Reviews

Samsung Galaxy Note review

Is it a very big phone or a very small tablet? Julian Prokaza takes a look at the unusual Galaxy Note in our review.

1 Dec 2011

Calls made with the Galaxy Note are clear, but it feels a little odd to hold such a large device to the side of one's face.

The Galaxy Note GT-N7000 has essentially the same internal specification as the Galaxy S II, but its dual-core processor is 200MHz faster. This made it a little quicker in the Quadrant Standard synthetic and SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks, with scores of 3171 and 3167ms, respectively. This makes it roughly comparable in speed to the new Motorola Razr, although that phone was faster in the SunSpider test. The 2500mAh battery has a bigger capacity too, and lasted for a reasonable nine hours in our video playback test with all wireless radios disabled.

At 408 online for a 16GB SIM-unlocked model, the Galaxy Note GT-N7000 is similarly priced to the entry-level 3G iPad 2. That tablet obviously won't fit into a trouser pocket and can't be used for voice calls, but it makes Samsung's oversized smartphone looks like poor value in comparison Apple's better-designed effort works far better as a tablet, too.

So what's our verdict?

Verdict

Samsung may think it bridges the gap between two different mobile devices, but the Galaxy Note GT-N7000 ends up being neither one thing nor the other as a result. The big screen certainly looks great, but the overall size makes it awkward to use and it’s just not as practical as either a more traditionally proportioned smartphone or tablet.

Connectivity: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, 3G 850/900/1900/2100 Display: 800 x 1,280 pixels, 5.3 inches OS: Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread with TouchWiz Camera: eight megapixels rear facing, two megapixels forward facing GPS: A-GPS Processor: Samsung Exynos 1.4GHz Bluetooth: 3.0 Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n Storage: 16GB internal RAM: 1GB Dimensions: 147 x 83 x 10mm Weight: 178g Battery: Lithium Ion 2,500 mAh BENCHMARKS Quadrant Standard: 3171 SunSpider: 3166.6ms BrowserMark: 59473 Video playback: 9h 04m