Does size matter? Spending time with the Galaxy Note.

[Guest PaulOBrien]

I have to confess I’ve never been that interested in the Samsung Galaxy Note. When I had a 4" device I was kinda happy and thought 4.3" was a bit big. When I had a 4.3" device I was kinda happy and thought 4.65" was too big. When I had a 4.65" device I thought... well, you get the idea.

That said, I've had large devices in the past - I had a Dell Streak (a black one, then a red one!) and I really liked it. Well, apart from that time in a bar when a girl asked if I was compensating for something but, well, moving swiftly onwards...

SO... back to the Galaxy Note, yeah, I hadn't really been tempted. I had heard quite a few people raving about it, I was intrigued by the 1280x800 screen and the 2500mAh battery, but not enough to get one.

Up until this week.

This week, Asda Direct dropped the SIM free Galaxy Note to £369 minus cashback. And in white too! What a deal! A sucker for a 'bargain'... I couldn't resist... and I bought one.

The device arrived, I unboxed it, learnt all I could about the 'brick bug', upgraded it to ICS, rooted it, and put a 'safe' kernel on. Ready to go!

Now, one of the main reasons I bought the device in the end was the battery. I really REALLY love my One X, but, well, on a full, busy day of work out of the office the battery just doesn't cut it, it's flat before the day is out. A trip to London today gave me the perfect opportunity to put the Note through it's paces.

I set the note up with all my usual apps, Apex Launcher and various tweaks and set off for the day on a very early train. I used the device LOTS on WiFi and 3G, used GPS for Google Maps, browsed, tweeted, played the odd game, took pictures and posted them to coveritlive. I REALLY worked it hard... yet the device kept going until after I’d got home with juice to spare. This is without using the devices built in power saving features, messing with the screen backlight etc. etc.

This is something of a revelation for me... the Galaxy Note is a huge device, but, well, maybe it's worth it to get a big battery...?

So what about the rest of the device? Well, i'm somewhat undecided. It IS big. Too big. Uncomfortably big. Awkward to sit down when it's in your pocket big. I haven't really worked out if the S Pen will be useful for me yet. The camera is so-so. I'm not a fan of TouchWiz. But, the screen is glorious, typing on it is great - oh, and it's white. :D

I'll report back when I’ve used the device a bit more, but I do have a new found appreciation now I’ve used it and I can certainly see why a number of you have totally fallen for the device. It's fatally flawed and yet somewhat appealing.

Strange. :)

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