Months after AT&T customers managed to relish on the obnoxiously ginormous Samsung Galaxy Note, it’s finally T-Mobile’s turn to get a crack at it. Expected to arrive on the carrier’s lineup starting on August 8th for the 2-year contract price of $249.99, it’ll be on par to AT&T’s version with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and the Premium Suite all on board out of the box. However, considering that there have been other recent attractive options on the market, will it still be able to entice conscious buyers?
Design
Aside from the T-Mobile branding below the earpiece, this version is identical to AT&T’s version – meaning, its choice of materials, build quality, and size are unchanged. Even now, it’s still one unwieldy thing to handle with one hand, and instead, it’s best to be used with two. No doubt, it’s memorable for its sheer size, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.
Display
If there’s a single feature that stands out most with the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note, it’s undeniably none other than its gigantic 5.3” WXGA 800 x 1280 Super AMOLED display. Yeah, it’s ridiculously big, but it’s aided by its high resolution and iridescent color production – both of which aid to its polarizing attraction.
software
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Luckily there’s no waiting around with this one, as T-Mobile’s version is graced with the updated Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich experience with the accompanying Premium Suite. Honestly, it’s a welcomed sight, but as we’re all too well aware by now, it’s nothing that we haven’t seen before. Nonetheless, the underlying core features of Android are all there – while satisfying our productivity side with its Premium Suite of apps.
Processor
Not a shocker at the very least, this Galaxy Note is packing a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM. Relying on the older S3 CPU, its age is starting to show as evidence of choppiness is evident when navigating around with a live wallpaper. Besides that, it manages to maintain a good amount of responsiveness with other basic tasks. It’s no speed demon when compared to some of the newer things on the block, but it’s enough to convince us that it still has some gas left in the tank.
| Quadrant Standard | AnTuTu | NenaMark 2 | |
| T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note | 3417 | 6491 | 35,1 |
| Samsung Galaxy S III | 5335 | 12016 | 58,6 |
| HTC One S | 4867 | 7012 | 60,7 |
| Google Nexus 7 | 3599 | 0 | 55,7 |
Camera
As a whole, the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note is passable enough to use for capturing photos and videos. On the still shot side, it handles most outdoor scenarios with few issues, but indoors under low lighting, it strains the eyes with its noisy and bland appearance. Conversely, its 1080p video recording quality fares better with its sharper visuals combined with its smooth capture rate.
T-Mobile Galaxy Note specs
If you're a spec junkie, look away. The T-Mobile Galaxy Note is year-old hardware. It still runs Android like a beast, and it's still better hardware than most phones out there, and the end result -- a very functional device that runs exceptionally well -- is what really matters. If you are a fan of benchmarks and numbers, go buy a different phone, as the Note's just not for you. Here's all the details.
- 1.4GHz dual-core Processor
- Display: 5.3” WXGA (1280x800, 285ppi) HD Super AMOLED
- Android 4.0.4
- Camera Main(Rear) : 8 MP with LED Flash Front : 2 MP
- Action Shot, Beauty, Panorama Shot, Smile Shot, Share Shot
- Video : MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV, DivX, Xvid, VC-1Recording 1080p@24~30fps, Playing 1080p@30fps
- Codec : MP3, AAC, AMR, WMA, WAV, FLAC, OGG
- Music Player with SoundAlive
- 3.5mm Ear Jack, Stereo FM Radio with RDS
- Samsung Apps
- Samsung Kies 2.0/ Samsung Kies air
- Samsung TouchWiz/ Samsung L!ve Panel UX
Multimedia
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Movie watchers better listen up, mainly because the Galaxy Note is the perfect device for the occasion. Using out test video that’s encoded in DivX 1920 x 1080 resolution, it comes to life on the smartphone’s massive display.
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Video playback
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Internet
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Perhaps, we’re still reminiscing over the LTE connectivity attached with AT&T’s variant, but nevertheless, T-Mobile’s HSPA+ speeds are enough to load pages with minimal wait. Rounding out its lovely appeal in the web browsing department, it maintains a responsive rate with all of its actions – even when it’s confronted by Flash heavy sites.
Call quality
In high coverage areas, the handset receives a solid connection to the network – with no fluctuations or dropped connections during our usage.
Battery
Unless you’re constantly using the handset to its limits, battery life with the handset is nothing more than average. In fact, we’re able to get a solid day out of normal usage.
Conclusion
Let’s be real here folks, the T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note is a wonderful device on so many levels, but taking into account its late arrival onto the scene, it no longer has the same appeal and allure when it first arrived. Unless you desperately love its large display and ideal note taking capabilities, it’s really hard to choose this one as opposed to newer offerings out there – namely the Samsung Galaxy S III. We fell in love with this smartphone twice already, but with this third time around, it’s hard to uncover those feelings once again with this version.
PROS
- Extremely large display
- Running ICS out of the box
CONS
- Late arrival
- Somewhat pricey