So the Galaxy Note 2 has been released in certain parts of the world, here’s a hands-on from my initial days with it inHong Kong. Be sure to check back for the full review over at http://reviews.yellowchilli.net/ in a week or so.
The HTC One X is not small but the Note 2 is just huge. In a good way.
Made the mistake of turning Battery Saver on so the brightness was stuck on really low levels. But disabling the option didn’t mean the brightness return to normal levels immediately, which was confusing. In reality, the Note 2’s brightness levels are only slightly lower than then One X.
Samsung chose well to partner with Swiftkey (that personalisation page is unmistakable, and the Privacy Policy reveals all) to bring us a better pre-installed keyboard.
The Note 2 is equipped with context-sensitive pages (called Page Buddy) that load as e.g. you pull out the S-Pen. As above. Also works with headphones
The Note 2 notification area. Samsung makes good use of the screen real estate and adds plenty of useful shortcuts.
The Touchwiz home screen.
Initial fully charge drain- had around 7 hours with all radios switched off. Battery was draining (when without data) at a couple % per hour so if tweaked correctly, could even be longer-lasting.
Antutu benchmark scores.
Quadrant benchmark results.
-pity my Note2 came with a slightly older (no updates yet )version of the OS where the split-window mode is MIA.
