Prospective buyer with many questions

[Rule9]

I was impressed enough by this phone that it's the only phone since 2011 to lure me away from Nexus. That's saying something too, because not only am I a die hard unabashed flag waving Nexus fanboy, but Samsung also happened to be my least favorite phone maker... until now. The Note 3 changes all that because this is the first time (for me) that an android OEM has made a phone that has so many good OEM features that aren't crap or gimmicky that I'd actually be happy with Samsung updates as I would be with immediate stock android updates on the Nexus. I'm extremely impressed with the multitasking windows, the nicer looking faux leather chassis (about time Samsung!!), TW isn't quite as obnoxious, All of those S-Pen features are downright incredible, knox seems pretty cool, etc etc. Samsung seems to finally have made a desirable and sophisticated fork of android this time. Now for the questions:

1. Lag/Smoothness: Please be honest, you have nothing to defend here. Is this phone really a departure from Samsung's past reputation (whether true or not is irrelevant) as bloaty/laggy performance like some of you have said? As a current nexus owner you can understand this is a big deal to me. The Note 3 appears to be fast and smooth from what I've seen so far, but how are you full time owners finding it now that you've had it for a bit?

2. How well does it play with the Google apps like Maps, Hangouts, Music, Gallery etc? Any issues? And on that subject:

3. What apps, if any has Samsung put in there to replace (if you want to use them) the standard android apps? For example, does the Note have it's own gallery app or music app like the Sony phones do? Any others? If so, are they good?

4. How is the phone dialer? What features does it have aside from the stock 4.3 dialer, any?

5. Big one: Keyboard! I use the stock Google Keyboard and frankly I love it. Does it work without any problems on this phone?

6. This question I already found an answer to: Nova launcher don't prevent the TW S-Pen features from working, which is awesome. Has anyone tried Smart Launcher on this phone yet?

Most other information I've been able to find on my own, but these are a few I couldn't. Thx!

 

[vr002sh]

1. Lag/Smoothness: Please be honest, you have nothing to defend here. Is this phone really a departure from Samsung's past reputation (whether true or not is irrelevant) as bloaty/laggy performance like some of you have said? As a current nexus owner you can understand this is a big deal to me. The Note 3 appears to be fast and smooth from what I've seen so far, but how are you full time owners finding it now that you've had it for a bit?

2. How well does it play with the Google apps like Maps, Hangouts, Music, Gallery etc? Any issues? And on that subject:

3. What apps, if any has Samsung put in there to replace (if you want to use them) the standard android apps? For example, does the Note have it's own gallery app or music app like the Sony phones do? Any others? If so, are they good?

4. How is the phone dialer? What features does it have aside from the stock 4.3 dialer, any?

5. Big one: Keyboard! I use the stock Google Keyboard and frankly I love it. Does it work without any problems on this phone?

6. This question I already found an answer to: Nova launcher don't prevent the TW S-Pen features from working, which is awesome. Has anyone tried Smart Launcher on this phone yet?

Most other information I've been able to find on my own, but these are a few I couldn't. Thx!

1. I have seen little if any lag. the 3 GB of Ram makes it very smooth.

2. All of the Google apps work great.

3 Samsung does have their own messaging app, music app, etc, I don't use them. I use chomp for SMS, and Google Music, both work fine on the phone.

4. Phone dialer is pretty stock. it does have a call reject list, but there are also 3rd party apps that expand that.

5. The Google keyboard works great, the Samsung Keyboard has a cool feature with a row of number keys that many like. I use swiftkey (and hope they will add the number key row).

Hope that helps.

 

[Dronak]

1. I haven't noticed any really bad lag. There can be some when turning the screen on, but it doesn't bother me that much, and the device seems to run fairly smoothly in general.

2. I haven't had any noticeable issues with Google apps. I think Gmail and Music are the ones I use most, and they seem fine. I use Hangouts less often, but it seems OK, too. I don't usually use Maps (I tend to use Waze) or the default Gallery app (I prefer QuickPic).

3. Samsung has duplicates of almost all the main apps, I think. Check out the ArsTechnica post Google's Iron Grip on Android -- I linked to page 3 here where there's an image showing Google's apps compared to Samsung's apps. Pretty much everything is covered, although it's not all pre-installed and I don't remember exactly what is and isn't there because I have added some apps since I got the phone.

4. Considering I rarely use my phone for voice calls and when I do, it's almost always from my contact list, I don't think I can provide much info about the dialer.

5. I don't think he Google keyboard comes pre-installed. I don't see it on mine, and I don't usually mess with the keyboard options that much. Samsung's keyboard seems to work fine though, FWIW.

6. I'm using Samsung's TouchWiz launcher, so I can't help much here. FWIW though, I think there are apps that may be able to provide access to or replicate at least some S Pen features if you're not using TouchWiz. I don't know much about them though.

I hope this is of some help.

 

[mrwallyy]

1. Lag/Smoothness: The only lag I experience is turning the screen on. Not a big deal but kind of frustrating for a phone with all the crazy specs.

2. How well does it play with the Google apps like Maps, Hangouts, Music, Gallery etc? I use Maps, Music, and Google Now the most. They work great, however, just today I realized Google Now isn't registering my reminders (e.g. remind me to buy milk at 7pm today), although it says "Saving reminder." About to research it then post a thread on the boards to see if there's a solution.

3. Music, gallery, S voice

4. Dialer is just fine

5. I use SwiftKey and I love it.

6. I use stock Launcher/TouchWiz

One thing I want to mention that bothers me a bit about the phone is that it heats up around the camera region pretty quick when you use it for a little while (10 minutes or so continuously). You can feel it get hot from the back and from the screen.