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
Battery Life
Battery life remains probably the single largest differentiator for devices lately, and of huge concern to enthusiasts and normal shoppers alike. We’ve already caught a glimpse of how well 8974 fares from a power perspective inside the LG G2, a device that posted some seriously impressive battery numbers. The Note 3 we’re looking at is also 8974 based since it’s a T-Mobile model, and thus we expect the same kind of battery life.
With this generation of Note, battery gets even larger. The Note started with a then quite large 9.25 watt hour battery, then Note 2 moved to 11.78 watt hours, and Note 3 now moves to a very large 12.16 watt hour battery with of course the newest 3.8V chemistry and all that comes along with it. Display size goes up, but those power gains are offset in other places.
After we talked about the panel self refresh features in the G2 a few people reached out and let me know that this feature has been shipping for a while in some phones, and it’s easy to check for. If we look under the display subsystem we can see that the same MIPI_CMD_PANEL type 9 is used, which refers to this type of interface.
Qualcomm HWC state: MDPVersion=500 DisplayPanel=9
define MIPI_CMD_PANEL ‘9’
Our battery life tests are unchanged and consist of a set of popular webpages that are loaded on a schedule with the display set to exactly 200 nits and repeated until the battery runs out and the device dies on both WiFi and cellular data connections. In this case that means T-Mobile LTE which is 10 MHz FDD in my market, I haven’t had a chance to run the Note 3 on HSPA+ yet, or complete the call test (which is starting to get ridiculous, and probably breaks 24 hours in the case of the Note 3).
On LTE the Note 3 does very well, coming just shy of the pack of iPhones, at just over 8 hours. Interestingly enough it’s just north of the G2s as well, which do have a smaller battery but also smaller display. The Note 3 also is the first device to ship with Qualcomm’s QFE1100 envelope tracker solution from the RF360 front end portfolio, which lowers power consumption by up to 20 percent and heat dissipation by up to 30 percent by allowing the power amplifiers to follow the desired output waveform. There’s more on that later in the cellular section.
On WiFi the Note 3 does better by 22 percent, but not the kind of huge jump I’m used to seeing between cellular and WiFi testing. This tells me the Note 3 battery life is really gated by the display, which is almost always the largest consumer of power in a device. That said the Note 3 does very well all things considered, especially in comparison to the APQ8064 (Fusion 3) phones which came before it, like SGS4. New silicon and new process inside MSM8974 definitely helps move battery life forward here with the race to sleep game.
Charging is an interesting story on the Note 3, but primarily because of what doesn’t change. The Note 3 continues to use Samsung’s tablet charging specification and charger, which has 2 amps of maximum output. The Note 3 draws 2 amps over a considerable amount of the charging curve, like other Samsung devices (in the linear part of the charge curve). USB 3.0 doesn’t change things up here quite yet with the new supported charge voltages that are coming eventually with the power delivery specification.
The Note 3 does charge faster overall compared to the SGS4 however thanks in part to the new PMIC (PM8941) which is part of the overall 8974 platform story.
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cupholder - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Why wouldn't they? They haven't been able to truly innovate since Jobs left, and no one in their right mind would actually believe at 1.3 dual core beats 2.3 quads in a whole lot.testcss - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Yeah, those 2.3 GHz Athlon X4s sure are faster than dual 1.3 GHz i7s.dugbug - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
Huh no... samsung uses string matching to determine if the app is a benchmark app or not. Just create a suite of tools that use gibberish names.itpromike - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Anand, can we see the non-inflated benches for this device vs. the iPhone 5S?ciparis - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
What stuck out to me was the speculation that the results were likely to be minor, while the Ars article demonstrated them to be anything but.This sort of cheating is far from new, but usually it is met with abject rejection. If you recall, when PC GPU vendors have been caught doing this, they were raked over the coals -- and it stopped, immediately. We have to hold these newcomers to competitive metrics to the same standards.
Spunjji - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Here, I shortened your comment:BLAH BLAH BLAH DIDN'T READ THE REVIEW BLAH.
Jumangi - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
That's not a good enough answer Anand. Samsung and whoever else are blatantly cheating and you guys just post the false numbers in your reviews while basically saying "oh well they all do it". That's not good enough. Ars doesn't let it go at that and they show how they disabled the boosting to give real numbers. If you guys can't be bothered to do what's necessary to give your readers accurate info then why should people bother to come here?Talks - Saturday, October 12, 2013 - link
@Jumangi: "That's not a good enough answer Anand. Samsung and whoever else are blatantly cheating and you guys just post the false numbers in your reviews while basically saying "oh well they all do it". That's not good enough. Ars doesn't let it go at that and they show how they disabled the boosting to give real numbers. If you guys can't be bothered to do what's necessary to give your readers accurate info then why should people bother to come here?" oh really?!, then why are you here anyway! you, are just like the iPhone 5C that you are favoring with…, full of plastic!!! why can't you just humbly admit that by this time, Apple and its was once awesome iPhone now 5S, just like the first; and by far the truest of the true great innovator Nokia, has now being surpassed by the mighty Samsung! first in its Galaxy S3; S4; and now, the true awesome mighty Galaxy Note 3!!!akdj - Wednesday, February 5, 2014 - link
I'm not so sure I saw or read the same review as you....nor did I see the same charts. The n3 and 5s are top of the heap (I own both). The reviews of each are reflective of their performance. And these two absolutely SMOKE the S3,S4, ANY Nokia...as I believe do the year old 5--& 5c? You might wanna take another 'look'. And then think....if Apple didn't exist, would we have an S4? A Note 3? In their present form factor, speed and reliability, capability and Eco system (software and apps)? Or vice versa. No Android? We might still be playing with a 3GS and lacking LTE demand. Competition is awesome....for everyone. It keeps the innovation going....Apple's 5s is an absolutely unbelievable phone. As are the new iPad. The Note 3 is phenomenal. I. LOVE it. If half you bozos defending one company or the other would give the opposite a 'try' you might just see what the 'truth' is. So many strengths to both OSes. The flagships are mothas. Neither are anything but top shelf. The software and 'app' development community is behind both....but iOS tends to get 'some' types of apps faster, with better performance...and a significant 'choice' of whatever it is your interest is. OS updates on time. Significant resale value. Android on the flip side is amazing when it comes to 'power' user, business and professional work---tinkering, display size choice and customization....ICS completely changed the 'lag' while the hardware caught up. Both amazing systems. If justifiable, buy a pair:-). Everyone needs a 'bat-phone'!alovell83 - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
I'm more disappointed in your battery charge time metric. We fully charge our phones at night, time until full isn't as important as 2 hours display and 10 hours standby, enough to get you through a night. Or how much life you can get from a 30 minute charge. That's the use-case.