Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Review
by Brian Klug on October 1, 2013 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Android 4.3
- galaxy note 3
Battery Life
Battery life remains probably the single largest differentiator for devices lately, and of huge concern to enthusiasts and normal shoppers alike. We’ve already caught a glimpse of how well 8974 fares from a power perspective inside the LG G2, a device that posted some seriously impressive battery numbers. The Note 3 we’re looking at is also 8974 based since it’s a T-Mobile model, and thus we expect the same kind of battery life.
With this generation of Note, battery gets even larger. The Note started with a then quite large 9.25 watt hour battery, then Note 2 moved to 11.78 watt hours, and Note 3 now moves to a very large 12.16 watt hour battery with of course the newest 3.8V chemistry and all that comes along with it. Display size goes up, but those power gains are offset in other places.
After we talked about the panel self refresh features in the G2 a few people reached out and let me know that this feature has been shipping for a while in some phones, and it’s easy to check for. If we look under the display subsystem we can see that the same MIPI_CMD_PANEL type 9 is used, which refers to this type of interface.
Qualcomm HWC state: MDPVersion=500 DisplayPanel=9
define MIPI_CMD_PANEL ‘9’
Our battery life tests are unchanged and consist of a set of popular webpages that are loaded on a schedule with the display set to exactly 200 nits and repeated until the battery runs out and the device dies on both WiFi and cellular data connections. In this case that means T-Mobile LTE which is 10 MHz FDD in my market, I haven’t had a chance to run the Note 3 on HSPA+ yet, or complete the call test (which is starting to get ridiculous, and probably breaks 24 hours in the case of the Note 3).
On LTE the Note 3 does very well, coming just shy of the pack of iPhones, at just over 8 hours. Interestingly enough it’s just north of the G2s as well, which do have a smaller battery but also smaller display. The Note 3 also is the first device to ship with Qualcomm’s QFE1100 envelope tracker solution from the RF360 front end portfolio, which lowers power consumption by up to 20 percent and heat dissipation by up to 30 percent by allowing the power amplifiers to follow the desired output waveform. There’s more on that later in the cellular section.
On WiFi the Note 3 does better by 22 percent, but not the kind of huge jump I’m used to seeing between cellular and WiFi testing. This tells me the Note 3 battery life is really gated by the display, which is almost always the largest consumer of power in a device. That said the Note 3 does very well all things considered, especially in comparison to the APQ8064 (Fusion 3) phones which came before it, like SGS4. New silicon and new process inside MSM8974 definitely helps move battery life forward here with the race to sleep game.
Charging is an interesting story on the Note 3, but primarily because of what doesn’t change. The Note 3 continues to use Samsung’s tablet charging specification and charger, which has 2 amps of maximum output. The Note 3 draws 2 amps over a considerable amount of the charging curve, like other Samsung devices (in the linear part of the charge curve). USB 3.0 doesn’t change things up here quite yet with the new supported charge voltages that are coming eventually with the power delivery specification.
The Note 3 does charge faster overall compared to the SGS4 however thanks in part to the new PMIC (PM8941) which is part of the overall 8974 platform story.
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Ph0b0s - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Stupid copy and paste function, here's the correct link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?s=c...And I confess it is brand loyalty that made me post the above. But rather that being a fan of a certain fruit, I am a fan and owner of all the note device's up until now and about to buy the latest one. So shows what you know. The link has many cases of people doing what Samsung says should work fine and finding it does not and then finding that even Samsung's customer service dept do not know what should and should not be working.
It is because I am a fan of Samsung and their devices, that I believe they need to wake up and realize that this very anti consumer tactic is going to cost them. And they should change course very quickly.
The only person spreading FUD around here is you. I am looking to spending £599 on an 'un-locked' phone. For that price I expect to get one that is un-locked, not this travesty. My advise for anyone, is holding off purchasing until there is an official update from Samsung on this whole situation. And before you say there has been, there hasn't.....
ddriver - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Just hold your pants on - the note 3 looks like it is fairly buggy, probably the release has been rushed, plus as much testing as you do in the lab, it is nowhere as thorough as millions of consumers using the device daily. I expect the lock issue will be fixed soon enough.Ph0b0s - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
You could be right. But until Samsung come out and confirm, that what numerous people are reporting, is not expected behavior and it is a bug, I for one will not be buying and I hope others do the same.I don't see the reason for your comments. One minute it is, there is not problem, then that is not as bad as all that, then oh it must be a bug and will surely get fixed soon. I don't get it.
I am not saying don't buy the product. It looks awesome, which is why these revelations have been a real disappointment. I am just saying wait until the situtation is resolved one way or another before purchasing and then decide whether to buy or not. It will not hurt if Samsung see a temporary drop in sales, in order to give them the needed message that they need to pay attention to this issue.
Also I wish review sites like this would better inform their readers of this, rather then a one liner in the otherwise very good review. Other sites can maybe get away with this, but this is anandtech. Informing their readership of things like this is anandtech's bread and butter. Remember the articles on iphone signal issues, explaining the need for the trim feature on SSD's, AMD frame pacing issues and micro-stutter. This is what I come here for...
bubblesmoney - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
One more post just blurting out what some 'anonymous samsung employee reportedly told a blog'. why is there no official statement on a samsung website... guess because it can be used as proof in a subsequent lawsuit while third party websites writing some gossip with some anonymous samsung person cant be used in court.Just head out to the enormous xda thread on this issue and read the numerous reports of people affected by this region lock even though they first used their phone in the region it was bought in with a same region sim and could not use foreign sims that were in the MCC block list. yes there are videos on youtube of people using foreign sims but they dont mention that those sims are NOT IN THE MCC black list on the csc of the phone. btw the MCC black list and csc varies depending upon where you bought the phone to make matters more interesting.
see xda thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2...
if you cant be bothered with that massive thread then see some posts selected by me on the comments of the trusted reviews article http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/galaxy-note...
and see samungmobileuk twitter channel replying to me that foreign sims wont work https://twitter.com/bubblesmoney/status/3830427989...
toboev - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
Actually, the truth about region unlocking is far from clear. The only words from Samsung on this are an unsourced statement from a 'spokesperson' emailed to UKMobileReview:http://ukmobilereview.com/2013/09/samsung-statemen...
Meanwhile a highly respected UK retailer, Clove, has been doing its best to get to the bottom of it:
http://blog.clove.co.uk/2013/09/25/samsung-galaxy-...
Android Authority has also come to the conclusion that the "use your home SIM first to unlock" theory doesn not hold water:
http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-note-3-regi...
And whilst you digest all that, consider this - it seems that Samsung plan to roll out region-lock to all their recent mobiles, like the Note 2, GS3 etc. Maybe then people will smell the coffee.
ruzveh - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
My region doesnt come with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 platform but Samsung own processor. Sadly you have not reviewed that model and compared it with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 platform. Secondly yes i am happy about the USB3 port but whats the use if we dont get to use its benefits. I mean not only speed but we could also get faster charging of this port and also better accessories supported in futureDougFrippon - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
I posted a comment about this, I think they might have forgot to enable USB 3.0.Quoting Myself:
"There is a number of youtube video showcasing USB3.0 vs USB2.0 with the note3, and wether they test it againt itself (USB3.0 ON or OFF, btw did you guys just forget to enable USB 3.0 all together? because it's not enabled by default as it warns the user it might cause problems with the phone while activated). USB 3.0 is always about TWICE as fast.
While USB 3.0 has a theoratical speed of around 10times more than USB 2.0, doubling transfer speed is pretty significant!"
Brian Klug - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Nope, no USB 3.0 toggle on my Note 3: http://cl.ly/image/2j1U2b2D2S2i-Brian
Evil804 - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
was hoping to get some info on the supposed 24 bit DAC.ddriver - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
The DAC is pretty good, -96.3 dB noise level, about 92-93 dB dynamic range, THD is very low and so is crosstalk. It is incrementally better than other devices in the same price range already on the market.