Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 is a 5.7 inch, quad-core , 4G ready phablet.
Samsung’s long rumoured Galaxy Note 3 was finally made official at the company’s ‘Unpacked’ event at IFA 2013. It’s just as powerful as we’d hoped (and was rumoured) and for phablet fans now’s the time to get very excited.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has an enormous 5.7 inch full HD 1080 x 1920 Super AMOLED display, which being Super AMOLED should provide beautifully bright and rich colours.
On the power front there are two different versions of the handset. The 3G model has a 1.9 GHz octa-core processor, while the 4G LTE model has a 2.3 GHz quad-core processor. Either way that makes it tremendously powerful.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 also has an unprecedented 3GB of RAM along with a choice of either 32GB or 64GB of built in storage. Note that there’s no 16GB version this time around, so even the most basic version will have a ton of storage. You’re not limited to what’s built in either as there’s also a micro SD card slot with support for cards of up to 64GB.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a 13 megapixel camera, which should be capable of taking decent quality photos. There’s also a 2 megapixel front facing camera and 1080p video recording at 30fps.
It ships with Android 4.3, which at time of writing is the latest version. It also has a beefy 3200 mAh battery to keep it going all day and all night, though with such a big screen and such high specs it remains to be seen exactly how good the battery life will be, even with such a big battery inside.
The Galaxy Note 3 also has all of the connectivity options you’d expect from a top of the range Samsung handset, including 3G, 4G LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 and even an infrared LED.
Surprisingly, despite being a Samsung handset the build quality is also pretty good. For a start at 151.2 x 79.2 x 8.3mm and 168g it’s slimmer and lighter than its predecessor, which is quite an impressive feat given that it’s got a larger screen and a lot more power under the hood.
Viewed front on it doesn’t impress too much, with the same rectangular, plastic look as the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. But the back of the handset has seen a bit of a change for the better. Rather than carrying on the plastic aesthetic seen on the front, it instead features a leathery look and texture. It makes the handset look and feel a lot classier than most Samsung phones and it also makes it more comfortable to hold than the hard plastic of the Note 2.
Most retailers are yet to confirm the price of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, but Phones4U are already offering it for pre order on EE, Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange. You can get a 4G tariff with EE for £41 per month plus a one off fee of £79 and it includes 2GB of data. Vodafone has the same deal but at £42 a month or for £47 a month you can get it for free with 4GB of 4G data. T-Mobile meanwhile has it available for £42 a month on a 3G contract with a rather steep one off charge of £179, however that includes unlimited data.
Three has also confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 will be available on its network but hasn’t provided any pricing yet. It’s unknown what the handset will cost SIM free, but as the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 started out at around £550 we’d expect it to cost at least that much if not more.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is set to start shipping globally on the 25th of September. There’s no word on exactly when it will hit the UK, but if it doesn’t make it to these shores on the 25th then we’d expect it soon after.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is almost exactly the successor to the Galaxy Note 2 that we expected. It’s bigger and more powerful, which should make it a phablet fans dream. The one thing we didn’t expect was the leather-like back, which is quite a change for Samsung, as the company has always favoured plastic. It’s a good change though and one that bodes well for future handsets as they might finally start to look as premium as the specs and price tags suggest they should be.
