Former note 2 owner

[Jeffruby]

While I do miss the size of the note screen and the s pen, I must say the camera, clear colored screen, and weight have me hooked.

The craziest thing is I can seemingly type much better and faster on this thing.

SwiftKey Flow was a disaster on the note2 (too big), and I couldn't understand why many liked it! On this slightly smaller screen, it is awesome

 

[JimmyTheSaint]

That's the thing that pisses me off about all the keyboard alternatives except for Kii: they don't allow resizing the keyboard. You'd think there'd be a lot of user demand in this era of vastly different phone sizes, but i guess not. That makes my choice of keyboard simple, but i wish i had the option to use something besides Kii. Kii is OK, but still.

 

[Benjie]

SlideIT supports keyboard resizing

 

[JimmyTheSaint]

SlideIT supports keyboard resizing

Thanks for that. I rejected SlideIT quite a while ago because it said that it would share private data in section 7 of its agreement. It appears that SlideIT now has a more standard privacy policy.

SlideIT can indeed now be resized. Hopefully, this means the other keyboards will follow suit to accommodate using full-size phones. SlideIT's resizing option , however, only allows a small number of grid points to snap to. Kii allows entering a percentage, which gives more precise sizing. This wouldn't be a big deal if SlideIT offered a few more grid points. I'd like to be able to move one side of my keyboard just a tad in from the edge of the screen, but SlideIT will only allow a big jump. That's not a dealbreaker--maybe the dev will modify on request. I must say, SlideIT does have a nice feel to it (about the same Kii, I guess), but offers more convenient access to some features that Kii doesn't have. So it's nice to finally have options.

(sorry for the thread hijack)

 

[Tsepz_GP]

Funny thing is that I very NEARLY got a Note2 when my GS3 broke, but I decided to wait the 3weeks and use my GS2, so glad I waited, the Note2 is simply too big for my liking, I tried a friend's one and just couldn't get used to typing on it and generally trying to use it one handed.

Glad you're enjoying your GS4, I am to. I personally use TouchPal, love it's T9 keypad, I've never been a fan of QWERTY or QWERTY Swype keyboards, I'm old school like that, lol.

 

[JimmyTheSaint]

I tried a friend's one and just couldn't get used to typing on it and generally trying to use it one handed.

I use GMD Gesture Control with my Note 2 (and S4), which goes a long way toward making any phone one-handed. Along with resizable keyboards like Kii and SlideIT, the Note 2--believe it or not--is very nearly as one-handable as the S4. I just got tired of the Note 2's size in my pocket, is all, plus I'm very happy with the S4's HD screen. In terms of actually experienced performance and responsiveness with the apps I normally use, I don't notice any difference between the Note 2 and S4. The S4 is all about the screen.

But, yeah, there are plenty of apps that are unnecessarily difficult to operate one-handed because clueless devs put the controls out of thumb's reach, with no customized placement possible. No excuse for designing a UI like that in this era of large phones. When I hit the menu button with my left thumb, and a menu drops down from the upper righthand corner, I want to scream, and sometimes do. It's easily fixed, so I email the devs, hoping the feedback will pile up. Kii added the resizing when I asked for it (I was an early adopter of Kii). Perhaps he was planning to do that anyway.

 

[Tsepz_GP]

Oh okay, I see. Yes, I totally agree, performance wise the Note2 is one hell of a thing still, even the GS3, they are certainly not sluggish and even when I compare my GS2 (on 4.1.2), mates GS3 LTE and Note2 they don't differ much if at all to my GS4 in performance, although the S4 for me is a tad bit smoother here and there.

I once saw an infographic showing that a small percentage of Android users own 'phablets', so maybe most devs haven't seen any point of optimizing their apps for them, that said, it's always good to give them feedback as you said you do, you might find that many of them are still using GS2s, Thunderbolts/Desire HDs, Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus, Huawei Ascend P, Xperia S, Nexus 4s etc... so they just don't know how their apps are on a huge +5.0inch screen phone, it's price we pay for 'fragmentation I guess.

 

[rcyphermd]

Have you noticed any difference in signal, voice or data strength and clarity with the s4 compared to the note 2? My note 2 is way better on signal than my s3.