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hey fellow note owners

Omar Days

Omar Days

Android Expert
So I'm gonna be posting here now as I'm getting a note on Friday. Am so excited. Got a pretty good deal on an unbranded unlocked one in the UK, so thought why not get one. Will be upgrading my desire hd on contract in the summer to a galaxy s3 when that comes out but i just couldn't pass up on the note in the meantime, it's so beautiful!

So, how is everyone finding theirs?
 
Yeah I've been hearing a lot about Giffgaff. What's the service like regarding quality of reception? It's not like 3 is it? lol.
 
I'm definitely loving mine. I use it tons more than I did any other phone and still go 1 to 2 days between charges.

I moved to 3 from Vodafone due to the mobile internet dead zones in Edinburgh. There are still signal black holes in roughly the same places with 3 but are much smaller. General throughput elsewhere is much better as well, not to mention getting a gig instead of 500MB for less a month (SIM only contract, I too bought my note outright after working out it was about
 
Bodestone said:
I'm definitely loving mine. I use it tons more than I did any other phone and still go 1 to 2 days between charges.

I moved to 3 from Vodafone due to the mobile internet dead zones in Edinburgh. There are still signal black holes in roughly the same places with 3 but are much smaller. General throughput elsewhere is much better as well, not to mention getting a gig instead of 500MB for less a month (SIM only contract, I too bought my note outright after working out it was about £200 cheaper over 2 years that way).

Love the Note and also the following things to go with it:

Breffo Spiderpodium: The everything everywhere stand. I've been hanging my note off the seat in front on the bus to watch Fringe.

Cheap MHL: output the Note's awesome resolution to an HDMI telly

2x Client: The Note's screen means remoting into the office is far less annoying than before.

FDroid: Free Software Foundation's repository of Software.
Tricorder: Fully working Next Gen themed tricorder (from FDroid, not the market)
Angry Birds Space: Paid the 65p to ditch the ads and all the extra juice they use.
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Yeah been hearing how good the battery is. Considering how big the screen is etc I'm surprised at what I'm reading regarding the battery life.

Just two more days 'til I get it :D

Can't believe though that in a few days I'll look at my desire hd and think how small the screen is lol
 
The trick to long battery life is to dim the screen unless needed and don't install every app under the sun. I have an advantage with battery life in that the majority of the web sites I use regularly are very dark.

Samsung add a nice shortcut to screen brightness. You can just swipe the notification bar at the top to change it on the fly.
 
Bodestone said:
The trick to long battery life is to dim the screen unless needed and don't install every app under the sun. I have an advantage with battery life in that the majority of the web sites I use regularly are very dark.
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Each to their own but I've never understood why people put up with a dull screen for the sake of what amounts to a small difference in battery life. Every large screen phone I've had I've used at at least 75% brightness and the difference in battery life compared to using it at much lower brightness levels has been minimal. I tried using low brightness on my Note for a day and I just found it pointless, and found that it genuinely made little difference to battery life (literally a difference of less than 5%). Ever since my first smartphone I've been used to charging every day, yet my Note only needs charging every other day unless it's seen heavy usage. The key feature of the Note is the screen and I just don't see the point of crippling it for the sake of maybe a couple of hours extra use.
 
With screen dimming it also depends on usage and ambient light conditions. In our office the screen looks fine at under 50% brightness and full brightness just looks really bright, not any better. Obviously outside and things like that then the brightness is set higher. The ease with which Samsung let us change it means that it is really easy to find just the right ones for the conditions on the fly.

I did a test browsing white background web pages continuously fully dimmed vs fully bright. At lowest things were still easy to read and the battery saving was immense.

Watching video dimmed didn't cut the mustard and the screen needed to be brightened considerably. The battery drain difference there was far more minimal.
 
Still not got it yet, next week for sure though.

Anyway, this Samsung kies business, what's this all about then? Do I have to use this to transfer photos/music etc or can I still just connect the phone to my computer and mount the sd card?
 
Ye, I'm up for a bright screen too. The screen is too good to have dimmed.

Regarding Kies, I dont bother. I just copy and paste, seems alot less hassle than using Kies or Double Twist and the like.

For me, Kies doesn't pick up on alot of my itunes library and Double Twist just seems to duplicate everything. Also, Double Twist has this annoying thing where when you look in Albums it shows every song from an one album as its own album.

It would be nice for itunes just to sync up with all devices and for Apple to ditch DRM. Wishful thinking.
 
Omar Days said:
Love love love this phone / beast!

Didn't even realise it had OTG usb support!
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Wait until it starts locking up for no reason (which mine has started doing again two weeks after I had to factory reset it to try to cure the problem). Kinda takes the shine off it when you go to use it and the screen won't come on.
 
GiggityGiggity said:
Wait until it starts locking up for no reason (which mine has started doing again two weeks after I had to factory reset it to try to cure the problem). Kinda takes the shine off it when you go to use it and the screen won't come on.
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:-/

I've just read through your thread about the troubles you're having. I'd be thouroughly pissed off too. Touch wood nothing's wrong with mine yet. This phone was a total impulse buy as I'm due an upgrade in a month's time and the price for a brand new unlocked note was too good to pass up on. Love it so far and the screen is great. I hold my old desire hd and it feels so small. Don't actually think I can go back to a smaller screen when looking at free upgrades in a months time
 
Omar Days said:
:-/

I've just read through your thread about the troubles you're having. I'd be thouroughly pissed off too. Touch wood nothing's wrong with mine yet. This phone was a total impulse buy as I'm due an upgrade in a month's time and the price for a brand new unlocked note was too good to pass up on. Love it so far and the screen is great. I hold my old desire hd and it feels so small. Don't actually think I can go back to a smaller screen when looking at free upgrades in a months time
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Who knows whether yours will be trouble-free or not? It seems utterly random and there are plenty around with no problems at all so you might be lucky. ;)

Totally agree with you on screen size though. When I first got mine and was setting it up I still had my Galaxy S2. Every time I had to check something on the S2 when I picked it up it felt like a toy compared to the Note. I couldn't go back to a small screen now.
 
Couple things about the phone that could be improved is the keyboard. The sense keyboard on my old phone was perfect. There's no arrow buttons on the note. And secondly the lock/power button should always be on the top. With it being on the side I keep hitting the volume button on the left.

Minor issues though.
 
Omar Days said:
Couple things about the phone that could be improved is the keyboard.
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I strongly recommend you try 'SwiftKey X' from the Android Market. I bought mine, but there's a free version also. The word recognition is simply phenominal, makes typing fast a breeze and even keeps your texts legible while rather drunk... it's that good ;). Bear in mind that it will learn how you write, and become much better with time.

If you give it a try, let me know what you think...

- R4nd0mJ0k3r
 
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