My New work Cell Phone: The Samsung Galaxy Note review

 This is my new work phone the Samsung Galaxy Note 4G Android Phone, Carbon Blue (AT&T). I say one/I because I have read rumors of a Galaxy Note 2 that is supposed to drop somewhere around October which means this may no longer be the only Galaxy Note in existence. For those who don't know what the big deal about the Note is, Samsung built this phone as an in between it's a hybrid phone/tablet that they have called a phablet a few times. The Note comes in at 5.3 inches and uses up most of it with the screen, I should have taken a picture with it lit up but when I do the blog about my new carrying case for it the Otterbox Defender Case for Samsung Galaxy Note. I have had this phone for a little over a week and so far I love it, the screen is bright an clear, the processor is fast, the 4G LTE network has me surfing webpages almost as an after thought.

The Note Has 2GB of onboard memory set aside for apps, 10GB for personal storage and you can insert up to a 32GB microSD card in it(I have an 8GB in mine for now though I am eyeing a 32 or 64 GB for later). It has a 2MP camera in the front and an 8MP camera in the back so it takes really detailed pictures as well as allows you to have a video chat conversation without your face being all blurry. Now for those with small hands this phone is huge you probably want to get a Galaxy S II or wait a few days and pick up the SIII.



Like I said this phone is for work so while it has all the great features that a personal phone would enjoy my main concerns were screen size, network speed, coverage area, and phone speed. Which this thing has delivered in spades. It also comes with an S pen, a stylus made by Samsung that allows you to use the notepad feature, to write out words, and maneuver around the various screens. I have used it a few times but I am mostly using my finger THOUGH this isn't your average stylus there is a little button on the side that kind of acts like a mouse button which allows you to "hold and drag" which helps if you want to do a screen shot and as they claim it is optimized for the touchwiz.

As you can see my old work phone the Motorola Backflip is basically swimming in the middle of the Note. Even opened up to expose the keyboard the note isn't that much shorter and is still taller even when I turned the backflip on it's side(like you would if you were using the keypad) the speed difference is astounding between the two phones the Galaxy note flies while the Backflip usually stumbled along and as far as space is concerned with the Note me putting in the 8GB was optional, I really didn't need to put in any outside storage YET as I was no where near filling it up even after I had put in all the apps I wanted to use. My Backflip it was crying within a day. Now my main issue with the Backflip was that after I did the FIRST software update it basically lost it's mind battery life tanked, the phone constantly froze and crashed and I was never sure if it was possessed or not. So far I haven't had that problem with the Galaxy Note granted there isn't a firm ware update yet though I believe ICS Android 4.0 is around the corner.

If you wonder how my Galaxy note looks in comparison to my personal phone the Blackberry Bold, welp as you can see there is space all the way around the Blackberry so let alone having more available screen size than the blackberry which was a given the entire phone dwarfs it. and the pictures are clearer from the back cams because while the Bold has a 5MP camera the Note has an 8MP and I must say as they make these strong cameras smaller and smaller those people out there looking for portable video cameras, I just want to tell you that you make end up saving money by just purchasing a cell phone, with a large microSD card and calling it a day. I paid 249.99+ tax for my Galaxy Note at the AT&T store I moved the old 8GB memory card from my old phone and I was already up at 22GB of space, when I was looking up "flip cams" for a friend most of them were in the 99-150 dollar range but were only offering a 2-4GB SD card and not much more onboard storage. and that was JUST for a video camera. So again in my mind if you need a phone anyway might as well use it as a multi-tasker.

The next thing I wanted to do was compare my two phones and my tablet as you can see yes my thrive towers over phones but the Note does make a good showing for itself in the center. I don't remember if I did the blog about my tablet I may have to go back and dig that up I remember having a million pictures of it which was part of my damage.


 Right here though this phone has been giving me pretty much hassle free times, I say pretty much because I did find a way to break the "voice talk", like a lot of smart phones now the Galaxy Note has both an installed "Voice Search" feature that allows you to talk to your phone and tell it what to look for(as well as tell it to call somebody) and it does it immediately with you not having to touch anything more than a single button. The "Voice Talk" feature is similar to a digital assistant as you see in this video explaining it while it isn't Siri it was damn close.

Now me being a total geek I had changed MY voice prompt to "Galaxy, make it so" (it was make it so Galaxy for a while but ahem I just wanted it reverse, 2 points if you know what this is a geek reference to). And for a while it was working, now a combination of my chopped and screwed jersey drawl and me not always talking in an even tone has allowed for some comedy(I was trying to tell Eikichi that he liked to pork donkeys except it took three tries to go from PORT, Park and Part to pork. I blame that on me) and I think it said something almost weirdly inappropriate to my mother.
So while it was fun just telling it to call people(which again I can still do with my voice search) I will miss telling it to message people like in the video, it probably didn't help that before I got the otterbox I usually had it in my crotch just to keep from cracking the screen. Now no worries on that. If you don't mind going back into the OLDEN days of cell phones(I'm 37 they didn't start out that small don't believe me look up all those old 80's movies with the Yuppies, like Wall Street if memory serves that thing was as tall as his head with a huge antenna on it. So yeah it's big but it ain as bad as they used to be, and since most of it is screen you have to be careful about cracking it( I see so many people with shattered touch screen phones, thus mine being a crotch rider until my otterbox came in) after the Thrive fiasco with the screen protector and since they usually aren't cheap(unless you buy them at Amazon.com) I decided that I wanted something where it would be protected on all sides and the screen protector was made in but more on that in the review of the OtterBox Defender series of cases.

So yeah my new work phone, absolute sweetness, glad I bought it and no when 30 days goes buy it will still be in it's case no you can't have it back AT&T. Hope everybody is having a good summer so far and avoiding the head, more blogs to come won't lie and say frequently but it won't be a month this time