Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Review (T-Mobile) - The Phablet Returns
by Brian Klug on October 24, 2012 9:00 AM ESTSpeakerphone
The Note 2 puts its speakerphone in the same place as the original Galaxy Note, and thanks to the large size of the handset I bet there’s plenty of space for a big driver. The Note 2 also includes a new boost mode I didn’t see on Galaxy S 3 before that boosts speakerphone output volume considerably.
The tradeoff is that there is significantly more saturation and clipping with this mode toggled, but it is very, very loud.
Noise Suppression
Samsung has continually included Audience earSmart processors in its handsets for noise rejection and filtering, and the Note 2 is no exception. Both the original Note, and Note 2 include the Audience eS305 voice processor, though the Note 2 includes newer firmware thanks to its later release date. I’m told that both the Note and Note 2 were interesting challenges due to the extreme size of the handset and just how far apart the microphone pair is — there’s one at the very top, one at the very bottom on both models. In addition the T-Mobile Note 2 also has wideband AMR enabled (AMR-WB), which I confirmed inside ServiceMode by poking around. I called between two T-Mobile devices (the Note 2 and my own HTC One S) but it appears as though T-Mobile is still using AMR-NB over UMTS at least as evidenced by the 4 kHz maximum in the below spectral view. Either that or my HTC One S is the limiting factor.
Samsung is unique in that it gives a nice easy way to enable and disable the noise rejection paths by tapping the menu button, so we can easily test with it on and off just to see how much difference it makes. I’ve been supplied an industry standard babble track that emulates a loud cafe or restaurant, complete with a din of voices, doors opening and closing, and background bustle. I’ve found that playing this on loop in my office when I want that cafe vibe mitigates the desire to go and pay exorbitant amounts of money for the luxury of distraction, but I digress.
Galaxy Note 2 - Noise Rejection Enabled by AnandTech
Galaxy Note 2 - Noise Reduction Off by AnandTech
Anyhow I went ahead and tested the Note 2 with the babble track at a very loud maximum loudness of 94 dBA which is likely above spec, but a worst case. You can hear a dramatic difference between the Note 2 with the noise rejection turned on and off. I’ve heard eS305 do even better at rejecting literally all noise on the Xolo X900, but this is our first time using the babble track as opposed to music so my mental comparison isn’t quite fleshed out.
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HanakoIkezawa - Friday, November 16, 2012 - link
I haven't had this problem with my note or with my sister's iphone4s with the Kia soul. have you tried going to the store to see i it defective or tried to see if it fails to work with other cars?I do agree that some kind of Bluetooth testing would be nice to see with future reviews
abhi.12 - Friday, November 9, 2012 - link
what is the response of galaxy note 2 with other languages like hindi. I am searching for a device in which i can take notes in hindi. Is it responsive enough to write.Random Guy99 - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
That the iPhone 5 is more powerful and has better battery life than the note 2 despite it having a battery 3 times larger and a quad core chip. The A6 must have far superior architecture and you can see how far optimisation goes and googles lack of it. I guess that's the problem that is bound to happen when one company doesn't make both hardware and software.MichaelEvans - Monday, December 24, 2012 - link
Just got a new Samsung Galaxy Note 2! Am thrilled!! I have a graphics design salon in New York and use it to doodle ideas while on the go. Then because I'm on AT&T's 4GLTE I send the doodles to myself at home and it’s very cool.anhminh1232002 - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
Hello everyoneThe G-sensor doesn't seem to work when the screen is off.
I am using Note 2 Galaxy Samsung.
I tried Justflip to flip to turn on the screen. The screen wasn't on at all.
Please tell me if the is a fix for this bug.
Thank you.
mgrant - Sunday, February 24, 2013 - link
S-Note is pretty nice looking, and as you say OneNote is feature rich and you've got lots of content in it which you can get at if you install the OneNote Mobile app on your phone.But what about creating notes using the pen in S-Note? Is there some way to say store those notes in a Dropbox and get at them on the laptop? What would you edit them in? So far, about the only thing I've found is that you can export an image (pdf or jpeg) of the S-note note into dropbox and view the static image on your desktop. That's not so useful.
Is there anything out there that lets one have notes across platforms, that can use the pen, and preferably stores stuff in my existing dropbox account rather than making me pay yet another cloud storage service?
There's Evernote, but it doesn't work directly with S-Note. You can export a static image into Evernote as a sort of final resting place for the note, but this is unfulfilling at best.
Hanna - Tuesday, April 9, 2013 - link
How much does it cost?Hanna - Tuesday, April 9, 2013 - link
I mean the Galaxy note 2 or 3Hanna - Tuesday, April 9, 2013 - link
My mum does not want to buy 700 euros. So ...What should I do? How can I persuade my mum to it? HELP??!! PLEASE REPLY
SamJack - Monday, May 13, 2013 - link
this is awesome but i think NOte 3 will be the best ever !! as i read in this site : http://crackerpie.com/2013/03/22/samsung-galaxy-no...