Key Specifications
Review Price: £549.995.5in HD amoled screen1.6GHz, quad-core processorNew S Pen stylus with 1024 pressure levels2GB RAM720 x 1,280 px resolutionRead the latest news on the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 3
Samsung Galaxy note 2 Introduction
Think the iPhone 5 is a weakling of a mobile, and that even the Samsung Galaxy S3 could vì chưng with gaining a few curves? The Samsung Galaxy note 2 may be what you’re after. Thanks to its 5.5in screen, it’s a phone so large that some people can’t decide whether it’s a phone or a tablet.
Bạn đang xem: Đánh giá samsung note 2
It does demand man-sized hands or a handbag to slot into your life easily. But the large screen và its great stylus make it one of the most desirable điện thoại devices around. At around £549.99, it’s £50 more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S3, but you can’t complain too much given the extra features and screen inches you get here.
Samsung Galaxy note 2 video Review
Samsung Galaxy cảnh báo 2 Design
The Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 looks và feels a lot like a larger Samsung Galaxy S3, with aesthetic trimmings closer to the điện thoại cảm ứng thông minh flagship than the first Galaxy Note. A host of little kiến thiết tweaks have been made khổng lồ bring the chú ý series lớn bring in-line with Samsung’s 2012 devices.
There’s no sugar-coating the truth, though. If you have small hands or wear femur-hugging skinny jeans the Samsung Galaxy note 2 will pose a logistical problem or two, & may have lớn be consigned khổng lồ the handbag for transportation.
However, Samsung has made some seriously handy design improvements that minimise the kích cỡ issues for most people. The buttons along its sides, which control volume và power, have been lowered a little. Those bearing at least mid-sized man-hands will be able to lớn operate the basics without shifting grip. Và we couldn’t say that about the original Note.
The basic construction of the Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 is typical Samsung. Its rear is covered with a thin plastic battery cover, & while the sides are metallic in finish, they are made of plastic.
The Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 is a phone that looks less geeky than its predecessor, while keeping the thiết kế nods that techies will love. However, these days it doesn’t need that many connectors to keep up its tech cred.
The most important accessory of all, though, is one that slots perfectly into the Samsung Galaxy note 2 – the re-designed S Pen stylus. Unlike the original S Pen, it features a triangular stem design for improved ergonomics, has a select button on one of its sides and has a rubber tip. Its tech specs have been significantly improved too.
It lives in a little cubby hole at the bottom of the device, & the lưu ý 2 even notifies you with a bleat if you leave without it. This is done using a clever bộ combo of the Wacom digitiser that makes the stylus so clever, và the phone’s accelerometer judging when you’ve walked away with the device. We’ll cover the positive effects of the other S Pen changes later.
Samsung Galaxy cảnh báo 2 ScreenThe leading feature for any phone this form size has to lớn be the screen. The Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 display is a giant 5.5in across, up from the 5.3in of its predecessor.
Some aspects of the screen are a little surprising. Although larger, it’s actually lower in resolution than the first Galaxy lưu ý – 720 x 1,280 pixels rather than 800 x 1,280 pixels. That’s the very same resolution as the Samsung Galaxy S3.
The Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 hasn’t gone full RGB in its subpixel array, but there is a radical difference. Now, a thin xanh subpixel and red/green subpixels khung a little box. With no subpixel syncopation – so to speak – there are no real clarity problems. With 267dpi, you can just about discern pixel structure if you get your eyeball right up close lớn the Gorilla Glass, but in anything approaching normal use it’s no problem.
AMOLED screens bởi not use universal backlights, giving the tablet effectively infinity contrast as black areas stay completely black. Colours are slightly oversaturated, but take into a darkened room, the benefits of an OLED screen are obvious. With LCD-based screens like the iPhone 5’s, đen parts of an image always look a little grey in a darkened room, but not so here.
It may lose out on resolution lớn some of the top-end smartphones of today, but in uses where top-quality screens come into their own, the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2 is a complete star. A 5.5in screen offers a much more satisfying movie-watching experience than an iPhone 5’s 4-incher, và the rich contrast of Super AMOLED Plus makes dark movie scenes in particular look fantastic.
Colours are a little less natural than those of something like the IPS screened điện thoại htc One X in the phone’s standard setting, but delve through the Settings menu and you’ll find some indispensable colour temperature/saturation settings. There are four, including two far less saturated than you’ll see fresh out of the box.
Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 Interface & UsabilityWith apk 4.1 Jelly Bean working at the heart of the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2, this giant điện thoại is impressively up-to-date. It’s also very quick.
The Samsung Galaxy note 2 uses a powerful quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos 4412 processor that’s a mite faster than the 1.4GHz CPU of the Samsung Galaxy S3, và has 2GB of RAM while the other big players made vày with 1GB.
When this spec teams-up with the Project Butter initiative of android Jelly Bean, what results is one seriously smooth phone. Project Butter’s aim is to maker more intensive use of processor power nguồn during moments of strain, to lớn make apk run at 60fps.
Those who have owned a Samsung điện thoại cảm ứng in the last few years will be familiar with the basic parts of TouchWiz here. The Samsung UI does not change the basic parts of game android Jelly Bean 4.1 – you have seven trang chủ screens and a largely vanilla apps ‘n’ widgets menu.
TouchWiz brings its own set of tiện ích icons, a few handy widgets including a nice-looking clock & weather combo, and a custom lock screen. These are all minor changes compared khổng lồ the additional apps & stylus functionality Samsung has packed-in.
Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 S PenSamsung has completely redesigned the S-Pen for the Samsung Galaxy cảnh báo 2. The term S-Pen was introduced with the first Note, shorthand for the digitser styluses that make phone-tablets in this range so special.
The S-Pen is capable of so much more than a standard stylus because of the Wacom digitser built into the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2. This lets the phone sense differing levels of pressure from the pointer, và pinpoint the stylus’s position when it is some way away from the screen surface.
Both these aspects have improved significantly in the second-generation Note. The first cảnh báo can sense up khổng lồ 256 levels of pressure, the Samsung Galaxy note 2 can discern 1,024 – the same number as the Wacom Bamboo dedicated graphics tablets.
Arguably more important than these pure specs are the more experiential tweaks Samsung has made. The S-Pen is now an ergonomically-carved, triangular-stemmed thiết kế rather than a smooth cylinder, there’s a button on one of its sides & – here’s the real game-changer – the kết thúc is a rubberised nib with a little give lớn it. This softens its handwriting action, offering a much more smooth và natural feel than the original chú ý was ever capable of.
The Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 S-Pen stylus is a joy lớn use, simple as.
Samsung has done a great job of integrating its skills into the interface too. What’s most impressive is the sense of immediacy the S-Pen manages. Whip it out of its rabbit hole and you’re automatically taken lớn a bespoke S-Pen home screen. As standard this includes a quick to lớn the S-Note app, but like any home screen you can dress it as you please.
The S-Pen is at its best when used with the Samsung apps built into the phone. For example, the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2’s ability lớn identify the pen away from the screen is only presently useful in a fistful of apps. Samsung calls this functionality Air View.
In the S-Planner calendar, it brings up info about calendar events. In the thư điện tử app it pops-up the first few lines of an email. It brings up similar previews in the Gallery and video player too.
The excellent S-Pen does serve to lớn highlight that a few parts of the Samsung TouchWiz UI are a a bit flimsy and unnecessary, though. For example, you have the option to use accelerometer motion controls to control things such as the movements of home screens và pages within the Gallery.
These things have tip-toed along the thin border between pure gimmickery & neat extra features at the best of times, but in the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2 they fall right into tech trash can as over-the-top bits of fluff to lớn switch off within the Settings thực đơn as soon as possible.
The S-Pen, though, is an almost unadulterated success. Even in apps without full implemetation of its abilities, it can be used as an alternative to a finger – including casual games lượt thích Angry Birds Space. The one issue is that only a very small number of apps can fully appreciate what it’s capable of.
Samsung says that the only apps fully certified for the new S-Pen stylus are some of those of the Samsung Apps portal, the secondary tiện ích store that sits alongside the Google Play phầm mềm store within the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2. However, we did find a number of Google Play apps that tư vấn pressure sensitivity, including relatively high-profile drawing tools like Sketchbook Mobile.
S-Note is the S-Pen’s “flagship” tiện ích though. Its lightweight name is also a bit misleading as it’s now quite a fully-featured suite – although one with an eye on lighter uses. Other than making notes using the Samsung keyboard’s optical character recognition, it’s intended to let you make mind maps, presentations và little works of art.
It’s also kid-friendly in parts. As well as adding photos and video art to lớn notes, you can use something called Idea Sketch. This lets you write the name of an object, and then pick a pre-drawn representation of it. The Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 offers three different cartoon cats, for example.
That’s not the kết thúc of the “S-flavour” features, either. We can’t forget about S Voice, the táo Siri equivalent that was partly responsible for getting Samsung dropped in $1billion’s worth of hot water in a recent court case.
A double tap on the central trang chủ button makes the S Voice app pop up. Ask it a question và it’ll vì chưng its best to lớn work out what you’re saying, as long as you have a network connection. All the calculations grunt work is done by Samsung’s servers.
The Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2’s S Voice isn’t quite up lớn the latest version of Siri seen in quả táo 6, though. Anything vaguely taxing will send you straight lớn a web search, making it of limited use.
Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 Contacts, Calling & BrowserThe Samsung Galaxy note 2 features what is by 2012 measures a fairly standard address book. Once the phone is hooked-up with Facebook and Twitter apps, you can harvest your contacts from those social networks, & any profile pics are automatically linked khổng lồ those people.
It’s easy enough khổng lồ merge duplicated contacts from different networks too, making setup a doddle. If you’re already an game android user, the Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 will also grab contacts linked to lớn your Google account. Extra ways to lớn organise your contacts include groups và favourites.
Earpiece sound focuses on the low & mid-range frequencies, making people’s voices sound nice & beefy. However, the Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 could arguably vày with a slight treble bump khổng lồ make its điện thoại tư vấn experience shine even brighter.
Also, holding such a giant phone against your head does feel odd for the first few times. It’s just something you’ll have to embrace, or forever live in mild embarrassment.
One part of the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2 that only benefits from the phone’s kích thước is website browsing. Whether using the stylus or a finger, the browsing experience here is universally excellent.
Unlike most apk Jelly Bean 4.1 devices, the Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 doesn’t use Google Chrome as its inbuilt browser. Instead, it uses a Samsung alternative, with some visual bits consistent with the rest of the UI. Chrome is readily available to download from Google Play if you’d prefer, but according to lớn the Sunspider benchmark, both a similar level of performance. And both have “advanced” features including saving pages for offline reading and forced desktop mode.
Neither offers Adobe Flash support, though, which was officially crossed off the game android checklist when Jelly Bean was introduced. Adobe announced that it was stopped development for the game android platform, & now you can’t even download the version of the Adobe Flash player that used lớn be available on Google Play. The result – Flash-heavy websites won’t work.
Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 CameraUsing exactly the same camera sensor hardware as the Samsung Galaxy S3, the Galaxy note 2 has an 8-megapixel main camera, & a 1.9-megapixel user-facing one. The main sensor is also has an LED flash to lean on when it’s not too sunny. For the real camera geeks, it uses a fixed f/2.6 aperture with a focal length of 3.6mm. Notably, this isn’t quite as good as the f/2.4 aperture of the iPhone 5. A wider aperture sensor will give better low-light performance, as it can harvest more light in the same exposure window. However, camera performance is excellent given good lighting conditions.
Macro performance is decent, although minimum focusing length is around 15cm, which is far from the best among smartphones. Give the sensor enough room, though, và the level of detail it can render is respectable.
The Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 offers standard features such as cảm biến focusing, and control over ISO, metering và scene modes. Other modes you don’t get everywhere include a decent HDR mode, which merges together multiple exposure types to reveal more detail in very dark or light areas, a so-so panorama mode, burst mode & face detection.
Using a simple LED flash, the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2’s low light performance isn’t too remarkable, but it’ll suffice for the obligatory late-night BBQ and các buổi party shots.
Samsung Galaxy cảnh báo 2 MultimediaThe large screen of the Samsung Galaxy cảnh báo 2 makes this giant phone an obvious choice as a personal clip player, và it excels at the task. It can play most đoạn clip types, with tư vấn for Xvid, Divx and MKV. The only files it failed to play were our high bit-rate 1080p MKVs, which it spat out before even hitting the first frame.
Files lượt thích these can be played-back using a third-party truyền thông media player lượt thích MX Player, although performance will depend on which one you use và whether it offers hardware tư vấn for the note 2’s chipset. Even the quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos 4412 struggles with 42Mbps 1080p MKVs using software rendering.
Get your clip library in order, though, and both movies and TV episodes look fantastic. In the normal colour saturation mode, skin tones và bright clothing look thoroughly over-egged, but switch to the Natural or Movie mode within the main Settings menu & it’s hard to lớn beat as a movie buddy that fits in your pocket.
Like the Samsung Galaxy S3, the Galaxy note 2 also features video clip multitasking. From within the đoạn clip player app, you simply need to press a button within the transport bar lớn make the video clip pop-up as a resizeable overlay on đứng top of your home screen. It’ll stay there no matter what you’re doing, and can be zapped with just a couple of taps, much like an ứng dụng window in Windows.
Music tư vấn is much better than average too. If you’re a bit of a music fiend and have OGG and FLAC files in your library rather than just standard AAC and MP3 jobbies, you’ll have no problems with the Samsung Galaxy note 2.
The music player tiện ích is clean, clear & effective, avoiding any 3d nonsense lớn slow navigation down. You vì get a fairly comprehensive selection of equalisation & sound tweaking options, though.
The Music Player tiện ích offers a simple 7-band EQ, and extra controls for more involved bass và clarity modulators, plus reverb & 3D options (which we wouldn’t recommend touching with any brand of pole.) Samsung calls this the SoundAlive engine, và it comes with a dozen presets as well as a custom mode.
Much more importantly, the Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2 outputs clear, clean audio at a decent volume, so you won’t have khổng lồ max out the volume as soon as you start listening anywhere other than a quiet room.
The bundled headphones aren’t much to write about, but we rarely expect much of such things. They use an IEM-style design with not-all-that comfortable silicone tips, & have a fibrous-sounding treble that’s prone to lớn tripping over into harshness. However, bass response isn’t too bad, and we imagine that if you’re willing to spend £500 on a phone there’s a good chance you’ll already have your own pair of earphones or headphones anyway.
Samsung Galaxy cảnh báo 2 Battery Life & ConnectivityOne of the most impressive specs of the Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 is its 3100mAh battery. That’s a full 600mAh more than the original Galaxy Note, và it supplies this new mã sản phẩm with impressive stamina.
Set lớn playing a video file at full screen, with Wi-Fi and 3G switched off (this is out standard kiểm tra for tablet battery life) and screen brightness set khổng lồ 50 per cent, the Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2 lasted for just under 12 hours. That’s enough khổng lồ keep you entertained over the period of most long-haul flights, and is hugely impressive given how small & light the phone is. In normal use, as ever, the stamina will depend on approximately 376,000 thousand factors. Make judicious use of 3G and you can expect to lớn get a minimum of two solid days out of the Samsung Galaxy chú ý 2. Only switch on connections when they’re needed và you can stretch that out even longer.
There are a great many connection types on offer here, raring to zap that power. It’s LTE-compatible, but that’s not of much use yet in the UK until the first networks get their 4G offerings of the ground. EE will be the first, due lớn kick off its 4G offering towards the over of the year.
Advanced connections we can use right now include high-speed 21 Mbps HSUPA, Wi-Fi Direct & NFC. Wi-Fi Direct lets you connect directly to other Wi-Fi Direct devices & trade data without actually having an mạng internet connection.
NFC stands for Near-Field Communication, and was one of the most notable absences from the iPhone 5 – hence making it a thing for the lưu ý 2 & Galaxy S3 to lớn bear proudly. It can be used in various food outlets on the high street lớn buy small items lượt thích cups of coffee, & Samsung has made sure it’s of some use even if you have no interest in such transactions – enter S Beam.
S Beam is Samsung’s marrying of the NFC và Wi-Fi Direct technologies. Put two S Beam compatible devices back khổng lồ back & they’ll be able to lớn pair over NFC, before transferring files over the much faster Wi-Fi Direct standard. If that all sounds a bit too much like the tech version of a saucy nature documentary, Wi-Fi Direct also stands alone within the file transfer sections of apps like the Gallery.
The Wi-Fi connection can also be used to transfer video, over another Samsung standard called AllShare. This has been around for years, and connects all sorts of Samsung products including TVs, Blu-ray player, tablets and phones. It’s actually little more than a branded version of the DLNA streaming standard, there to make the tech a bit simpler for non tech-heads khổng lồ use. With it you can share, videos, pictures & music.
The Samsung Galaxy lưu ý 2 improves the series formula in several important respects. It looks better, the stylus feels better & the tech has been bumped-up in almost every respect. The only slight downer is that as the original note proved a commercial success rather than an entirely niche device limited lớn geeks/freaks/giants, this second edition is a bit pricier.
