Galxy Note Review - First Impressions

I have had my brand new Samsung Galaxy Note for a few days now and have put together a few thoughts on it. These are only first impressions though. Over time I will no doubt uncover more tricks and secrets for the device along with, possibly, a few weaknesses too, and I will probably write a further review in a couple of months. But for now - how does the 'phablet' fare?

A common criticism of the device is its size. There was a period in time when mobile phone development was relentlessly pushing towards smaller and smaller devices.

Even supermodels were hawking them

Then touchscreens, and more pertinently the iphone, were invented and that trend was halted. A new form-factor was invented and it was suddenly cool to have a big screen again. Oddly enough though, for me, the Note is actually a step down in size as I have been using a Samsung Galaxy Tab for nearly a year. The Note is maybe half its size. It is still of course larger than most phones though but really, don't let that put you off. The Note is still palm-sized for most regularly sized humans and will fit in your front pocket. Its a little weird for me to be able to do that after having a phone that would really only fit in cargo trouser pockets but I could honestly forget the Note was in there. Seriously - a couple of times I have had to check every pocket on my person to find where I put it.

As far as the Note's layout goes, it is identical to the Galaxy S2. I know because that is the phone my wife is rocking right now. Packaged software is also virtually identical too. The only visible difference between the two is the S-pen that comes with the Note. So, why would you choose the larger of the two devices? What benefit comes from having a stylus and a larger screen?

It seems the designers intent is for you to use the pen as a more precise way to interact and work on your phone than just fingertips. There are lots of promo videos showing hip young professionals cutting up screen grabs and photos, maps and illustrations, then mashing them together into SMS's and emails. I have tried doing some of the tasks these videos show and in principle they are as simple and easy as shown. But bear in mind, results will vary according to genuine artistic talent. So my first few annotated photos and drawings look like, well, like they were drawn by someone who never went beyond GCSE art. A long time ago. But hey, if you're of the artistic bent, you can probably put together some nice mashups.

The phone comes with rudimentary video and photo editing software. There's a nice little range of effects in each one. For example, all the effects I used in my unboxing video, made in Windows Movie Maker, are present in the Note's software package and are easier and more intuitive to access too.

The photo editor is similarly easy to use to get quick, impressive results. Witness the most beautiful little girl in the world:

I am no great photographer. I just snapped a quick pic of my sleeping daughter. Then I added two effects, straight in the Note's video editor. And hey presto - instant awesome. (When I tried adding a handwritten caption over this picture, it looked a little less cute. And kind of more stalkery)

Make no mistake - for editing this sort of thing, screen real estate matters. The bigger the better. But precision and control is important too. So the S-pen is great for working with pictures and a big screen is essential too in order to feel like you're making real art and not just farting about and I have found myself wishing, so many times, I could have done the things I can do on the Note on the Tab.

Unsurprisingly given the device's name, Samsung is aiming this phone at people who take a lot notes, whether they be voice, text, or pictures. So it comes with the S Memo system, a really nice Post-it Notes style package. You can write with the pen, write with the onscreen keyboard, dictate, draw sketches, whatever. You can nest your notes to collect related ideas and thoughts. I used it to jot down what I wanted to cover in this post. But here's the problem - your notes are only ever on the phone itself. Given that this is a state-of-the-art mobile device, able to connect to all sorts of networks and will most likely be bought as part of a package with a generous data allowance, why would you want to use a notes package that is not backed up on the cloud?

Consequently, I installed Evernote and cut and pasted the aforementioned notes into it and am now viewing them on my PC as I type.

Incidentally, the S-Pen is really great for taking notes and writing. Combined with Samsung's Swype software and a nice big onscreen keyboard, it makes writing feel natural and easy. The Note supposedly has handwriting recognition software but it struggled to recognise mine. Even if I try really hard to write capitalized, large, clear letters, the phone came back with gibberish so I will probably just stick to the onscreen QWERTY.

The pen is also great for playing games. I have tried Fruit Ninja on my wife's S2, and on my Note, both using my fingers and with the pen, and the pen rules. R-Type, Spirit, and Osmos all also benefited from the precision control the pen offers and I'll be trying it you on some tower defense games soon too.

Thats about all I have for now. So far, so good - no reason to regret getting a Note and no reason for anyone else not to get one too. If you've ever felt the desire to have a mobile device that is truly pocket-portable and truly powerful enough to do real work on, the Galaxy Note could be for you. More thoughts as they come to me.