[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 General] LiquidNitrogen:
ANTI-FANBOY DISCLAIMER:

I am aware that I am on a forum full of people that are geared towards a single OS (Android) and who are more likely than not very biased about which is "better" and which "sucks". I am aware that many are not platform agnostic and have not learned to be objective about different ecosystems. Thus, I am anticipating the possibility of anti-apple comments. Oh well.

Anyways, I just wanted to create this side note to say that I'm platform agnostic for everything and have just about every major commercial platform (Windows/Mac, Android/iOS, Wii/PS3/360). So when I do this comparison I am naturally doing it without fanboyism, although my bias does seep through as I naturally have different preferences than others (just a fact of life, different people like different things). However, I try to be as objective as possible.

Hey all,

I'm sitting here with my black Galaxy Note 16GB and white iPhone 4S 64GB and have been thinking about the two a lot lately, mainly comparing them and considering which I should go with. So here's a comparison:

iPhone 4S

TLDR: The thing "just works" with zero hassle, low time requirements to get what you need done, and pretty much everything that you want software-wise is more than satisfied.

Superior:

- Better UI interface (more intuitive, logically laid out, refined, etc) for pretty much every part of the phone

- A little more smooth in terms of performance

- Does multitasking MUCH better and it is easier to use multitasking. Its quite usual to have about 10 to 15 apps going in the background and being able to comfortably switch between them. That's simply not possible on the Note on 2.3.6 (stock firmware) or is much more difficult to do thanks to the multitasking switching method (recent apps window) and the large RAM/CPU demand of many android apps.

- Cloud sync, if you have a mac, is absolutely wonderful and works better than expected. It just works. No hassle, minimal (almost zero) setup and maintenance time.

- The sound quality on the 4S is MUCH better.

- App store is fantastic, has better apps than the Android. This can't be emphasized enough as there are numerous apps on iPhone that simply have no equivalent in terms of quality. For me, the major ones are the office suite (Keynote, Pages, Numbers) as well as a class manager app called iStudiez. I've tried the equivalents on Android and I have found them to be not up to the quality where I would be willing to use them (bad aesthetics, lacking functionality, doesn't "just work with zero hassle")

- I have zero worries about viruses, malware, etc on my iPhone

- if you know other people with iDevices running iOS 5, then FaceTime/iMessage is great.

- I like that the iPhone uses white for a lot of the background colour. The black backgrounds for the settings, messages, etc on the Note really depresses me and makes the screen seem small.

- Camera is better, and it has better anti-shaky-cam functionality. 1080p video works great and the phone handles it wonderfully. I am able to record lectures in class perfectly.

Inferior:

- The hardware is just not as good as the Note. Screen is claustrophobic/postage-stamp-size and hampers full use of the best apps (Pages, Keynote, Numbers).

- The OS and apps don't take advantage of the resolution. It might as well have a 320 x 480 resolution.

- Some people may not like that its not very customizable. I don't mind it because the stock experience is pretty much perfect. I don't HAVE to change anything. On the other hand, I don't GET to.

Galaxy Note

TLDR: Great, but not as good as the 4S in terms of software (which cripples the phone). But, this will be fixed in time and I doubt even the iPhone 5 will be able to beat the Note once the software becomes even close to being on par.

Superior:

- Hardware is wonderful. The screen allows me to use the phone in a much more advanced, useful way - especially for browsing the web. I have been reading my etextbooks on my Galaxy Note quite regularly and prefer reading off of it rather than my actual physical textbooks. That really goes to show that the Note has an amazing screen because I don't want to read my etextbooks off anything else - and I have some amazing displays at my disposal: a 17" macbook pro screen, a 17" alienware R2 RGBLED screen (best screen ever made IMO), a 27" Thunderbolt display, etc.

- S-Pen is pretty useful just with the stock apps, and I can't wait until iAnnotate comes out along with other apps.

- The OS allows me to customize it more. I don't really like this as I have a tendency to waste my time looking for good upgrades for it, but some people might.

Inferior:

- App store has very few Apps on par with the iPhone editions of them. There are some good ones but generally the quality is lower than the iPhone app store. This is the biggest con. I can't express how much this affects my use of the phone. I can't use the phone for office capabilities because polaris is glitchy, looks bad, and isn't optimized for the screen size, and there is no alternative to iStudiez that is on par with it (already tried class buddy, it's quality is not high enough to be useful to me).

- Stock experience of Android is good but is showing its age compared to the iPhone. ICS should fix this but it won't fix the lack of great apps.

- Camera is not as good, and I can't seem to take 1080p videos over a certain file size. I can't record lectures with it due to the file size thing.

- Viruses on android. My mom got her email hacked because of some stupid malware app (she has a Note and 4S too, but sold her Note because of the security vulnerability and her bad experience with getting hacked).

This review is kinda short but I don't have much free time lately as I am very busy.

The major let down for me was the app store for android. If it was on par with the iPhone app store then I would use the Note over the iPhone even though iOS is superior to Gingerbread. Though this shouldn't be around forever (I give it about two or three years before they are on par), but its crippling the phone for me.

So, what I've ended up doing is using both phones. I use the Note for internet, and the iPhone for everything else. I await the day when I can dump the iPhone as i prefer the hardware of the Note. My prediction is that ICS and its stylus support will encourage more devs onto the platform and will result in better apps, but to what degree I'm not sure. Even if it doesn't immediately result in more good apps coming out, I'm sure that within two or three years the iPhone app market will be saturated enough to persuade developers that they will get more money from Android.

EDIT: I figured out a while ago what the solution is: Buy the Galaxy Note and an iPod Touch and tether the two with wifi while on the go. It gives the best of both worlds for not all that much money (especially if you get a used iPod touch).You get the App store on the iPod touch and the hardware of the Note.

- Liquid