Samsung Galaxy Note II vs Galaxy Note

Introduction:

Do we have the usual generational refresh with the Samsung Galaxy Note II, compared to the original Note, or are there groundbreaking new features that will warrant my extra cash outlay for the newest member of the Note-able family?

This will be the question on Note owner’s minds this holiday season, since, after all, they are in a possession of a giant handset that singlehandedly elbowed out a niche for itself where one didn’t exist before. We will try to answer that question in the comparison below, so let’s roll...

Design:

The Note II weighs about the same as the original Note, but is narrower and more elnogated, making it a bit easier to hold and operate with one hand. Not by much, though, since it is still a giant, unwieldy thing to deal with, especially if you have smaller hands.


Moreover, despite that the design now is much more appealing with the polycarbonate plastic on the back that makes it look like an oversized Galaxy S III, the back is also much more slippery, compared to the textured finish on the first Note. Granted, you won’t look like a total dork holding a Note II to your face and talking now, as the chassis has a more signature design.


It is still impressive how Samsung has crammed an even larger screen in a slightly more compact handset, though, and the answer is slimmer bottom bezel - this thing is thinner than both what we have on the Note, and even what we’ve got on the S III.

As for the S Pen, while its silo on our newish Note II unit feels tighter compared to our office Note that has been worn in, the stylus itself is much more ergonomic with its thicker and longer body, making it very easy to hold and write with. The Note II makes a beeping noise when you walk away from the desk, and the stylus has not been inserted back in the silo.



Display:

The 5.5” 16:9 HD Super AMOLED screen on the Galaxy Note II beats the Note’s 5.3” one in almost every aspect except official resolution. It uses the full red-green-blue trio for each pixel now, so it beats the PenTile matrix of the Note on subpixel density, making red and green colors appear more solid.

It is also much brighter than the Note’s screen, and quite possibly the brightest AMOLED screen of Samsung to date, making it better for use outside under direct sunlight. Moreover, the typical coldness of Super AMOLED colors is almost gone now, and the blueish tint when displaying white is down to a minimum, whereas it is very visible on the original Note. In short, the Note II has the best screen Samsung has produced to date, considering AMOLED’s other virtues, like very high contrast and wide viewing angles, making it ideal for enjoying video.

Interface and functionality:

The Note II not only sports the newest Nature UX of Samsung with its Smart Stay, Pop Up Play and AllShare Cast streaming features, which we discussed in our Galaxy S III review, but it also comes with Jelly Bean out of the box.


Just this fact alone puts it in a league above the original Note, which is at Android ICS now, since Google’s 60fps UI Project Butter makes the interface fast as a shark in Jelly Bean, not to mention the stellar natural voice recognition that comes with Android 4.1, and which Samsung kindly lets you prefer before its S Voice solution in your voice searches.



S Pen apps:

The stylus in the Note II is much improved in comparison with the original - it has a more ergonomic grip now, and the new technology inside allows you to leave faster and smoother ink trace. The default S Note app offers very similar options, though, apart from the presence of some new templates.

Moreover, the S Pen has learned new tricks now, too, with the most intriguing one being Air View, which brings up previews of emails, image galleries and videos by hovering the stylus over them, or simply tells you what this or that button does with a pop-up label. In the S Planner calendar app, Air View makes the appointments pop, so they are now readable much easier if you have a crowded schedule..



The S Pen button now tells the device that selected content is to be copied or edited, and there is an Easy Clip feature to outline and crop while holding it. The cropped region than can easily be sent via email or inserted in a note, or simply put into the clipboard for later use.


Another stellar application of the S Pen is that pulling it out during a phone call evokes the S Note app. Not only you can quickly jot down addresses and other trivia from the caller, but make gestures on the screen, too, to do things such as initiating calls and bringing up emails.



Processor and memory:

The Galaxy Note II sports a 1.6 GHz quad-core Exynos 4412 processor, compared to the 1.4GHz dual-core Exynos in the first Note. The main difference between the two is not the higher frequency or the extra two cores of the Note II, but the die shrink, as its Exynos is made with the frugal 32nm process, compared to the 45nm one in the Note, making it perform much better with the same or less power consumption. The Mali-400 GPU that both share, has been overclocked in the case of the Note II, so the graphics performance is much better, too.

We have double the Note’s 1GB of RAM memory in the Note II, and the same starting 16GB amount of internal memory  - about 10GB are user-available in the Note II, whereas we have 11GB free on the Note.

In any case, when we couple the more powerful processor and double the RAM memory with Android Jelly Bean’s interface optimizations, the Note II beats its predecessor in UI fluidity and app performance hands-down.

Internet and Connectivity:

The Nature UX browser is very optimized, and powered by a much stronger processor on the Note II, so it is naturally more fluid than the one on the Note, which is no slouch either. However, with mobile Chrome in Jelly Bean we are losing Adobe Flash support, and there are quite a few websites that can’t be enjoyed fully, or at all, without Adobe’s piece of software, which the ICS browser on the Note supports.


The Galaxy Note II has the advantage to offer its quad-core chip coupled with an LTE radio, instead of the dual-core Snapdragons Samsung resorted to for that task in the US before, so you get the excellent Exynos 4412 paired to a 100Mbits LTE radio, compared to the 21Mbits HSPA+ support of the original Note, which the Note II also has. These speeds are, of course, theoretical, and depend on your carrier network, but we are glad that processor fragmentation ends with the Note II.


Both handsets sport a variety of radios, like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (the frugal 4.0 in the case of the Note II), A-GPS, DLNA, and NFC, using the versatile MHL port for wired connectivity.

Camera:

We get an 8MP camera module with LED flash with both handsets, but the performance of the camera on the Galaxy Note II is almost instantaneous, whereas the Note’s capture involves wait.

Moreover, you get a couple of new tricks like the rapid Burst Shot, Best Face and Best Shot modes, and a number of effects to apply on your pictures and video.

The pictures themselves, however, turn out pretty comparable from both handsets in terms of color representation and sharpness - read, very good, with the amount of noise kept in check without affecting detail. We’d, however, give an advantage to the original Note when it comes to high dynamic range scenes, which got exposed better than on the Note II.

The video 1080 capture goes with 30 fps on both handsets, but seems more fluid on the Galaxy Note II, and slightly more saturated too. Sound capture while recording video, though, is of below average quality on both handsets - high-pitched and coarse.

Samsung Galaxy Note II Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy Note Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy Note II Indoor Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy Note Indoor Sample Video:



Multimedia:

The music players on both handsets are very similar in terms of functions, having tune categorization tabs and equalizer presets, but the Nature UX one on the Note II is more polished, faster, and introduces the Music Square mood matrix of your tunes.

When it comes to loudspeaker performance when playing music, the Note II wins hands down, with one of the most powerful speakers we’ve heard on a smartphone, which on top of that doesn’t sound flat, and outputs pretty clean sound, even at the highest volume.

Both video players support high-def video playback regardless of the format, and again the Nature UX player on the Note II wins in terms of player polish and options. We have the Pop Up Play function on the Note II, where you can simply detach the video currently played, and keep doing something else, while it plays in a moveable pop-up windows brought at the front at all times.

The Gallery on the Galaxy Note II sport much more eye-candy than the traditional Android one on the Note. In the default folder view the scren gets split, with the categories on the left, and their content on the right, taking better advantage of the large screen real estate. We also get a 3D Timeline view of the pictures and video in chronological order, or a spiral 3D view, rumored to be borrowed from Samsung’s Tizen OS.

Call quality:

The Galaxy Note didn’t boast any exceptional call quality, especially in the earpiece, but the Note II improves significantly in that respect. Voices are very loud and clear, and on the other end the dual mic setup relayed the sounds without audible distortions, strong and clean.

Battery:

Needless to say, the larger 3,100mAh battery on the Note II, coupled with the more frugal processor, beats the already stellar battery life of the original Note’s 2,500mAh unit. Hey, it’s 24% larger, after all.

There are no official talk times yet from Samsung, but we made one very unscientific test to check how the Note II stacks up against the Note and the Galaxy S III during the HD Super AMOLED’s most frugal consumption - video playback. We charged all three phones to 100%, put them in airplane mode, pumped up the brightness to the max, and ran the same HD video for an hour and change. At the end the Note showed 83%, the Galaxy S III showed 87%, while the Note II’s monster battery discharged only 8%, bringing it down to 92%.

If we extrapolate from those results, the Note II might very well reach the RAZR MAXX 14-hour playback territories when it comes to endurance.

Conclusion:

There is a brand new sheriff in town when it comes to the battle of stylus-laden big screen phones, of which now there are precisely two, and the Note II is a no-brainer upgrade from its predecessor.

Not that the Note II is that much more compact, compared to the original - it is still a beast, but with an even larger display now. That screen alone, however, is worth the upgrade - it is the best phone screen Samsung has ever produced, and addresses all weak points of Super AMOLED displays so far in one fell swoop.

The 24% increase in battery size alone is worth the upgrade, too, as it brings top-notch endurance to the handset, and the juicer is on top of that replaceable.

Or, if you are buying a Note for the fact that it sports a stylus silo, you’d be happy to hear that the S Pen is much improved in the Note II, easier to handle, with a more natural ink flow, and a number of handy new features like Air View and Pop Up Note.

These three in aggregate make the Note II worth it for those that are upgrading from the original, and for first time buyers. When we throw in the much faster camera capture, the stronger loudspeaker, and the software superiority of the Note II with the latest Android Jelly Bean, and the versatile Nature UX, the only thing holding you back to pick a Note II before a Note would be disposable income.

Samsung Galaxy Note II vs Samsung Galaxy Note Video Comparison: