I have noticed quite a few Galaxy Note II users online that are close to pulling the trigger on a new phone. I have been in that camp for a few months and finally did. I really don't have and major complaints about the Galaxy Note II but rather small quibbles about the device. So you have a basic idea of where I am coming from I'll let you know what I like and dislike about the Galaxy Note II.
GNOTE II Pros:
Good Specs - The phone has specs that are still considered above mid level and should still be a viable phone for at least a couple more years if properly updated...if.
Camera - I get pretty fair image clarity from the phone and when I need something better I'll break out a DSLR or my Galaxy Camera.
Voice - Very clear and loud.
S-Pen - Oh how I'll miss thee.
Capacitive Buttons/Physical Buttons - Well thought out for one-handed use.
Weight Its a bit heavy but I actually like the weight of this phone and could probably use it as a throwing-star analog to get the drop on somebody if I hit them square in the temple. But that really is not a concern for most people.
Hardware - Its well made and very resistant to drops with a simple TPU case.
GNOTE II Cons:
Updates - I'm on T-Mobile which has taken any chance it has to kill the possibility of future updates. Occasionally an errant voice on a messageboard out of T-Mobile Customer Support stating they have seen this in the works wafts across my screen but I have yet to see it come to fruition.
Samsung Ideology - Samsung products are good for a year then they release a new one as if you really need a new product from them. Samsung makes great products but rarely do they fix glaringly obvious mistakes after a year past its original creation. I currently am working on a Samsung monitor with a color calibration issue that has been reported and known by the company for years but never fixed but they fixed it on the new model of this monitor. My Galaxy Camera, while nice, suffers from insane Touchwiz lag and could use an update on fixing that but we won't see it because they released the Galaxy Camera 2. I am in the game for technology to last a minimum of 3 years running well. I realize the market is bleeding edge but the edge has gotten far less bloody than the G1 days. I shop for phones like I do TV's or computers now.
S-Pen Manufacturing - I've been through four S-Pens. I use it a lot for taking notes throughout the day as it feels more natural than typing on a computer screen. The S-Pen tends to randomly stop working without provocation. Then if you order a "100% OEM Samsung Factory S-Pen" most likely its a Chinese knock-off. I can't find true S-pens anymore which is a concern for owning a new Note.
Lack of Stable ROMS - Nearly everything I have tried causes issues with NFC or Bluetooth. I use bluetooth all the time for music to various speakers, headphones, or my car.
Knox - It does its stinking job too well. SU can run but it can't hide. I have lost SU so many times on this stupid phone it is ridiculous. Let alone the every 10 minutes my phone lets me know that Triangle Away is being activated. I don't do a lot of coding or tinkering but I do like finding ROM's with good utilitarian purposes. I remember swapcache back in the G1 days and enjoyed finding the next cool thing to do with my phone! We are past that time now, honestly, but if it isn't Samsung branded then Samsung doesn't want you to do it.
Samsung Services - "You have started S-Voice" NO I DIDN'T. "Saving contact to Samsung Contacts" Bad Samsung, stop it! I insanely dislike...nay..HATE how Samsung will not let you get rid of its version of things. My contact list was a thing of beauty running in the 100's with every person I needed to work with (I'm a teacher that does coordination work and administrative work for a school of 600+), their room numbers, email addresses, and everything you could think of until I bought a Samsung product. I have some names with 20 duplicates due to the way this beast handles contacts. I eventually just had executive function overload and decided to give up on being organized. I might bring that back to life soon.
Now that you have an idea of where I'm coming from this is what I think of the Nexus 6....
I like it!
The first thing I really enjoyed about this phone was the speed. I'm running it Stock, Rooted, and Encrypted (for now...maybe forever...I work at a school where my kids know how to build robots and get linux running on projectors so I wouldn't mind encryption on my devices) and loving the heck out of it. I was so impressed by simple things at first such as animations from opening folders as soon as my finger touched the screen whereas my Note II would lag for a good time without animations. In fact, turning on the device is so overwhelmingly stupidly simple to turn on. I can check the time by just pulling it out of my pocket without touching buttons where if I wanted to check the time on my Note I would have to wait 5 - 10 seconds after pressing the power button while pondering the ever present question, "Did I press that button?" which inevitably leads to "#$&(*, I pressed it again and turned it off!"
The next thing I noticed was the size and weight. It is a bit harder to use than my Galaxy Note II with one hand. I think if they reversed the capacitive Back button it would be a lot easier to use for us right handers. I may look in to figuring that out. Honestly, I almost feel like this thing is too thin and light. It feels well built and solid. Even with the SUPCASE I bought it still feels a little odd in my hands but that may be due to the weight being very centered in the deep area of the curve opposed to being consistently weighted. As a personal aside this is the first phone I have ever put a screen protector on WITHOUT BUBBLES....I..AM...A ....GOD!!! Well..maybe demigod. Needless to say, Spigen makes a fine screen protector.
Unlocking and rooting this thing was a breeze. Once I get paid in a couple of weeks I plan on donating to @
WugFresh for at least a case of beer for his amazing Toolkit that will even walk you through setting up Windows 8 drivers! You can find that at
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nexu...1-9-8-t2947452 The camera is better than my Note II by simply being clearer which I'm assuming is to the better camera sensor. I haven't messed with it that much.
The screen and adaptive lighting are by far my favorite thing on this phone. I am probably in the minority on this but adaptive lighting is brilliant. I have seen a lot of people talking about how AMOLED is causing the reddish/purple/yellowish hues to blacks and grays at low light levels. I do not believe that is the fact. It seems like they are using some sort of blue light filtering for this in low light. As an insomniac I tend to send the wee hours of morning which I consider night perusing XDA, Twitter, and various other odds and ends of the internets and am so happy the screen actually gets dark. My Gnote II on the lowest setting was annoyingly bright. I thought I was a genius one day when I thought to use a blue screen filter and made it darker but lo and behold the backlit capacitive buttons attached directly to the stinking hardware on the Gnote II. Its like having someone flash their brights at you when you use one of those programs on the Note. Its annoying. The Nexus 6 takes no part in this and I would 100% recommend it for fellow insomniacs. It has helped me to get sleep a little bit quicker over the last couple days which is a nice benefit. Lets see if that keeps up though. I'm pretty immune to sleep.
Also the screen is really nice quality and reproduces blacks amazingly well. I'm an art teacher and art history buff so I usually check out different high quality images on my phone to see how good it looks. It seems to work very well at recreating the color and light of some of the paintings. My favorite to use for this test is Van Gogh's Starry Night Over Rhone. Eventually my phone gets used in the classroom when a student needs to look up an image and put on an easel (or kickstand case but haven't seen one I like yet) to display when my tablet or laptop is in use.
Battery life and charger! Its great. 'Nuff said.
I think the biggest negative so far is the volume of calls. My wife said I sound quieter than usual. I also can't hear people as loudly as I used to. The speakerphone does not travel as far as the Note when it absolutely should seeing as the speakers are fairly decent for a cell phone. I could see someone fixing this pretty easily in a ROM.
The other negative is the lack of some multitasking programs that Samsung had and of course the lack of S-Pen. I use a Huion H610 Pro at home for digital art and graphic design so I loved the fact that Samsung phones used similar tech but I absolutely abhor using capacitive styluses (styli?). I'll have to figure out something I can carry with me that will work like that with a similar feel.
Anyway, as of right now I'm extremely happy with this phone. I have had no issues as of yet and luckily no burn in however I do not like my phone to cause sunspots when I look away from it so I'm not expecting to have a huge problem with it. If you have some similar issues with the Galaxy Note II (which T-Mobile amplifies) then I would suggest jumping ship especially if you have crackflashing tendencies because there is no Samsung product without a Nexus name attached to it that will be as easy to deal with as this.
-Travis
