With the Galaxy Note 3, Samsung upgrades its stylus-packing big-screen phone with a 5.7-inch full HD screen and some new tricks for power users. It ships Sept. 25 worldwide.
Left to right: the 6.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Mega, the 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 3, the 5.55-inch Galaxy Note II, and the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note. The Note 3 is the only model that is full HD (1,920 x 1,080).
The S Pen returns in the Note 3, with new features.
One of the new features is Air Command, which calls up an S Pen-specific menu if you press the stylus button while hovering over the display.
The special Flipboard app for Samsung's Note devices, which interacts with Air View hovering of the stylus, works well with the Note 3.
The Note 3's window case could be better -- it has trouble staying closed -- but it has a nice leather-like feel.
Like other Samsung phones, the capacitive "hard" buttons on the bottom light up only when you press or hover over them.
The apps that you can use with the Galaxy Gear are in a separate folder.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the latest model in the Galaxy Note line of phones, is more of an evolutionary upgrade than a revolutionary one. The physical changes aren't noticeable at first, but some make a real difference. At the same time, there are a few new features that will probably appeal to power users — the Note's key audience.
Held in hand, the Note 3 feels very much like the Note II. That's because Samsung labored to keep the width of the phone the same even while bumping up the screen size to 5.7 inches. Samsung clearly doesn't want to get into the territory marked by the 6.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Mega — nor should it. The Note 3 feels big, but not ridiculously so (though those with smaller hands may have a different experience).
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The Note I held was in a leather windowed case, which had an excellent grip to it. The cover interacts with the screen so that the display changes to a simple time notifier that you can see through the window when the case is closed — very slick. The cover was difficult to keep closed, however, almost always remaining slightly open when the phone was lying on its back, which was annoying. Better use of magnets is in order here.
I was excited to try out Air Command, the new menu that's specific to the S Pen. If you hover the stylus over the screen and then press the button, the semi-circle menu appears with options. Each one is illuminated as you hover, and tapping will activate the command. Action Memo, which lets you use the stylus to perform actions such as making a call, and S Finder, which can search the phone for handwritten content, strike me as the most useful.
Pen Window is even better than Air Command. Just by drawing a window on the screen, you can create a new application window for, say, browsing or calling up the calculator. When you're done, closing the window simply takes a tap with the stylus, and it doesn't interrupt the apps already running on-screen.
With the Note 3, The Galaxy Note phones finally get a model with a 1,920 x 1,080 screen, and it's excellent. Held next to the original Note and Note II, the Note 3's AMOLED looked sharper while browsing highly visual sites such as Mashable and CNN. It's nice that the screen is 5.7 inches, but truthfully I detected virtually no difference in experience from the Note II, at least from a few minutes of use.
Samsung includes an intriguing new feature called Multi Vision in the Note 3, which lets multiple phones' screens combine to form an even larger screen, but I wasn't able to test it. We're excited to check it out when we have a chance to review the phone, along with My Magazine, a personalized news "experience" that Samsung developed with Flipboard, and the Note's enhanced security features.
With the Note 3, Samsung is going even further into the idea of personalized design. It doesn't go as far as the Moto X, offering only three colors for the phone itself (black, white and pink), but there are several different colors for the case and cover you can choose from, including metallic hues.
While the Galaxy Note 3 can perform some interesting new tricks, the thing that will matter to all users is the beautiful, full HD screen. Even if you never slip the stylus out of its slot, you'll appreciate the sharper display. For power users, features like Air Command could save a few valuable seconds while performing key tasks, and Multi Vision is an eyebrow-raising — if gimmicky — feature.
Samsung, which pretty much invented the big-screen phone with the Note line, has polished its flagship in the category nicely with the Galaxy Note 3, although there are still remnants of the company's throw-everything-against-the-wall approach (there must be six different ways to capture onscreen content via the stylus). The evolved, refined Note is an unusual contrast to its "smart companion," the Galaxy Gear — a version 1.0 device if there ever was one.
Images: Mashable