Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Review
by Brian Klug on October 1, 2013 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Android 4.3
- galaxy note 3
Conclusions
The Note 3 is an iterative product, that’s absolutely true, but the improvements in the Note 3 are pretty dramatic. It really does feel better, thinner, lighter all while having a bigger, more usable display. The silicon inside is incredibly quick, easily the fastest in the Android camp. It's also good to see Samsung on the forefront of RF technology here, implementing an envelope power tracker alongside Qualcomm's 3rd generation LTE modem. The combination results in a fairly robust, very high-end platform that is modern on both compute and modem/RF fronts. Given my affinity for the latter, I'm happy.
Battery life benefits from the large chassis and associated battery, as well as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 platform which seems to manage power a lot better than the outgoing Snapdragon 600. I was also impressed by the Galaxy Note 3's IO performance. Although it didn't beat the Moto X in random write IO performance, it came extremely close and absolutely destroyed everything else in sequential write speed. Samsung clearly went all out with the Note 3 and pretty much tried to win all of our tests. The beauty of that approach is it should lend itself to an awesome user experience.
The S Pen experience continues to improve and I don't really have any major complaints about it on the Note 3. It's a novel addition that I can see resonating very well with the right type of user. Approximating pen/paper is tough and no one has really done a perfect job there, but the S Pen can be good enough in the right situations. The good news is that even if you don't use the S Pen much, it hides away quite unobtrusively and you can go about using the Note 3 just like a large Android device.
There are only three issues I'd like to see addressed with the Note 3. The move to USB 3.0 is interesting and could be a big benefit when it comes to getting large files off of the device (the NAND/eMMC isn't quick enough to make USB 3 any faster at putting data on the phone), but the hardware or software implementation of USB 3 on the Note 3 doesn't actually deliver any performance advantage (Update: In OS X, in Windows you can actually get USB 3.0 working). For whatever reason 802.11ac performance on the Note 3 wasn't as good as it was on the SGS4 or other 802.11ac devices we've tested. It's not a huge deal but for an otherwise very well executed device I don't like to see regressions. And finally, I would like to see Android OEMs stop with manual DVFS control upon benchmark detect, but that seems to be an industry wide problem at this point and not something exclusive to the Galaxy Note 3.
Whereas previous Notes felt like a strange alternative to the Galaxy S line, the Galaxy Note 3 feels more like Samsung's actual flagship. It equals the Galaxy S 4 in camera performance, but exceeds it pretty much everywhere else. There's a better SoC, better cellular/RF and even better industrial design. I suppose next year we'll see the Galaxy S 5 play catch up in these areas, but until then it's clear that the Note 3 is the new flagship from Samsung. Although you could argue that the improvements within are incremental, the Note 3 really defines what incremental should be.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
302 Comments
View All Comments
yvn - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
I was so close to getting this note 3 today but after playing with it i see this that display quality still not as accurate as I hoped to be. Even in the movie mode it gets fairly acceptable in terms of color accuracy but then the black and white photos look very very warm more like sepia toned and the white pages have a yellow tint. In dynamic mode the black and white photos look fantastic but then photos in color look awful, so disappointed i really liked the phone otherwisequestgraves - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Thank you so much for such an informative review. I am never let down by the work you guys do here at AnandTech. You have consistently fed me the information I so crave with a non-bias, facts are facts, specs are specs perspective. Your conclusions are based in reality with sound logic. I am grateful for the hard work you do to keep us brand-loyal techies rational.Davidjan - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Really love it. I would use it to see movies with Meenova MicroSD Reader: http://goo.gl/U6IyYESC2000 - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Okay anyone else think Ars Technica employees (or people Ars Technica hired) are posting over and over about the benchmark issue and how the Ars Technica's review is so great for publicity for their website? There must be 30 comments that not just raise the benchmark issue but also mention how great the Ars Technica review is...given how many note III reviews there are out there, why would every person mention the same one?Spunjji - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
They mention the one article that deals most thoroughly with the benchmarking issues. There's no reason whatsoever to assume that they're employees, but there are almost certainly a few devotees of the site. The rest all appear to be idiots who enjoy overreaction.Optimummind - Friday, October 11, 2013 - link
Pretty good & decent review. I picked up a black Note 3 from AT&T and I really like its back texture. Feels like leather. The white one was my original choice but didn't like the texture at all.Gondalf - Sunday, October 13, 2013 - link
A little question to Brian Klug.Your reviews are very nice, still your power consumption pages are pointless .
Tell me the reason to measure the battery life running a web browser....and don't tell me that this is the more common usage because this is not true.
The real story is that you do not give the power consumption figure of this device (and many others) with the soc under stress. This Note 3 has a Snapdragon 800, that is famous to be power hungry, so stress it with a Game please, or stress the cpus with an online game client.
It is absurd your comparison, you can not compare Note 3 with other devices running the Qualcomm Soc at idle most time or at a low clock speed.
Please....you need to give the real figure of a product, beacuse this is useful for customer that do not want a device that shuts down after a little session of gaming.
Face it, the more common usage in handset is Gaming not web surfing.
aryanraj - Wednesday, October 16, 2013 - link
What do u think about Exynos Octa core variant of Note 3 and also why samsung is not able to integrate both the cores in the present note 3 . Only the A15 core works...loopybear - Thursday, November 14, 2013 - link
USB 3 connections.: Just purchased a SGNote 3 and everything seems fine except for the USB3 connection. Having found a suitable cable and connector I am unable to connect any of my 16gb usb 2 external memory chips to the phone. The phone does not even recognise their existence. Samsung blame the connector but I have my doubts. Can anyone else verify this? By the way the phone connects perfectly to my laptop.fareed0694 - Thursday, December 5, 2013 - link
Here is a complete guide to root and install clockworkmod recovery on Galaxy Note 3 of all versions. Visit here - goo(dot)gl/DojHhL