Samsung Galaxy Note Review

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note at IFA in September 2011 and half the room laughed. A 5.3-inch phone, in the year the iPhone 4S was 3.5 inches and the Galaxy S II looked huge at 4.3, seemed like a stunt, and holding one to your ear in public felt like one. Then it sold ten million in its first year and every manufacturer started stretching their flagships to match.

There was substance under the size. The 1280 by 800 HD Super AMOLED was the sharpest panel Samsung had made, PenTile subpixels and all, and the dual-core Exynos 4210 was as quick as anything on Android that year. The 2500 mAh removable battery was close to double what rivals shipped and it got the Note through a working day when the S II did not. The Wacom digitizer under the glass gave the S Pen real pressure sensitivity, which nothing else on a phone offered, even if the launch software gave it little to do beyond S Memo and screenshot doodles.

Android 2.3 Gingerbread let it down. The Note shipped weeks after Ice Cream Sandwich was announced, TouchWiz 4.0 stuttered on a chip that had no business stuttering, and the update took until mid 2012. To Samsung's credit it kept going: Jelly Bean arrived in 2013 with the Note II's Premium Suite features, two full versions for a 2011 phone, which was generous for the time.

The AT&T version, the SGH-I717, swapped the Exynos for a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 to get LTE and cost $649.99 without a contract or $299.99 with one. The 8 megapixel camera matched the S II's, the best on Android in 2011. The plastic body scratched and creaked but did not break, and a battery you could swap kept these in use for years. It is not a great 2011 phone so much as an important one, and importance is what the innovation grade is for.