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.
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smartthanyou - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Struggling? I don't understand. They are cheating, it seems simply enough of a concept to me. The fact that others are doing seem irrelevant.If you a review a product that is doing this shine a big bright light on it. You might also consider calling out other reviews of the same product that ignore the problem.
vFunct - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
A simple repackaging of benchmark tests so that they can't be detected by Samsung would do. At this point just assume that all vendors cheat, and set up your benchmark suites so they aren't detected.We want to know how these products act in the real world, and benchmarks are supposed to represent that.
We don't want fake results.
itpromike - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Anand, what Ars did to circumvent the benchmark fluffing was recompile the application with different package names... could you do something similar, then re-run your benchmarks and update this article? Or are your benchmarks already circumventing the fluff?DERSS - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Do not struggle over this. Put an asterisk at SGN3 results with note that in reality (versus overdrive mode for test) this device is not any faster than LG G2. It would be fair; problem solved.dugbug - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
Yeah I've wondered if geekbench will respond similar to the juicing debate among baseball statistics nerds. Do they purge the benchmarks... or placing an asterisk.... or just nothing. Let specs chasers live in a weird little unaware lie.Voldenuit - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
"We've been struggling with how to deal with this one for a little while now."Easy. Rename article headline to:
"Shamesung Galaxy Note 3. Cheaters Never Prosper".
Also, put a strikethrough on all the Samsung benchmarks.
bji - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
You should ask that the benchmark authors make their tools harder to cheat on. The should randomize the name of the benchmark program at installation time or something, similarly with whatever values are necessary to be randomized to prevent the benchmark from being detected as a benchmark by the cheaters.Obsoleet - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
I've seen a lot of unprofessional stuff going on at AT, regarding Nvidia and Intel for years. I have no skin in the game regarding Samsung, the Note3 or anything else but I really find this to be the last straw. I actually use a GS3.I'm done reading your site, Anand.
Call it cheating. That's what it is, you know it. What is your problem? How can we trust you or your staff??? Wake up and stop taking bribes, or whatever is causing you to do this kind of crap.
Chillin1248 - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
I agree.As an extremely long time Anandtech reader, I am very disappointed that they decided to run the benchmarks with the "boost" in place instead of trying to figure out how to disable them (like ARSTech) or waiting for a workaround.
These benchmark results should be re-run with ARSTechnica's method in place of the artificially inflated scores we have now here.
Squuiid - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
+1. You are essentially offering a more favorable review with inflated benchmarks and actively encouraging this deception. It's no wonder Samsung continue to cheat.