lg optimus g pro - AOL.com
lg optimus g pro - AOL.com
lg optimus g pro - AOL.com
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DISTRO<br />
03.08.13<br />
ESC<br />
IRL<br />
SAMSUNG GALAXY<br />
NOTE II ON ROGERS<br />
ColcaSac<br />
Jack Bauer<br />
Shoulder<br />
Bag<br />
Mitsubishi<br />
WD-82740<br />
3D TV<br />
If you saw my IRL for the Galaxy<br />
S III, you’ll remember that I griped<br />
about its 4.8-inch screen being too<br />
big. You’d think, then, that the 5.5-<br />
inch Galaxy Note II would be a calamity<br />
in my hands. While there are<br />
still a few issues, my experience with<br />
this extra-large phone has been surprisingly<br />
positive — so much so that<br />
it’s changed my attitude toward the<br />
supersized phone category.<br />
The Note II over<strong>com</strong>es many<br />
of the limitations of its smaller<br />
cousin, in part because of that<br />
gargantuan size. Although there<br />
are settings for one-handed use,<br />
there’s no pretending this is a<br />
regular phone. A different pixel<br />
arrangement eliminates the fuzzy<br />
look of PenTile from the Galaxy<br />
S III’s display,<br />
and having both<br />
a quad-core<br />
Exynos chip<br />
and LTE in one<br />
device doesn’t<br />
hurt, either. Not<br />
to mention, the<br />
battery seemingly<br />
lasts forever.<br />
Even with<br />
constant abuse<br />
from someone<br />
who virtually lives on Instagram<br />
and Twitter, the Note II easily lasted<br />
more than a full day of use and<br />
could sometimes go for two. I still<br />
prefer stock Android (and usually<br />
the Nexus line), but I’d pick Samsung’s<br />
flagship in a heartbeat if I<br />
needed an absolute workhorse.<br />
If there’s one overarching flaw,<br />
it’s that the phone is still something<br />
of a mutt with a few lackluster<br />
features inherited from earlier<br />
devices. While the S Pen is more<br />
useful than with the original Galaxy<br />
Note, the implementation is<br />
still uninspiring enough that it<br />
feels like a solution in search of<br />
a <strong>pro</strong>blem: I don’t need to draw<br />
shortcuts or peek at photos with a<br />
stylus, thank you very much. Samsung’s<br />
TouchWiz interface hasn’t<br />
changed much outside of these<br />
pen-specific tricks. Likewise, the<br />
camera is virtually unchanged from<br />
the Galaxy S III, which works wonders<br />
in bright scenes but flounders<br />
in low light, especially <strong>com</strong>pared<br />
to the iPhone 5 and Lumia 920. If<br />
the Galaxy Note is truly a leader,<br />
it shouldn’t feel like it’s relying on<br />
warmed-over Galaxy S parts, however<br />
good those parts may be.<br />
— Jon Fingas
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