The Galaxy Note II for Verizon Wireless ($299.99 direct) is many things, but above all, it's the most?phone there is. It gives you more screen, more processor, and more OS than almost any other phone out there. If you think other phones are too small, and prefer something big enough to double as a miniature tablet that (barely) fits in your pocket, the Galaxy Note II could be exactly what you want. Even so, the HTC Droid DNA, features a sharper screen, nicer build quality, and a significantly lower price. Those differences are enough to keep the Droid DNA as our Editors' Choice for phablets on Verizon?if just barely.
Editors' Note: The Verizon Wireless, Sprint?, AT&T, U.S. Cellular, and T-Mobile versions of the Samsung Galaxy Note II are all very similar, so we're sharing a lot of material between our reviews. That said, we're testing each device separately, so read the review for your carrier of choice. The slideshow below is for the T-Mobile version, which is visually identical aside from the carrier name in the notification bar, and the logo on the plastic back panel.
Design and Screen
Visually, there's almost no difference between the various Samsung Galaxy Note II versions, aside from a Verizon logo on the Home button and on the back panel.?The Galaxy Note II measures 5.95 by 3.17 by 0.37 inches (HWD) and weighs 6.34 ounces. That's roughly an inch taller and half an inch wider than even big smartphones with 4.5-inch and greater screens. It's just as thin as those, though, which helps a lot. It's significantly wider and heavier than the Droid DNA, though, which measures 5.58 by 2.78 by 0.38 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.01 ounces.
Unlike the soft-touch, beautifully crafted Droid DNA, the Galaxy Note II is made entirely of plastic, with the exception of the glass screen. But unlike some other Samsung handsets, the Galaxy Note II still looks and feels refined, thanks to the classy, faux-anodized silver finish and a smoked chrome accent ring around the sides. You can get one in either gray or white.
The star of the show is the 5.5-inch, 1,280-by-720-pixel, Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen. The aspect ratio is 16:9 this time, instead of 16:10 like the first Galaxy Note, which had a slightly higher 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution. Either way, the new display is stunning. It's super-bright, with vivid colors and deep blacks, and viewing angles are uniformly excellent. I suppose you could argue that at 267ppi, pixel depth isn't quite as impressive as it is on smaller phones with the same 720p resolution. But rest assured: This screen looks fantastic. Even so, the Droid DNA's 1,920-by-1,080-pixel, 5-inch panel is even sharper.
As you can imagine, the Galaxy Note II's screen is large enough for easy typing in both portrait and landscape modes. You even get an extra row of number keys, so you don't have to switch the keyboard mode to enter in digits.?There's a hardware Home button below the screen, flanked by Menu and Back capacitive touch buttons. A Wacom-designed stylus is tucked into a slot under the bottom right edge. The stylus supports 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity?four times what the stylus in the Galaxy Note supports.
Given its gargantuan size, the Galaxy Note II is difficult to use one-handed?except that, fortunately, Samsung has already thought of this. To that end, it provides a series of toggles in Settings > One-Handed Operation.?You can move the dial buttons to the left or right, for example, and position the keyboard and unlock pattern for easier access.
Connectivity and Voice Calls
The Galaxy Note II on Verizon Wireless is a dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz) and 4G LTE device with 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi support on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands. I had no problem connecting to a 5GHz, WPA2-encrypted hotspot in the PCMag Lab. LTE speeds were on the low side, at 3-4Mbps down and 2-3Mbps up here in Manhattan, although lower scores have been typical on Verizon lately as the network gets saturated with users. My own iPhone 5 on Verizon scored just 0.5 to 1Mbps down at the same time, which was horrendous, and yet I've seen the iPhone 5 hit 10Mbps on good days in the same spot. The Galaxy Note II also works as a mobile hotspot with the appropriate data plan.
Voice calls sound as good as I've ever heard on a cell phone?full, warm, and loud, with no background hiss. I could move my ear quite a bit against the handset and still hear the other party easily, which wasn't possible with the?LG Intuition. Transmissions through the microphone were clear. As usual, I tested the phone on an extremely noisy street, which the noise cancelling algorithms reduced to a low, steady drone the other party could still hear, albeit lightly, and it was entirely absent in quieter environments.
Calls also sounded clear through a?Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset. The rear-mounted mono speakerphone sounds clear and loud, and should be fine for use outdoors. The massive 3,100mAh battery lasted for a stellar 19 hours 57 minutes of talk time on a single charge, and we've seen other Galaxy Note IIs exceed 11 hours of video playback, which is also excellent.
Voice dialing deserves special mention. Samsung's S Voice lets you control the Note by voice. You can wake it up by saying Hi Galaxy, double-tapping the Home button, or by choosing your own phrase. You can also enable or disable handwriting mode, which activates when you pull the pen from the device. In addition to voice dialing?which worked fine over Bluetooth in my tests?you can also text, search contacts, navigate, schedule something on your calendar, add a task, start a music playlist, and update Twitter, all with your voice.
Hardware, OS, and Apps
Under the hood is a 1.6GHz quad-core A9 Samsung Exynos processor and 2GB of RAM. Android fans can rejoice, as the Galaxy Note II ships with Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" out of the box. Benchmark results were at the top of the class almost entirely across the board; combine Jelly Bean with a quad-core processor and you get one fast phone. The exception was some gaming frame rate tests, the results of which lagged next to the Qualcomm-powered HTC Droid DNA.
(Next page: Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions)
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