[Galaxy Note II General] hulkyhulk:
Hello people,

I've had my Galaxy Note 2 now for about a month, and initially I was euphoric. The size didn't bother me at all, in fact I used to love my ipad and kind of wished that was a phone and that I didn't have to carry my blackberry too! The Note is small enough to be fine in pockets etc..., but big enough to read the newspaper in pubs! I think it's the perfect size. Although I realised it would take a while getting used to a new operating system, I was convinced this was the best phone in the world for the first week...and laughed in the face of iphone users - but things have started to change.

First of all, I come from a blackberry. Having experienced an ipad, I was sick of the lack of apps on blackberry - my phone was text, phone, email....I wanted a truly smart phone in the same vein, and sensed Apple and Android was the way to go. Sat nav, internet, everything...and a big big screen please! Perfect. Having had an ipad, I knew the typing would be difficult (I was light speed on a blackberry) but I wanted apps, so it was a toss up between Galaxy and Apple, both of which were touch screens. So I bit the bullet on losing the blackberry keyboard. Let me tell you, after a month with the galaxy, my typing on the touch screen has not got any more accurate or fast...it is a living hell. I have tried all sorts of keyboard apps to make it easier, but it is just rubbish. Which takes me on to email.....apart from typing being a nightmare, THERE IS NO SPELL CHECK. Excuse capitals, but the keyboard try's to predict what you're trying to type but if your're typing at speed without looking, you want to get the red line saying "are you sure you have spelt words right"....well it doesn't exist! The lack of a spell check is a major major flaw....do you want to send a work email out having spelt separate wrong? Or definitely? No! So let me tell you, typing on the touch screen is a nightmare....and the lack of spell check is unforgivable.... I have downloaded an app called Airdroid, that basically allow me to type and SMS on my laptop keyboard through my phone (which also spell checks on my laptop). This app is abit of a life saver - get it if you get this phone.

* Addition to above....the file tranfer doesn't work using Android file tranfer and Kies is rubbish(lots of forum complaints) ...Airdroid is also the only app that allows you to transfer files with your phone!

Which brings me onto another point, maybe bigger than the first. If you're used to touch screen typing coming from Apple, then everything above means nothing to you. But you will appreciate having a swapable external SD Card on the Galaxy. This phone has a internal 16GB storage and I've added 64GB external storage too. Wow! This was one of the main reasons for choosing Samsung over Apple....but guess what? You cant use itunes of course....so I uploaded all my music to Google Play, the online cloud music service from Google - naturally I thought the Google service would work perfectly with Android. So imagine my shock when I could only download a few GB of music to my phone (offline content - the whole thing will stream on wifi)?! Obviously the music was saving to the internal memory, not external....no problem I thought, it's just a setting away to save to the external card right?! NO!.....I need a breather paragraph...

So...I did a google search. It seems that Google music player doesn't have an option to save to an external card?! Basically this renders the reason to have a big external card (lots of music) pretty useless. Phones these days are a replacement ipod! I promise I'm not lying...also the threads on external forum boards go on for miles and miles (months!)...Google isn't doing anything about it! There is a fix, but you have to have a degree in computing - the fix involved "rooting" the phone (this is like a jailbreak for iphone users)...and mapping or binding drives to the external card!)...I've fixed it but it took my all day.

Don't Google employees have these phones with Google music player on them?! It makes no sense.

Now this reminds me of a story of my old Dell. I bought a cheaper higher spec computer than a Mac, thinking it was better value...but I literally had to have a degree in computing , it was always going wrong. When I bought my Mac Air...everything "just worked". And here I am, "rooting" a my Galaxy Note....and spending a day messing around with the phone in order to just save my music to an external SD Card?! Google is the new Microsoft...

Yes, the phone is big, beautiful, and the specs are great, its cheap and you can out a great big Sd card in it....but if you value your sanity, pay a little bit more and stick with the tried and tested iphone for a touch screen, or get a decent keyboard phone. If Apple brought out this phone, at this size ...(an iphone Max if you will), then I think it would be the perfect phone. This is the right size and the way to go in my opinion. Unfortunately the Android world reminds me of Microsoft of old...all good on the outside, but a trip here and a crash there...and really, its a complete pain...

Great idea, but the operating system lets it down badly. No spell check, no save music in google music player to external sd card, difficult typing = not good enough. Google maps is brilliant by the way, and use it to navigate in car instead of tom tom now...you dont get that on Apple...

If Google brought out an update for the music player (save to external) and a spell check, I would be alot happier - 4 stars, but the forums have been waiting years for these updates....best of luck! Nothing can be done about the keyboard, and this is one of the bigger ones! If i could go back I would get the iphone 5, stick with Blackberry, or get a "vertical" keyboard Android phone (motorola maybe)...this is from the man who initially loved this phone...

Wish I could write a better review for this phone, there are many good qualities, but if Google can get these big things wrong...what's round the corner?