I want to post my personal opinion on the galaxy note 3. As a former windows phone user for 3 years, coming back to android was a bit of a difficult decision to come too and i want to be very fair so i waited until i used it for a couple of days in real time use before i posted this. Lets get started:
Being a windows phone user i came to like many things about it, these things being Stellar cameras from nokia hardware, a fresh approach to mobile GUI's, intergration between some pretty top notch services like outlook.com, xbox smartglass and music, with video soon approaching for wp8 and easy navigation through the OS, and nokias awesome software for mapping. coming from that to the galaxy note heres what i have to say.
HARDWARE
I must say that samsung has seriously impressed me with the galaxy note 3, as i used to give them a hard time for the plastic back. They did a great job giving that same plastic back a leather feel making it feel much more premium, as well as the metal banding on the side. I LOVE the SPen it is really natural to use, very accurate, and an elegant touch on a phone this size. The screen is beautiful, it pops and is bright and just gorgeous to look at, i will be honest it is taking me some time to get used to icons again but am slowly getting there. love the mix of physical and capacative buttons when i watch a movie or tv show the physical button gives me a place to put my hand without having to worry about accidental presses. Finally the speakers and microphones are awesome during phone calls. So all in all good job sammy im very very impressed and happy. Also the specs on this phone make it scream with speed! and IT HAS SD EXPANSION!! GOD i have been longing this feature for so long on windows phones and the ones that have it are low end entry phones!!
SOFTWARE
Again coming from windows phone which i will admit is much more limited, the samsung galaxy note is by far the best phone at productivity i have ever used. Android was very confusing to me with so many settings, and customizations options, and gesture options, and sound options, and it was all very overbearing at first, i was used to minimalism on wp8 though i have gotten used to it. icons again are weird to me after looking at tiles on wp8 win8 and xbox 1 but not a deal breaker. google has done a very good job with later iterations on android (came from a nexus one!). all in all samsung offers a great experience with touchwiz.
SERVICES
I was an xbox music subscriber and i loved it! i have since cancelled that membership to try a free trial of google music all access, and i dont think i like it very much. the reason being because for some reason i start to play music through headphones and it starts off really low and then for some reason screams up in volume after a bit into the song. i still for the most part use most of microsofts services since i have more free cloud storage on outlook than google could give, as well as have an office subscription so i dont need google docs or drive. Google now on the other hand is fantastic! much better than tellme... though i dont think anybody doubts that, dictation is spot on.
CAMERA
Being spoiled after having 4 nokia devices i dont think the notes camera stands up in that category, you may disagree. manual settings on nokia camera and the quality of pictures just seems better to me so i havent tested its camera enough to consider the quality to that extent yet so i will rule this an unfair comparison i guess. though recording and stabalization are definitely better on nokia devices.
APPS
I LOVE!! being able to get whatever apps my friends have. windows phones store is growing at an astonishing rate but there are apps that just arent priority on it that i want. ign, gamestop, many more that i cant seem to remember at the moment. simply put windows phone has some amazing third party developers filling in gaps until companies see the potential on the platform, but they just arent moving fast enough for my app usage. windows phone just doesnt have the user usage to compete effectively at the moment, and i say this because its devices are limited to the carrier, and are crippled by ATNT which i am not on. but back to the current topic apps are there and i love it!
CONCLUSION
I feel as though android has won me back, with awesome user experience, customization, OS responsiveness, applications, well designed hardware, music lacks, but a multitude of storage makes up for it, and decent camera till i get a DSLR will do just fine. Thanks Samsung, and thanks Google, for making this an easy transition!!!
Being a windows phone user i came to like many things about it, these things being Stellar cameras from nokia hardware, a fresh approach to mobile GUI's, intergration between some pretty top notch services like outlook.com, xbox smartglass and music, with video soon approaching for wp8 and easy navigation through the OS, and nokias awesome software for mapping. coming from that to the galaxy note heres what i have to say.
HARDWARE
I must say that samsung has seriously impressed me with the galaxy note 3, as i used to give them a hard time for the plastic back. They did a great job giving that same plastic back a leather feel making it feel much more premium, as well as the metal banding on the side. I LOVE the SPen it is really natural to use, very accurate, and an elegant touch on a phone this size. The screen is beautiful, it pops and is bright and just gorgeous to look at, i will be honest it is taking me some time to get used to icons again but am slowly getting there. love the mix of physical and capacative buttons when i watch a movie or tv show the physical button gives me a place to put my hand without having to worry about accidental presses. Finally the speakers and microphones are awesome during phone calls. So all in all good job sammy im very very impressed and happy. Also the specs on this phone make it scream with speed! and IT HAS SD EXPANSION!! GOD i have been longing this feature for so long on windows phones and the ones that have it are low end entry phones!!
SOFTWARE
Again coming from windows phone which i will admit is much more limited, the samsung galaxy note is by far the best phone at productivity i have ever used. Android was very confusing to me with so many settings, and customizations options, and gesture options, and sound options, and it was all very overbearing at first, i was used to minimalism on wp8 though i have gotten used to it. icons again are weird to me after looking at tiles on wp8 win8 and xbox 1 but not a deal breaker. google has done a very good job with later iterations on android (came from a nexus one!). all in all samsung offers a great experience with touchwiz.
SERVICES
I was an xbox music subscriber and i loved it! i have since cancelled that membership to try a free trial of google music all access, and i dont think i like it very much. the reason being because for some reason i start to play music through headphones and it starts off really low and then for some reason screams up in volume after a bit into the song. i still for the most part use most of microsofts services since i have more free cloud storage on outlook than google could give, as well as have an office subscription so i dont need google docs or drive. Google now on the other hand is fantastic! much better than tellme... though i dont think anybody doubts that, dictation is spot on.
CAMERA
Being spoiled after having 4 nokia devices i dont think the notes camera stands up in that category, you may disagree. manual settings on nokia camera and the quality of pictures just seems better to me so i havent tested its camera enough to consider the quality to that extent yet so i will rule this an unfair comparison i guess. though recording and stabalization are definitely better on nokia devices.
APPS
I LOVE!! being able to get whatever apps my friends have. windows phones store is growing at an astonishing rate but there are apps that just arent priority on it that i want. ign, gamestop, many more that i cant seem to remember at the moment. simply put windows phone has some amazing third party developers filling in gaps until companies see the potential on the platform, but they just arent moving fast enough for my app usage. windows phone just doesnt have the user usage to compete effectively at the moment, and i say this because its devices are limited to the carrier, and are crippled by ATNT which i am not on. but back to the current topic apps are there and i love it!
CONCLUSION
I feel as though android has won me back, with awesome user experience, customization, OS responsiveness, applications, well designed hardware, music lacks, but a multitude of storage makes up for it, and decent camera till i get a DSLR will do just fine. Thanks Samsung, and thanks Google, for making this an easy transition!!!
jk...
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