Samsung Galaxy Note - after a first week

[Mark T]

L..K. To bring the quick note up on top of any app, just double tap on the screen whilst pressing the button on the stylus. When the note pad comes up you can then touch anywhere on the screen to make it dissapear...take the stylus off and it comes back.

[Filark]

Cool!

Thanks for the info, Mark T, and welcome to posting on MobileRead!

[jocampo]

Thought about getting the Note, bit its kind of too big for my taste. I bought the Galaxy SII instead.

But just curious. How is the battery life after a full day or moderate yo heavy usage? Can you elaborate a bit more on that.

Originally Posted by jocampo

Thought about getting the Note, bit its kind of too big for my taste. I bought the Galaxy SII instead.

But just curious. How is the battery life after a full day or moderate yo heavy usage? Can you elaborate a bit more on that.

My usage is mostly light, sometimes moderate. Mostly book reading, the rest web browsing on WIFI on and off during the day. Battery level after a day is 40-65%, I charge every day.

Here are the stats from today's usage to give an idea of my usage (today was a very light usage day --- too busy with work to play on the phone):

Battery 77%

14h 27m on battery

Display 65%
Cell standby 12%
Android OS 8%
Phone Idle 8%
Android System 5%
3G watchdog 2%
Aldiko 2%

As for using the phone to make phone calls --- very rarely!

I would say slightly better than my HTC Desire (which was on a custom ROM). I certainly wouldn't want to run the risk of using it two full days without a charge.

[jocampo]

The thing is ...

I like a cellphone that is very portable but big enough for browsing and quick emails.

The 4G Sidekick was fantastic for IM and emails, but a bit unresponsive and too small. The Galaxy SII is really powerful and too bulky.

Just playing a bit with Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet and see which one can fill the gap of a 7inches tablet. I love my iPad2, but certainly is not portable. And I am not expecting to use my cellphone as personal reader.

[PatNY]

Originally Posted by emt

The Galaxy Note is not available here yet but the Samsung Galaxy Player 5 WiFi is at Bestbuy for$269 US. I have had one for several weeks (very easy to root so as to freeze/uninstall bloatware). It is lightweight, makes a great ebook reader/music player/web surfer/movie player and has a great battery life.

I use Moon Reader because I like it's scrolling feature.

emt, thanks for the heads up on the Galaxy Player. I like the Note better because it has a stylus, user-replaceable battery, better screen resolution, and a slightly larger screen. However, if its price remains sky high after it comes to the U.S. I won't be buying it. I will consider the Player or another 5" tablet then. I wonder if someone is going to put out a 6" tablet.

Went over to Amazon to read up on the Galaxy Player 5.0 and it got great reviews. It's also selling now there for $229. Perhaps this is just a temporary Black Friday special.

The 0.3" difference between the screens on the Note and the Player seems to make a difference, at least in this image:



This site has a good comparison of the Note vs. Player vs. iPod Touch:

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/...wdown-2011118/

[Namekuseijin]

I have a question for you: can you use the pen with the swype keyboard input method?

I love swype to write, much better than typing, but unfortunately my greasy fingers eventually make my swiping come to a halt. Swiping with a pen would be much better. Could you check this out?

I also wonder if it'd work nice with some drawing app, like Youpaint...

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by jocampo

The thing is ...

I like a cellphone that is very portable but big enough for browsing and quick emails.

The 4G Sidekick was fantastic for IM and emails, but a bit unresponsive and too small. The Galaxy SII is really powerful and too bulky.

Just playing a bit with Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet and see which one can fill the gap of a 7inches tablet. I love my iPad2, but certainly is not portable. And I am not expecting to use my cellphone as personal reader.

I have the Dell Streak, it is slightly longer but also a little bit narrower than the Note. I usually wear jeans and always put it in my front pocket. No problem at all. However, I wouldn't go any bigger than that. People report that it also fits with a thin case. So, you would have been fine.

That was always my rule of thumb for a phone --- the biggest screen size I can still comfortably fit in my pocket. The Streak and the Note hit the sweet spot, until more innovative models (like a phone version of the Sony P tablet, for example) come along.

[RickB4]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

I have a question for you: can you use the pen with the swype keyboard input method?

I love swype to write, much better than typing, but unfortunately my greasy fingers eventually make my swiping come to a halt. Swiping with a pen would be much better. Could you check this out?

I also wonder if it'd work nice with some drawing app, like Youpaint...

Hi Namekuseijin,

Well, just to answer your question, I tried Swype with the pen and it works great! I don't use Swype but now I'll give it a try, this works better than I had thought.

-Rick

[Filark]

Welcome to MobileRead, Rick!

I take it you like your Note??

[scj827]

Originally Posted by l..k

All the mobile gadgets in my posession are utilized 60% on book reading, 30% on web surfing and some other things like notes, diary etc. So I thought of sharing a few lines about the new Samsung's toy here.

1. Usability - Gui
   I was very frustrated at first probably because this is my first android device and it resembles iPhone. Right, I am using iPad for quite a time. To put it short the usability improved very much when I found that android has special menu and back keys
   The weight is just right. I can keep it in my hand very long whereas my k3 with cover feels a bit too heavy.
2. Screen
   Awesome! The screen adjust the light appropriately to environment condition. The pixel resolution and AMOLED high contrast makes reading very easy. I was reading on it for 3-4 continous hours without any eye strain where on iPad I have a feeing of dizziness after about one hour. I believe that the "clear" picture does matter for reading experience.
3. Pen
   Again awesome! I love to make highlights and notes using the pen. It has a sharp point and does not require applying presure so it brings easy, natural pointing experience with high accuracy.
4. Multitasking
   Although the device specs seems very strong the multitasking is not Holding the home button a list of running apps show up, you can easily switch between them. The problem is that apps loose it's state without your consent. For example I open a browser navigate somewhere on the web, then I open a notepad and write something. Going back to browser and forth to notepad seems working... however if I stay long browsing the web and then switch back to notepad I do not see my unsaved note anymore. It is even clearer if I use another app like book reader, then switching back to browser shows only starting page, switching back to book reader shows starting page... etc. Something wierd is going on with regards to multitasking vs application state and I do not see how I could configure it. Why the apps do not save the work temporairly or prompt you to do so?

So summarizing, if you are looking for great reading experience I can give my word you would be satisfied

Hi, i am looking for the oriangial libwebkit-1.0.so.2.5.0 for my kindle3 3g(553210206). Could you give me a copy? Thanks a lot
ps: I saw your posts here(https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...，closed, so...

[macminer]

Originally Posted by l..k

I can see, I was *away* for a few days
There is 'Polaris office' preinstalled, very handy, works pretty fast and I did not see any incompatibility with MS Office documents.

Yes, Polaris Office is quite good at compatibility, as far as opening various docs is concerned. It is, however, quite limited as an editor. I used to have Softmaker/Textmaker on my Windows Mobile devices and Textmaker allows much more formatting than Polaris (complex tables, named styles, footnotes etc.). So don't expect you'll write your academic paper with Polaris Office, but for everyday tasks it should be enough. I also checked Polaris compatibility with some non-western fonts and it seems to be able to show and write them correctly.

The worst thing about mobile "Office" clones is that after opening a file they often lose all formatting they can't recognize (named styles, multi-level numbering, footnotes etc.), so when you save your original DOC or DOCX with these programs, you may be in for a nasty surprise!

I haven't been able to check Polaris Office with all possible formatting tags - I only played with it for a couple of minutes, so if someone has more experience, I would be glad to hear how good it is with more complex formatting.

[macminer]

Originally Posted by srikant

Did you receive the ICS updtae, no! then how do you feel working with the same old technology.
This is what samsung should know and the users should get aware of.
Samsung never updates its existing handsets in the market. It sells the new OS updates with a new kind of device that is again too costly.

This is not true. Samsung updates some devices and doesn't update some other ones. My original Galaxy is now on Android 2.1 (and it originally came with 1.6) and I managed to flash it using the official update from Samsung. That is also true with many other phones, but not with all. As far as Samsung themselves can be trusted, they officially announced there won't be ICS for Galaxy Tab 7", but there will be ICS for Galaxy Note. So the GT users have a reason to be angry, while GN needn't get emotional.
That said, I am waiting with my decision about buying GN till it actually gets the update. We shall see if Samsung can keep their word.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by srikant

Did you receive the ICS updtae, no! then how do you feel working with the same old technology.
This is what samsung should know and the users should get aware of.
Samsung never updates its existing handsets in the market. It sells the new OS updates with a new kind of device that is again too costly.
The latest devices that are offered in the market are not made okay after knowing the problems in it.
Samsung knows the existing problems in a device after so many complaints but it does not fix those problems rather keep continuing the sales without fixing any issues.
According to news reports the latest samsung announcements says " Our devices cannot be updated an do not make them for any further updates, the inbuilt OS is only given by us for this price".
Isn't that ridiculous ?

The Galaxy note is getting the update. Did you register here just to troll?

[Namekuseijin]

He's an update nut: does nothing all day long but to search for news about updates.

People who actually do work with their devices hate updates because it interferes with their workflow, messes things up, bring on new useless features etc.