Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Sim Free Smartphone - White

I recently upgraded from the iPhone 5s to the Galaxy Note 3.This phone is a revelation and I want to try and give some indication why.I have been using iPhones for many years with a detor to Android every few months (itchy feet!).Whilst Android is clearly the more technically advanced platform, I always end up dumping the Android phone a few weeks later and returning to the iPhone.Why ? mainly for two reasons. 10 years ago we used to say that a phone is mainly for phone calls. Internet was a limited and frustrating experience. Today I realise that I only use my phone 5% for calls, the rest is email, general messaging and browsing. The keyboard and user experience therefore become very important.Apple software engineers really "get" user experience. I don't know how they do it but the keyboard on the iPhone is psychic. My typing is terrible but it manages to mostly get the right keys and if not, do the correct word substitution. It must estimate if you hit between two keys then pick the best letter in the context of the word you were typing or something like that. And then the word lookup is terrific and terribly accurateNow Android keyboards gave me much worse typing. Not only that, but the word substitution was not automatic (no way of setting it). I could never get used to clicking on the correct word substitution after practically every word. This whole keyboard thing made me feel like chucking every Android phone in the bin after a few weeks (aka to ebay).Recently, epiphany! I discovered whilst testing an Android phone, that savvy users actually never used the default keyboard (duh!). I found that SwiftKey app was pretty popular, installed it and bing!, now I had 95% of the apple keyboard experience.That's the thing about Apple, you see it works great out of the box. Android you need to fiddle with it, and for many users they just don't have time or want to do this.Step in the Note 3.Ok, now the keyboard is great. I don't know whether it's the latest version of Android or a Samsung developed keyboard but many of the issues have been solved out of the box. One other thing though, due to the size of the screen they have taken the liberty of adding a fifth row of keys, the numeric ones. Genius! You know how frustrating it is when you are typing in passwords or email addresses with a mixture of letters and numbers, always having to flick between numeric and letter keyboards. Now problem solved. For the first time it seems an Android keyboard is better then the Apple one!The other thing that frustrated me was the speed. Despite having better specs, Android phones have always had the occasional stutter. This can occur anytime, when scrolling, opening an app, etc.The Note 3 seems 99.9% free of this. Again not sure if this is software development or brute force.So whilst we are on the subject of brute force let's talk specs. The Note 3 has 3gb of memory, a quad core snap dragon 800 cpu running at approx. 2.3Ghz and a Adreno 300 GPU (yes, thats right, a graphics co-processor). The screen is a full HD 1920x1280 and is an AMOLED with Gorilla glass 3. AMOLED was invented by Samsung and its simply the highest contrast phone screen you can get. IPS screens, as used by the iPhone, have slightly more accurate colours and a slightly brighter maximum brightness, but the contrast on an AMOLED is quite striking. As well as 32gb of internal storage it has a microSD card. I put in a 64gb one so now I have 96gb of storage. Note that with Android you can install apps on the external card if you want, which is very useful.This spec approaches many full computers!Completing the specs it has a truly monster 3200MAh battery and a removable stylus built into the body. A stylus you say, back to the Pocket PC ? not quite, this is a whole new technology. For taking notes (aka the phone name) or drawing, its really very good. It also has a switch on it for a pop up menu and other fun.Lets talk about the elephant in the room, the size. Samsung have been crafty here, the screen size is 5.7", only 0.7" bigger then the S4 but of course a world different from the iPhone 5. Samsung do have phones with bigger screens (e.g. the Mega) but in this bracket have clearly restrained themselves, e.g. compared to say the HTC One Max , Sony Xperia Z Ultra, etc.This has paid off. The screen is larger and much more comfortable to use then a smaller screen, but due to the extreme thinness, lightweight and minimised bezel of the device, does not feel gigantic in the hand.Its a personal taste thing and you have to push yourself to even try a device of this size. But the danger you run is that there is no going back. Even 5" screens look pokey, let alone the iPhone 5.It fits fine in a jean pocket and you get use to it faster then you would think.The main reason for me trying this in the first place was to attempt to replace both my iPhone 5s and iPad mini, which I take to work every day, with one device. Also cutting the need for two contracts. On a side note I have 4G contracts from EE and vodafone. Again its something you don't think you need, but once you have you can't go back to 3G. The EE network is more mature and has better coverage, I assume Vodafone will come up to the same coverage in time.Lastly lets talk accessories. Samsung just get this much better then anyone else. There are all sorts of things, from charging backs (so that you can use wireless charging) to docks and headphones. However the key breakthrough is the S-View wallet type cover. This has a window in to allow the phone to show status reports of phone calls and texts as they come in, without having to open the cover. The phone is "cover aware" and formats a small square window to fit this window. It also switches on when you open the flip cover and switches off when you close the flip cover. This is just sheer genius. It sounds simple but it raises the functionality to a whole new level. The final piece of genius is that the cover replaces the back of the phone, so it doesn't add much to the bulk (although it does clverely add a less then 1mm overhand to protect the sides).Samsung has always made excellent phones, but its no use denying that its basic design has been influenced heavily by the iPhone 3, which it has kept to slavishly.With the Note 3 Samsung has finally carved its own genuine innovation into the market and created something quite special which is going to permanently change the direction of phone development.Put it this way, Apple will be responding to this either this or next year, and not the other way round.Lastly to mention the region lock. Samsung say it goes away if you initially switch on the phone with a sim card in the right region. I have no reason to doubt them here but will be testing shortly when I go abroad.Its not surprising that this is one of the world's best selling phones. A busy central London Vodafone shop told me recently that Samsung had long ago overtaken Apple with sales volume, especially the S4, but now the Note 3 is their best seller. No surprises there.

Although I chose the option "Europe", this phone came locked and thus I am unable to use it.I contacted the seller who told me not to worry and visit the local Samsung representative and they will definitely be able to unlock it. This was not the case. They could not unlock it. Then the sellers told me to go to local unlocking centres?? to unlock it. I visited all the Shops in the area who could do such a thing, but nobody could. The sellers have now asked me for my IMEI number & promised that they will try to unlock it. This is the last thing I will do. If this does not work, I will return it, after all I am now almost a month without a phone.

I want to get this straight, I have not had many phones in my lifetime, my third phone ever was the Samsung Omnia 7 Windows Phone, and I thought that was damn good and it was compared to the Xperia play I tried out in every way obviously except games. Now I know many people who have got iPhones or Android, and iPhones are awesome because they are smooth there is no lag running multiple things together, with the battery life and again quality apps, plus the weight, and touch screen feel.Now I looked at a variety of phones on the market and read plenty of reviews, I love the idea of long battery life, productivity and a quality experience filled with features not current on any other device and oh boy does this equate to what many people have said which is, that this may be the best phone overall at this moment, then again obviously it can't have all features, I liked some features of moto x etc.The way it is, the screen, camera, stylus, accuracy, voice, apps, multi-tasking with multi window. I really want to show my appreciation to the Samsung, Amazon "for my delivery" got it within 2 days from ordering about a week ago or 8 days.If you like to keep the standard 4.3 Jelly bean and like privacy also, you will be given a special implementation from Knox, it is a easy virtual space, where only apps Samsung have looked at thoroughly can be seen, take pictures? wont be seen in personal space, though can still share to social networking, by email, whatever. You have a master password, bring down the notification, enter master password, or pin and your in, click shortcut to go back or hold menu and switch between virtual space and normal, press lock button to lock secure area.Flipboard looks absolutely stunning, which is some kind of integrated news app that you get by just swiping from bottom middle, and you get news you want, or defaults, share to social networking, save your own made magazine!Extremely good for loading pdf, powerpoint documents, docs, this is the real deal, Also since having this phone, I'd say I have been throwing a lot at it and experienced no lag, turn on is super quick, come on people, I'm telling you, best phone around, also very light, much bigger than omnia 7 but much lighter!Like the title says, it has made me really happyGood luck, looking for a phone that suits your needs, let it be a smaller phone, or an iPhone to meet your individual needs.Edit 1: Also you get 50GB of dropbox space for free for two years! and evernote premium for 3-monthss, Europe version

Phone worked OK ( no functional problems found ).However I was disappointed to see some minor cosmetic damage around the bottom left corner of the LCD screen.-> there was no mention of any cosmetic damage in the original sales description !!!????