?

• Does networking from chroot over 3G and WLAN work?

• Inside the chroot there should be full multitasking, right?

• Do bluetooth keyboard and mouse work in the chroot environment?

• Is chrooting on an Galaxy Note limited in any way compared to the easy debian method on the N900?

• How does running a chroot affect battery life?

I guess right now support for the Galaxy Note N7000 is better than support fort the Galaxy Note II N7100. But I suppose that will change soon and 2 GB of RAM and a quad core processor over 1 GB and dual core should be reason enough to choose the N7100 over the N7000.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

My N900 is slowly dying as well (phone-use wise)

I have the N9 but it's not the same experience.
waiting for an awesome Jolla qwerty masterpiece! (I hope)

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

You can switch without shutting down.
Networking works with either connection.
Inside the chroot you get full multitasking, yes, just like in easy Debian.
I didn't try Bluetooth devices, and so cannot comment on them.
It works more or less like easy Debian, but it is less advanced in it's interface, because so far you first manually start your chroot, then manually open VNC and operate inside; also, you haven't direct icons in your Android app drawer to open single Debian apps.
And, concerning battery life, in my own experience it does not seem affected at all. Keeping Debian or Ubuntu open in the background doesn't use that many CPU cycles unless you are running heavy programs inside.

A: Definitely not!!!!/Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

I had a N 900 and now I use a Note 1. I gave up my N900 for Toshiba TG01, but this was an awful experience from my beautiful N900. Being a Toshiba fan (I own a laptop from them as well) when they released the first android tablet I enjoyed the idea of all the bells and whistles, but I realized very fast that 10" was to big for me (while watching the movies I had to make the player screen smaller). I was a bit worried in the beginning about the size, but to be honest I want a bit more but 5.5 is not enough. My ideal size would be 5.8-6" now for the biggest smartphone ;) LOL. Well may be I will get a nexus 7 in the end.
Note is god to replace the smartphone and the tablet as well. i need bigger screen only for 2 page scanned pdf files an a bit of comfort while reading this type of document.
It is not awkward to use it as a phone as well, although I prefer to use headphones.
It is a good size to take it with you everywhere. It has a great developers community. At the moment I use Rocket Rom ics with a bit of jelly bean of flavor (which I love).
From my point of view, if you don't need higher ram and processor the next difference between note 1 and 2 is default jelly bean and for sure future upgrades you can buy as well a Note 1 for a cheaper price and upgrade if you like it to Note 3!

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

I'm right now looking to purchase a NOTE-2.

It's going to be a present, but I'm looking for some "hands on" time with it first.

Re: Will I regret buying a Galaxy Note-2?
 

debranardis addressed most of your questions but in regards to bluetooth, it works fine both in android and in chroot. Although I didn't try a mouse my bluetooth keyboard has a touch pad that contols the cursor so that I could open apps on Android and also use in ubuntu.
One major drawback with the VNC is that it does not send audio but you can play media or use browser in android and still use ubuntu at same time (the apps Overskreen and and stickit! are really useful for this).

While, I'm quite happy with the GN1 I will probably get the GN2 once they come out with 64GB version.