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Is the Note a problem-prone phone?

simon adebesi

simon adebesi

Member
Is the Note a particularly fault-prone phone? Ive had mine for a bit less than 18 months, on a 2 year contract. Today I had to send it off to Samsung to be repaired for the second time since Ive had it. Both problems have been related as well, in the latter case the phone kept resetting itself, which ate the battery something chronic - the first time it was also to do with the phone restarting randomly and problems charging.

Its not relevant to the topic at hand directly, but Im told Samsung have committed to have it back to me within 2-3 weeks. So 3 weeks. Which pisses me right off as I am now left with a very basic phone that does nothing for me in terms of internet, music or anything else except making calls.

My last phone (and the one before it) was an HTC and I had no problems with it like this. The worst thing that happened was the accumulation of dust in the power port which made charging a bit of an issue, until someone suggested cleaning it out with a pin, which worked a treat. Hardly as serious an issue as the Note's power problems, and crucially I was never without my phone.

It has made me think about the decision I have next Spring when Im out of contract. Do I want another Samsung phone? Have I had bad luck with this phone, or is it more prone to problems than a lot of other phones? I dont want to be in this situation again. At the moment I am minded to go back to HTC if they have a phone I like on the market when Im looking. I would have gone for the HTC One last time if it took an SD card.

You can only vote with your feet and at the moment I am pissed off with Samsung but once I have it back fixed Im sure Ill get over it.
 
I dont think its more problem prone than any other phone. Ive had my phone 2 years now. Never had any problem what so ever.

Next phone will be whatever note is new when my note 1 finally dies.. (i expect atleast 1 more year)
 
As soon as the nexus 5 hits, I am done with Samsung phones in general.

It worked great on gingerbread, but as soon as the ICS update happened, my phone has never been right since. And I don't even wanna get started when it updated to JB.

Battery life, and lag has been unbelievably shit. Seriously, how can it take on average 5 seconds to open the phone app or messaging app when i press it?

Resetted it numerous times, still crap. I see the Note 3 has 3gb of RAM.Not even impressed becuase Touchwiz will probably bog it down over time.

It's a shame, because I really did like owning the first "phablet", editing photos with the stylus, and have people ask about it etc, but the novelty has worn off. Maybe the note 3 is amazing and won't lag at all, but I just can't trust samsung to not mess the actual phone up when they update it to Kitkat eventually.
 
Omar,

I hear you brother.

The lag.... oh the lag. It is as you say. Ive learned to live with it but there is a question as to whether a person should have to live with something like that.

because I have this issue with my phone and its the second time, I couldnt live without email and stuff for work so I got myself a cheap second hand Xperia to see my through the next couple of weeks. It has been a bit of an eye opener - for the good and the bad.

You touched on the bad. It is nice having a phone where the apps dont crash anywhere near as often. It is so much less laggy, it has reminded me of how bad the Note is, how much I noticed it when I first made the step up from the Desire HD I had before. And the battery.

The good relates mainly to the size and the screen quality. I mean I know the Xperia is hardly a fair comparison to make but it has made me appreciate how crisp the picture quality is. OK that, and the size of the screen, are why the battery is so awful on the Note and usually it is a price I can pay as I am usually near a charger anyway.

I am certainly looking forward to getting my Note back but I have been thinking a lot about whether I would get another Samsung after this. I wonder how different the last 18 months would have been if I had got the SIII which is what I so nearly did. Im sure Samsung phones arent all bad, and I even suspect others may not have as many issues with the Note as I have, but I do look back with enormous fondness at my two HTC phones (which incidentally are the same as the first two phones you list for your own phones Omar.) The customer services with Samsung has been pretty shoddy as well.

I just think the Note is a nice idea but is a let down in many ways.
 
Omar Days said:
Seriously, how can it take on average 5 seconds to open the phone app or messaging app when i press it?

Resetted it numerous times, still crap. I see the Note 3 has 3gb of RAM.Not even impressed becuase Touchwiz will probably bog it down over time.
Click to expand...

Are you rooted? If you strip Touchwiz out does it not make life better on the lag?

That's another thing with HTC, I preferred Sense. Not saying it was amazing but I rarely had any reason to give it much thought, whereas with Touchwiz I notice it and more often than not it is pissing me off.

But Ive never rooted. Maybe when I get my phone back it will be time to do it.
 
If you rooted and install a stable aosp/vanilla rom on the note, I am 99.999999% the lag will go. I did this to my old desire hd, and the phone runs amazingly fast and quick and has jellybean 4.3. Battery life picked up too.

If you do root and install a custom rom, you wont be able to use some apps, like my banking app doesn't work on rooted devices, so bare that in mind. It's the only reason why I have not done this on my note.
 
I have an s4 now and had an s3 before that I also had the htc one which I returned for the s3 because as mentioned it has no sd slot. I also had the ZTE force which on paper has a faster processor than the s3 but was much slower. It did have better battery life but the resolution was much lower. On the note, my cousin had the note, note 2 and just got a note 3 and has loved them all. I personally have had no problems with the s3 or s4.
 
Omar Days said:
If you rooted and install a stable aosp/vanilla rom on the note, I am 99.999999% the lag will go. I did this to my old desire hd, and the phone runs amazingly fast and quick and has jellybean 4.3. Battery life picked up too.

If you do root and install a custom rom, you wont be able to use some apps, like my banking app doesn't work on rooted devices, so bare that in mind. It's the only reason why I have not done this on my note.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I actually deinstalled all my banking apps from the phone anyway, I spoke to some guy who put the fear of god in me about the lack of oversight of the apps, especially Android apps, and about how even relatively innocuous seeming apps could install malware on your phone and become a security issue. I got the impression this was more a hypothetical problem at this stage rather than something he sees happening but it convinced me security on phones is not good enough at this stage and to steer clear of banking apps.

I know nothing about rooting so Ill be back asking more questions about this in a few weeks if I go ahead with it, as Im thinking I will. My first question will be: what Rom should I use? But maybe I should take that to a rooting thread.
 
I've had my Note for almost two years and it has never let me down - certainly nothing I couldn't resolve myself and no hardware problems at all. But I do find the Samsung ROMs to be stuffed full of needless bloat and I don't use the stylus or most of the Samsung apps so I looked for a cleaner solution.

I'm now running the Slim Bean Release 1.9 (beta) ROM, having switched to Slim Bean a few weeks ago and enjoying the experience. Obviously the hardware is no match for the latest top tier phones, but with the Slim ROM it suits my needs perfectly well still. To be honest I'm sure I could work with the latest stock ROM too, but why have bloat when you don't have to?

Root is included with the Slim ROM and can be enabled and disabled through the settings.

2013-10-22%252020.26.21.png


If you're thoroughly sick of your Note as it is and want to give it a new lease of life before giving up on it entirely then maybe this is a way forward. ROM details and updates in this thread....

[ROM][4.3][14/10]Slim Bean - N7000 [Build 1.8] - xda-developers
 
Thanks. I might well do that. I'm still nervous about rooting. When I follow instructions on a computer things never go smoothly. I'm evidently a bit of a muppet. But I do like the idea of streamlining it a bit, I do get frustrated with the lag.
 
Simon, this is probably the best thing you could do to be honest, especially as you don't use a banking app.

I rooted my htc desire just by following simple step by step instructions, and I'm no computer expert at all. I say go for it!
 
People.

I just had a call from Carphone Warehouse telling me Samsung couldnt economically fix my phone so I should come and collect it, still broken. The phone is no longer under warranty and so as far as they are concerned the matter is closed, I should move on. So all the helpful advice people have given above is for naught, my days as the proud owner of a Note are over.

I wish I had known it was going to go down like this, as much as I like the Xperia I bought it was a temporary phone, I dont fancy living with it permanently, Id rather have something bigger. Ah well.

So now I have to figure out what to do. I really cant see myself buying a Samsung phone again. Im sure it would have been as likely to happen with another make but its just the straw that broke the camel's back to be honest. There are enough options out there so this has made the next choice easier to make.

Thanks again to everyone for your advice and support. Well, except for anyone from Samsung or CW, from whom support was nowhere in sight.
 
In Europe the Note has a two year warranty. Are you sure that your warranty is up? There should have been a warranty booklet supplied in the box showing 24 months warranty.
 
I just spoke to CW again to mention this 2 year guarantee. The problem apparently is there was evidence of water damage inside the phone that invalidated the warranty. When I was on holiday in August I left my phone under an air conditioner and it did indeed get pretty wet, I had to take it all apart to dry it out, but then it worked fine until a couple of weeks ago. Not sure if that was the reason for the fault, but it is certainly why they arent going to fix it for me or replace it.

EDIT: Now I know it was the water damage I am a little less hostile about Samsung. I wish they had just fixed it, seems to me its a convenient excuse for them to refuse to do it, but at the end of the day it does explain why i had more problems with this phone than I did my HTCs. So maybe I will take a look at Samsung phones for a possible replacement. Maybe.
 
FWIW here is the warranty booklet (cover page and first page)....

Note the "24" in the top right
2013-10-25%252015.45.06.jpg


explained further inside....
2013-10-25%252015.45.40.jpg


And as you've rightly observed, water damage is not a defect in manufacture and thus not covered. A shame for sure, but hardly Samsung's fault. Beyond economic repair probably means that the circuit boards are damaged and/or chip(s) on the board, so the repair would likely require full replacement of internals - virtually a new phone.
 
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