Samsung Galaxy Note 3: First impressions

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a bigger screen and
packs more pixels than its predecessor, but is smaller
in size and weighs less. Here are the first impressions.

Samsung has unveiled Galaxy Note 3 in the Indian
market, giving us a first glimpse of its latest flagship
phablet. The device has a bigger screen and packs
more pixels than its predecessor, but is smaller in size
and weighs less. It also has an upgraded S Pen stylus
that adds new functionalities to the device. It has a lot
of promise, looks better than the Galaxy Note II and
adds a new flavour of features that offer improved user
experience. Here are our first impressions of the
Samsung Galaxy Note 3:
The phablet looks premium, even though it is made of
plastic. The plastic back has faux leather finish and
comes with a stitching along the sides. The chrome
edges we saw in the Galaxy Note II are present here as
well, but look better. Overall, the phone's finish looks
premium since the back has leather feel to it, the
feeling of cheap plastic doesn't seem to be a problem
anymore.
At 168gram, Galaxy Note 3 weighs less than its
predecessor. Its width is same as that of the Galaxy
Note II, but the length and thickness are lesser. And
within this compact frame lies the 5.7-inch screen that
packs 1080p resolution and 324ppi pixel density. This
is a major improvement over last year's Galaxy Note
model and similar to that of the top-end smartphones
like LG Optimus G Pro, Sony Xperia Z Ultra and Lenovo
K900.
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 version for India runs on a
1.9GHz eight-core Exynos processor that is based on
ARM's big.LITTLE chipset architecture. While this may
seem impressive, the problem is that the international
variant running on Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip is
capable of recording movie hall quality 4K videos.
Such a feature would have made Note 3 a very exciting
prospect for Indian buyers.
The images taken by Note 3's camera are very good.
However, when we did a full zoom, most photos
showed lack of details, which is disappointing given
the high price of Note 3 and more so when you
compare the photo quality seen in previous Samsung
phones that are priced much lower. However, colours
and contrast levels were very good in all photos.
India gets the 32GB variant of the Galaxy Note 3,
which is the lowest storage option that Samsung is
offering with the phone. However, we feel that if 16GB
storage variant was also made available in the
country, the price could have been reduced by at a
least a few thousand rupees by Samsung. One already
gets 50GB Dropbox storage and microSD expansion up
to 64GB in the handset, so 16GB internal storage
would not have been a problem.
The screen is vibrant and displays beautiful colours.
We have seen SuperAMOLED displays in many previous
phones and the results have always been fantastic.
Thus, it is no surprise that colours did not wash out
even at acute angles and contrast level is very good.
The S Pen stylus is more central to the Galaxy Note 3
compared with styluses in previous phones in the
series. This stylus adds many more functionalities,
which actually add to the overall user experience and
do not seem to be just gimmicks. It has a button that
opens up the S Pen menu that allows you to find
objects, write memos, copy data etc.
Some of the features we saw are quite neat. For
example, if you scribble a phone number on the screen
using the stylus, and then make a call, send text
message or add it to contact without ever opening
Contacts app. Or you can search for anything
throughout the device, with several new options like
Last Updated etc. Or, you can write an address and
look it up on Google or map apps. You can select
some text or a particular image from the screen and
save it for future use; you don't have to save the
whole page, as is the case with most other phones.
The Multi App view is present here too, but this time
you can open the same app twice; this was not
possible earlier.
Overall, the software features of Samsung Galaxy Note
3 seem exciting, but a proper evaluation can be made
only after a full review.
At Rs 49,900, the Galaxy Note 3 is a very pricey
prospect. With a price tag of half a lakh rupees, the
company is pushing it too high, especially since its
rival from LG is available for approximately Rs 38,000.
However, it is likely that its price will come down in a
couple of months, as was the case with Galaxy S4.
We also checked out the Samsung Galaxy Gear
smartwatch at the launch event, which is priced at Rs
22,990, higher than the industry estimate. Its usage is
limited to only Samsung gadgets and that too only the
ones that run on Android 4.3. Thus, Galaxy Note 3 is
the only device it works with in the market, as of now.
While Samsung Galaxy Gear has a host of features, we
were unable to explore them further because the
devices at the launch venue did not have sim card.
What we did see in the smartwatch was that its display
is good, but the functionalities seem limited, at least
right now. Making or receiving a call on this gadget
will be an unusual experience, where you will have to
put your wrist near the mouth in order to talk. We will
explore the smartwatch, along with Note 3, in more
detail when we get them here for a full review.