"The most feature-rich, most customizable mobile gadget yet"
-GSMarena
Quad-band GSM
Quad-band 3G with 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
LTE connectivity (carrier dependent)
5.5" 16M-color Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of HD (720 x 1280
pixel) resolution
Corning Gorilla Glass 2
Android OS v4.1 with TouchWiz launcher
1.6 GHz quad-core Cortex-A9 CPU
Mali-400MP GPU
2GB of RAM
Exynos 4412 Quad chipset
S Pen active stylus
8 MP wide-angle lens
Autofocus
LED flash
Face, smile and blink detection
1080p HD video recording at 30fps
16/32GB internal storage
microSD slot
Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n support
GPS with A-GPS connectivity
GLONASS
Digital compass
NFC support
Stereo Bluetooth v4.0
microUSB port with USB host and TV-out (1080p) support, MHL, charging
Accelerometer
Gyroscope
Proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Great audio quality
Slim only at 9.4mm
1.9MP secondary video-call camera
Doc editor
File manager
Rich video and audio codec support
Huge 3100 mAh battery
Large size makes single-hand operation uncomfortable
No dedicated camera key
All plastic
No FM radio (the N7100 has one)
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on board
Google Voice Actions is capable of handling SMSs, email, voice call,
directions, taking a note or opening a site
Google Voice Actions can't toggle Wi-Fi or control the camera (but S
Voice can do them)
In the contacts department, there are two tabs. One is About and it
shows contacts photo and the other shows social updates of the
particular contact including Google Talk's
When the phone book detects duplicate entries it offers the option to merge them
Stand alone call history of relevant contacts
A built in Black Caller list
A contextual page that pops up automatically at the very instance you
pull out the legendary S Pen
Touch focus
HDR mode
Panorama
Burst shot with Best photo
Share shot
Face and smile detection with Best faces
Low-light mode
Digital image stabilization
Scenes and effects
Noise in vieos present, though its a second generation Note video
capture machine
Colors in vidz are a bit oversaturated
FullHD videos recorded as MP4 files
FullHD videos with a massive bitrate that ranges from 17Mbps to 19Mbps
The framerate of HD videos is an amazing 30fps
The audio of videos is in stereo at 48kHz rate and a bitrate of about 130Kbps
The print option, can print out photos directly through a Samsung printer
Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA
Bluetooth 4.0 LE (incorporated with Bluetooth 3.0 and the efficient
Low Energy mode is included
Supports the high-quality Apt-X audio codec
It weighs less than the Nokia Lumia 920
No dedicated camera key
A mighty 3100mAh battery
A non-PenTile screen
Front camera takes 1.9MP pictures and 720p video
Can add weather tags to a photo (in courtesy of AccuWeather)
Video player supports .WMV, .AVI (DivX and XviD), .MP4 and .MKV (H.264)
For the video player, Resolution doesnt matter. It plays FullHD files
and large files
Photos with people's faces; Galaxy Note II recognises faces
automatically or you can manually highligt them
When a face is recognized in a photo, Social tag brings their status
message and you can call or message the identified person in person
An option to OCR a photo and copy the text. This is smart if you are a
docholic but lacks a scanner and a computer in the range of approach
DLNA-enabled. You can play songs and videos (nearby devices) on
devices connected to your Wi-Fi network
An updated version of the TouchWiz music player
Equalizer presets (a custom one present)
Sound-enhancing
SoundAlive (features 7.1 channel virtualization)
Fits in a pocket
A 1.9MP front-facing cam
Proximity sensor
MHL adapter required for HD TV-out and the USB adapter that enables
the USB host functionality aren't inclusive in the box
Taller but narrower and slimmer than its predecessor
The original Note was 178g, the Note II weights at 180g
The grid view of the video player; all eight video thumbnails are
actually self playing entities
Pop Up (video) play which plays videos in a small moveable window.
These frames can be played with other active apps on the phone and
using pinch zoom you can adjust the size of these frames
SoundAlive audio enhancing in the video player
Can adjust video brightness, color tone and enable outdoor visibility
When connected to an active external amplifier, volume levels are average
Stereo crosstalk begins to have business in when a pair of headphones
is plugged in
If your more concerned about audio output, iphone 5 will be a better option
The video player scans for all subtitles and offers a list full of
subtitle packs to pick from. Thus the subtitle file doesn't have to
have the same name as the video file
Office document editor
All apps from the Google play store is not optimised to work with Jelly Bean yet
Screen recording which is activated by pressing and holding the Home
and Volume up buttons records virtual activities that is happening on
the screen in the real time including your S pen drawings and audio
commentary
With Paper Artist you can run color filters over photos and color
certain areas with the S pen further
There is a record button in the S note app to record what you draw
A floating window version of the S note app
S Cloud syncs contacts, calendar, S notes, back up logs, SMS, MMS and wallpaper
There's a limit to the size of the area you can cache in the Maps app
Vector maps of Google Maps are inherent in data efficiency
Samsung's Instant messaging service ChatOn
S Planner can sync with multiple calendars. It you feel like its
cluttered when synced them all, turn off the unnecessary
S Cloud can be incorporated with Dropbox (photos and videos)
You can even do that S cloud Dropbox merge over Wi-Fi to save data
No address searches in the cached maps
With S cloud you can choose not to back up some of things that it usually sync
Automated S cloud backups can be set with time periods
You cannot cache map data all around the world
Voice-guided navigation in certain countries
GPS receiver takes about a minute to get a satellite lock
A-GPS present which is brisk catching prompt satelite locks
Network positioning, which is a gross scale for an estimation of your location
3D buildings available for bigger cities
Two-finger camera tilt and rotate to get a better view in the 3D maps
A very sophisticated "Make available offline (cashing)" option in Maps app
An indicator that shows how much storage caching an area will take
Cached areas in the maps can be perused later or deleted if unnecessary
You cannot cashe a whole country but a city maybe. If the selected
area for cashing is bigger than what the Maps app can handle Maps tels
the area is too big
No folders in the messaging department
Tap to compose box is roomy to type
The default email app supports multiple Gmail accounts, but lacks a
unified inbox
The messaging section bears the same traits as phonebook when it comes
to "Swiping". A left swipe on a message header launches a new message
and swiping to the right starts a call to the sender
The titanic texting bed fits on the screen and carries 13 straight rows
Gmail app supports batch operations. It means you can archive, label
or delet multiple emails
A generic email app (beside Gmail app) for managing all other email
accounts and it handles multiple POP or IMAP inboxes. There messages
are displayed in the original folders that they are created online
A combined inbox, all your mails are centralized in a single folder.
Enables user to easily identify new mails
Handwriting recognition is amazingly accurate
A clipboard for both text and images
Smart enough text predictions. it scrutinises your emails, Facebook
posts, Twitter posts and teach itself whats your writing behaviour is
ie mostly used words etc
Google Talk too handles the Instant Messaging department
"Continuous input" lets feed words by swiping over the keyboard just like Swype
The landscape QWERTY eats lot of the screen. Better go for portrait
The S note app is equipped with an on-screen keyboard for both
handwriting recognition or Keyboard input
Can schedule messages to be sent automatically at given times
From the list of all scheduled messages, you can cancel or send a
message regardless of the set time
When you finger to text, it brings the QWERTY and when tapped with
the S Pen it launches the handwriting recognition
Music square
The browser supports double tap, pinch zooming, two-finger tilt zoom,
text reflow, find on page, save for offline viewing, request desktop
site, Incognito mode and pinch zoom which opens up the tabs view
Two finger typing is cushioned in portrait mode, but horrid in landscape
An extra row just for the numbers
The big screen makes portrait typing comfortable
Print option in the browser lets you print out web pages directly from
your phone but the option is limited to Samsung printers
Its quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and quad-band 3G but AWS is missing
Available with all major carriers
The S Note app accomodates handwritten notes, texts, mathematical
formulae along with images and voice notes
Slow-motion (1/2x) and fast motion (2x) modes
Colors of photos slightly oversaturated
As you already know, Adobe is officially not supported. But you can
still load it and 1080p YouTube videos are played fine
The MHL-to-HDMI dongle that you bought for your first Note or S II,
isnt compatible with the Note II
When you hover over a text field with the S Pen, a cursor pops. You
can easily tap to position it there
The G-Talk works with the likes of Pidgin, Kopete, iChat and Ovi Contacts
An application specific message search that can find any given SMS or
MMS search criteria within the message dept among all stored once
The MHL also enables USB On-The-Go though the adapter required for
that is missing in the box. How it goes? You just plug it into the
Note and plug a standard USB cable on the other end and thats it.
There goes USB thumb drives, card readers, connecting other phones,
USB keyboards, mice and even printers. Actually Samsung-made printers
only
Ambient light sensor
Notification LED
The SIM card is not hot-swappable, but the memory card is
Strong battery life
Can replace the battery without losing NFC because the NFC antenna is
on the back cover
The diagonal metrics grown to 5.5" up from 5.3"
Aspect ratio has jumped to 16:9 from 16:10. A taller but narrower screen
The Note II's screen is a 720p and 1280x720 pixels one but the
dilapidated used to be a WXGA or 1280x800 pixels one. Overall 80
pixels lost on the way back home
You can access Quick Command pad pressing S Pen button and swiping up.
Whats the usability of it? You can use "@" sign to launch email, "?"
sign to launch a search, "#" sign to dial a number or "~" sign to send
a text there.. New commands can be added picking a new function like
Bluetooth by selecting from a long list to choose from and assigning
the symbol you want. Its that simple but its the Command Prompt of the
Daisy Town
The S Pen lets catch a part of the screen and that can be used in apps
like email and S Note etc
S Voice even accepts hand-written queries
What S Voice can do? It does search web, make calls, send texts,
notification area toggles, answer or reject incoming calls, start the
camera and take a photo, control the music player and FM radio and
stop or snooze alarms
Google Now can answer factual questions
Direct Call
Smart alert
S Pen also practicable in the browser
S Voice is on board along with Google's excellent voice commands
Talking about GPU (Mali-400) performance (GLBenchmark) it beats the
Galaxy S III (Mali-400 and the GeForce- packing Tegra 3) but looses to
Adreno 320 of Optimus G and PowerVR SGX 543MP3 in the iPhone 5
In regard of the web performance it falls short behind Apple's iPhone
5 (SunSpider, BrowserMark) but beats all other Androids
In Benchmark Pi, the Note II is defeated by the quad-core Krait packed
LG Optimus G. The 1.7GHz Tegra 3-based phones like the HTC One X+
would do the same in the due time
Geekbench 2 prefer Exynos chipsets than Snapdragon S4 Pro and Apple A6
Quadrant score is lower than the HTC One X
The LG Optimus G out performs Samsung Galaxy Note's I[ processing
entity. But runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich, lacks S Pen, a jumbo
screen, outfits a poor camera. Priced at $199.99
All type of media files can be shared via NFC. The only hitch is you
need two S Beam-enabled devices
Android Beam's NFC functionality is limited compared to S Beam
Chapter preview in the video player which voluntarily detects chapters
in the video. It shows a rectangular grid with live thumbnails
Three crop modes in the video player to choose from for how the video
fits for your likeness in the screen theatre
Using contacts' profiles, Buddy photo share distinguishes who they are
My Files app with a split-screen interface
My files app is launched instantly when you plug in a USB mass storage
device, a USB drive, another phone or an SD card etc
Smart rotation keeps its screen in effect with your eyes angle
neglecting what the accelerometer force it. If practically spoken,
when you're lying but holding the phone in the vertical direction it
still keeps the screen in landscape orientation
Records HD (1080p or 720p) videos and capable of taking high def (6MP)
pictures at the same time
Pause and re-record in the same video file is available
Touch focus during recording is present. There is an AF button to jump
back to regular continuous autofocus mode
The LG Intuition for Verizon Wireless is the closest rival. Has a 4:3
screen, sub par stylus, a decent dual-core chipset and a lower
resolution screen. Priced at $149.99
S Voice can also be used as a calculator
Smart Dial
You get S Voice and as a bonus Google's which does differ in
functionality than its sibling
You have to get used to the Home key, its too responsive
Flash is missing. Better keep an eye for HTML5 versions of your web
sites of preference
YouTube works
HTML5 games
HTC's soon to be released One X+ for AT&T is another quad-core. Ships
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean but its Tegra 3 chipset cannot keep pace with
the processing power of the Samsung Note II Exynos. But you can still
save $100
Security options like encrypting outgoing email and signing it with a
private key, are given for each email account you sync
Best faces takes 5 photos in burst mode and stores traits of each face
in photos. You can pick any of the 5 photos for each person's face
clarity at a later period
Can import and export contacts to or from the SIM. But they arent
displayed alongside the phone's entries
Version for United States use the same chip specs as of the global version
A headset with few spare earbuds for free
A single-LED flash, not dual
Deep system and interface integration with S pen
A lower pixel density, 267ppi in the Note || vs. 285ppi of the Note |
The crosshatch pattern is gone with the PenTile matrix
Voice typing is available offline (relevent language packs required)
No Android keys on-screen though Google suggests it. Samsung has
replaced the hardware buttons with on-screen controls
During a call you can take a note, use the keypad, mute, hold the call
or add another call to the ongoing conversation
After syncing with social networks, the phonebook will automatically
merge contacts. You can manually do the same for each contact
Using AllShare Play you can transfer or share data and multimedia
files to your notebook or PC
With AllShare Cast you can stream content to and from a variety of
devices including TV or computer over DLNA
The battery performance of the US Galaxy Note II varies in accordance
with the carrier version
The S Pen of the first Note was 10.4cm tall and 5mm thick in dense,
the new one measures 11.3cm in length and 7mm in thickness. Its just
like a real pen than a typical slim stylus
Ripples, water-drop sounds are rife as is the case with most recent
Samsung flagships
Five customizable shortcuts at the bottom of the screen
Three view modes in the app drawer, Customizable grid, Alphabetical
grid, Alphabetical list with shortcuts easy to hit
Alphabetical list in the app drawer isn't very efficient handling space
The Bad News: The dock at the bottom now accommodates five icons but
the homescreen fits only four on a row
The Good News: The app drawer is a 5 x 5 grid
Notifications now display more information and have more advanced controls
The Quick contacts; just tap on a contact picture, a pop up menu with
shortcuts to call, text, email or Google Talk will appear
Can search for nearby POI in the Maps app
While in the mail app, turn the tablet landscape wise, the split view
is accessible. It sports a list of emails in the left and shows the
relevant message in the right
S Voice can be maneuvered for looking up factual items in courtsy of
Wolfram Alpha. Its the same mechanism behind Siri's answers
Even without going online, the maps app will reroute you if you plan
routes and divert yourself off the course or detour
The RGB sensor is capable of detecting the full spectrum of the
ambient light. It can elude artificial light sources cleverly
An internet connection is not required to do voice typing. You can
enter text by speaking wherever an on-screen keyboard appear
Can choose which types of events trigger the LED
When you put the tablet (back) on a flat surface, its actualy the
camera lens that touch the plain. But the glass is not easily dentable
Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz band compatible Wi-Fi support which covers a/b/g/n
You can tap and drag in any way to unlock the lockscreen
Whats up with the MHL enabled microUSB? It handles charging, data
connections, HD video output through an HDMI adapter or USB Host
Voice dialing; Just utter "Hi Galaxy" and give your command
Not comfortable for one handed use
For easy one handed usability, few tweaks are added like QWERTY
keyboard, phone keypad and in-call buttons, calculator and unlock
pattern moved to one side of the screen. Just let it be left or right
Build in Live wallpapers, News wall put up a glamorous slideshow of
headlines, Stock wall does the quotes, and Photo wall pull out photos
from the Gallery
The Galaxy Note II senses when the S Pen is pulled out. It fetches a
contextual page with shortcuts to preview thumbnails of your recently
ventured S Notes
Swipes in the phonebook lets you do a quick dial with a right swipe
and send a text message literally with a left swipe
Cannot have more than seven home screen panes
Full-screen widgets
The stylus is not as comfortable as the S Pen on the Galaxy Note 10.1
Can put a news ticker at the bottom of the lockscreen and stay up to minute
The news ticker is expandedbale
Face unlock, Face and voice unlock
There is a tab in the app drawer which enables you to easily pull out
widgets to the homescreen panes
The camera can be started from the lockscreen by touching the screen
and rotating the phone horizontally
Widgets are resizable but only some widgets are resizable, not all
The dock at the bottom of the home screen houses five shortcuts or
folders. Four of them except the shortcut at the far right in the dock
(that opens the app drawer) are customizable
The Music Hub doesnt recognise album art of the music den of the phone
Note || carries a more sensitive digitizer in comparison to the Note
|. It distinguishes 1024 different levels of pressure. Its 4 times
powerful than its older relative. In the drawing app its clearly felt
With Android 4.1 aboard, the widgets will pave the way for the widgets
you put there lately. This way, keeping the homescreen tidy, becomes
easier
When the S pen is pulled out, icons at the bottom of the home deck
diverse into a different but relevent set. It also gives you another
set of shortcuts in the notification area if you enter the area with
the S pen
In the browser you get an option to manipulate brightness and colors
with four different presets including Automatic brightness. Music to
eyes
A download shortcut in the app drawer which put up a screen loaded
with only the downloaded apps
The default task manager boasts a button that brings the Mayan
calender to all active apps at once and a shortcut to Google Now
Quick Controls menu pops out when you place finger near the left or
right edge of the display and its an effective alternative to the
buttons on the top Alter. This becomes handy when you use the tablet
single handed
Can controll brightness without disabling automatic mode
Regular homescreen panes distinguishable with dots
Dedicated pages are assigned custom icons ie a pen for the S Pen,
headphones for the Earphone page etc
Pinch to zoom out and easily manage homescreen panes. You can add,
delete or reorder them easily
Quick glance; when phone is locked, cover top of Note. The screen will
be lit and the status bar will be thrown in
Quick glance is also triggered when the phone put face down. Thus a
battery sucker
Default widgets of Dedicated Pages (S Pen page's S Note widget,
Earphone page's music and video player control widgets etc) cannot be
tweaked to your preferences or some one else's
Page Buddy; each Dedicated functional pane can be enabled or disabled seperate
Air View; Hovering the S Pen over S Planner events, it can be
expanded. Hovering S pen over emails you can preview emails. Hovering
S pen over text you can view a preview of the text file. In the same
way preview videos. Its a Magic Wand
Even specific vibration patterns can be set as incoming call alerts
(like you would do a ringtone) choosing from predefined patterns
available or making your own
MHL port works as a charger port, enables video output (using a
MHL-to-HDMI dongle which is not inclusive in the retail box
Using accelerometer it even alerts you (beeping) if the stylus is
displaced, not put back into the hole where it belongs or your not
present near with its beloved stylus
Note II's screen can detect the S Pen from a near distance. Walk, Talk and Note
Note II is sharper than the previous though its been allocated fewer pixels
Mode Change offers two separate homescreen setting patterns that can
be accelerated at the same time, namely Standard and Easy. With Easy
mode you can do both, place big, easy to handle widgets that cover the
functionality in whole and eats the space drasticaly and add regular
widgets in the same breath. Thus the Mode change module works as a
toggle between playful and work widget environments. Extremely useful
when your home panes are filled with single big bad wolf work oriented
widgets but you want to taste nasty cluttered Widget panes as well
Cannot rename the modes and maximum number of Modes you can have is two
You can assign a "Peak Schedule Time" in the email app selecting the
days of the week and start and end time points so that it can check
out new mails more often during the given peak time period