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
Display
One of my only issues with the Note 2 after using it for a long time was resolution. Although the move to a subpixel matrix with a full 3 subpixels per pixel on the Note 2 honestly really put most of my concerns at bay at launch, 720p started to feel limiting further on in that product’s cycle. Having more display area is great, however in Android what really matters is resolution. It was ironic having this phone with a huge display, but 720p resolution that was quickly eclipsed by devices with so much smaller displays. With the Note 3 Samsung moves to 1080p at 5.7 inches, up from the 720p at 5.5 inches in the Note 2, and 1280x800 at 5.3 inches from the original Note.
A question that immediately comes up every time we get a Samsung phone with AMOLED is first, what kind, and second what subpixel unit cell is behind it all, be it an RGB stripe or some other RG,BG alternative unit cell. In the case of the Note 3 we unsurprisingly see Samsung use the same unit cell as they did on SGS4, an offset pattern with green on one line and red and blue on another line. There’s a square blue subpixel with more area than the circular red and green subpixels as well to compensate for the difference in luminous efficiency of the material used in each subpixel type. As I’ve said in the past this isn’t PenTile (although people have started using that brand as a proxy for RG,BG alternatives) but something else entirely, but the ultimate end is still the same, two subpixels per unit pixel and not an RGB stripe.
The question for most normals then becomes – is this a big deal or can a normal human being see it? I’d argue that the subpixels on the Note 3, like the SGS4, are now small enough that they can’t be seen. I used to very picky about this, but I don’t find the new offset RG,BG pattern distracting at all on the Note 3. Subpixel size moves from just above 1 arcminute (1.006 and 1.073 for the Note and Note 2 respectively) down to 0.741 for the Note 3, making them small enough to in theory exceed human eye resolution of 1 arcminute. I won’t break out the huge table or chart, or go over all of that again, but it’s nice to see that finally be the case with the Note 3.
The Note 3 has the same display mode settings as we’ve seen in other generations, these mDNIe toggles allow some control over display color curves. They’re ultimately not a mitigation for Android’s lack of a real CMS and don’t completely solve the oversaturation issue that comes hand in hand with AMOLED’s different spectral curves, but they do help somewhat. These are unchanged as well from the SGS4 – Adapt Display is checked by default and will select which mode to use automatically for first party apps and a few others, but you can select between dynamic, standard, professional photo, and movie manually, which have different tunings for white point, gamut, and saturation. There’s also still the toggle for automatically adjusting screen tone depending on what’s being displayed.
Of the modes and configuration options available, I don’t doubt for a second that the most used one will be the defaults, however if you’re looking for the most sane from a color accuracy perspective it’s still Movie mode with the auto screen tone toggle unchecked. I gave Samsung the benefit of the doubt and ran all my measures in Movie mode as a result, but also took saturation measures of the other modes so you can see the difference in gamut and saturation with what you get under those.
The Standard and Dynamic modes have a ton of oversaturation, extending far beyond sRGB. In Dynamic mode we can also see some compression going on at the higher saturation levels, effectively blowing out those colors even more, with the second to last point almost on top of the last point. Pro Photo mode clamps down gamut and makes saturation a bit more linear, but has some odd other artifacts that show up. With the Movie selection made, the Note 3 display is considerably more controlled and linear, and makes a dramatic difference in how everything appears on the Note 3 during normal use. If you care about display really this is the only setting you should be using.
White point in movie mode is still bluer than I’d like at an average of just over 7100K, but in the all important Gretag Macbeth patch test, Delta-E is pretty low and puts it among iPhone 5, HTC One, and G2 territory. The results under movie mode from the Note 3 are actually nicely controlled. It still isn’t perfect, but there’s at least been an attempt made to give users that option if they don’t want garish colors that might look great on a store display but not so great if you care about matching photos you’ve taken to a display or print later, or web content between desktop and mobile.
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Spunjji - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Cheesecake.Talks - Saturday, October 12, 2013 - link
Hmmm… it seems to me that almost all of the commenters here, are Americans; thus, a certified Apple Fanboys!, and this certainly includes Ars Technica, AnandTech and many others! That, is the very reason why, all product that is needed to be reviewed (as the market demands), those are which directly competitors of Apple, especially Samsung, for sure; all possible types of professionally conjured praises shall certainly be provided just to pelt there most hidden agenda of wanting the very downfall of Samsung, believing that by doing so, Apple products specially iPhone 5S and beyond, will go up again to the top, hoping to become again the number one selling Smartphone of 2013 and beyond! Oh come-on…, don’t be too obvious, and envious!!!doobydoo - Saturday, October 19, 2013 - link
Dude you're the only one on here who seems to have issues. And Anandtech is a fully international site with an international audience.akdj - Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - link
You should get a first name....'Stop'....and maybe add an 'ing' to the end of your handle here. Where did this completely off the wall comment come from? Left field anyone?Anyway...sorry to let you in, the 5s isn't hoping....it's happened. 'Again'. Number one selling smartphone of 2013. Doesn't mean much. There's a LOT of choice outside of the limited iOS world....which with choice and expanded options will always make it tough for even the largest and most successful OEMs ala Samsung to best them with a single product to product comparison.
It's a good, no.....a GREAT thing to have such phenomenal competition between vendors. We're the beneficiary....seems like overnight we were able to put the power of yesterday's laptop in our pocket! These things SCREAM! The 5, 5s, Note3, G2, S4---it's funny to me ANYone that appreciates and enjoys technology so much could be against one or anti the 'other'. Between the pair....or in each the Play Store and the App Store have more software available than anytime in history for ANY computing platform....and comparing the Note 3 to it's older, two year old sibling....improvements I'm computing and graphics are in the neighborhood of 1500-2000% increases! That's blowing Moore's law out of the water man!
Enjoy them all. Buy what you can. But don't spew bullshit on websites beyond your comprehension and knowledge. Just kinda 'outs' ya as a dumbass....at worst, ignorant at best. ;)
J
Dribble - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Name and shame - once the PR for getting caught doing this has more impact then the positive PR you gain from cheating it'll stop.Squuiid - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Anand, as it stands, this review is a farce. All it is doing is encouraging Samsung to continue it's deception. If reputable sites such as your own don't call this out and make a big fuss about it, then why would they stop? We all know Samsung's ethics are rather questionable as it is. Let's not encourage them.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
We did call it out in the review. The problem with only circumventing it on the Note 3 is that other devices do it as well. We can work towards circumventing it everywhere, but we can't selectively choose when to enable/disable it.Chillin1248 - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Then don't bother benchmarking it then. If you can't come out and say that the numbers listed in the benchmarks reflect the Device's User Experience, then don't bother benchmarking them. Just leave the page blank.What you are doing is condoning fraud. This is like the manufacturer of a car giving you a car to test, just that when the GPS detects that you go o the racetrack to test the speed of the vehicle, it switches to a brief higher power mode that would never be presented otherwise to the consumer and is unsustainable long term. (you get the drift)
By publishing the benchmarks, you have only condoned the practice you claim to disdain.
DanNeely - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
I agree. Frankly, the attempt to minimize/brush aside the blatant cheating Samsung is doing has me questioning Anandtech's objectivity. Even if it's not possible to catch the cheaters every single time, that's no excuse for letting them get away with it when it's a major impact and doing so is trivial to do.bubblesmoney - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
surely they will tread carefully on pointing out the bad points, thats the quid pro quo for getting access to devices before they are released to the public. Their reasons for treading softly on this issue and the region locking issue is obvious.I know they briefly mentioned region locking, but isnt a hardware site actually meant to mention that a phone meant for power business uers actually being gimped and a so called business phone wont work abroad as it will ask for an unlock code when a foreign sim which is in the MCC list wont work for making calls. only way it will work is using costly roaming. Nice way for samsung to shaft its end users and get nice kick backs from networks to samsung so that their network gets preference as to what is blocked and what is not. see proof of region blocks with links on my posts on the trustedreviews article http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/galaxy-note...