[Galaxy Note 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Komodo Rogue:
When I came home, I sat down on my couch, took out the at&t SIM card in my Nexus 4, popped it in, logged into wifi, logged into the samsung account thing, logged in to google apps, and I used it for about three hours straight until a battery warning popped up.

Anyway, I didn't really plan on doing many benchmarks, but I have quadrant on my nexus four and so it automatically downloaded/restored on the N3. I was going to delete it immediately (I want to keep things really minimal until I have root... I don't like not having control over apps with things like android firewall) but I thought, ok, what the hell, and ran it. It got a 17k something, which is higher than I've ever seen, but I think rather low compared to tests I saw online.

However, three things: one, my N9000 was doing a LOT in the background, and I never even rebooted it. It was downloading, syncing, installing, etc etc, and the RAM usage was about 250MB away from full (I checked after the benchmark finished). I'm sure I could inflate that score if I did multiple runs and turned everything else off. Two, the graphics portion of quadrant floored me. I reminded myself that I was using a 1080x1920 phone, and that the raw FPS may not be the highest... but it was a static 60FPS for every single graphics test, except the very last one (the DNA thing), where it hovered around 45.

Speaking of which: I have been using android a looooong time, before the DROID, and quadrant has been my go-to benchmark for the vast majority of that time. If you asked me just a few years ago if I'd ever have a full HD phone that was capable of running the quadrant test at 60FPS, I would have guessed yeah, maybe in a decade or so.

I know this isn't really the point, as I think you want to compare benchmarks with other phones and models of the Note 3, but damn! Sometimes technology can still blow me away. Even when I've read all the previews, leaks, etc, it was kinda thrilling to see that in my hand.

Anyway, the third and final note is that real-world performance has been phenomenal. The bloatware keeps trying to slow it down - it heaps gigabytes of clutter and muck at the Exynos - but it refused to ever stop, or even slow. I have no idea if it's better than the S800, I'd have to use them side-by-side for a week or so to really get a feel for their differences, but I am EXTREMELY happy with the Exynos 5420.

Do you still want me to do this? I saw a thread about this topic, and I didn't read it, but I assume your question has been answered? If not, I'll give it a go :)

Sorry, I can't really answer, as I only used the Note 2 (and original Note) in stores. I did try drawing near the sides in the s-pen coloring app and the free download of autodesk, and it all worked fine, so, um, I guess they fixed it? Or do I need to use the pen a certain way?

One thing that I was REALLY impressed with: I always thought that the s-pen floating circle thing was a cool idea, but if you have to hold the pen that close, it's not really doing you any favors. However, I can't believe how far away I can hold the s-pen and still see the dot trailing me around, it seems like an inch, at least. I'm often not even trying to use that feature, and I see the little dot, aiming down for me, showing more detail and/or text. It's awesome! Was it always that cool? I really don't think it worked so well in the stores on the Note 2, but once again, I'm not the guy to ask. Sorry!

OVERALL IMPRESSION FIRST THREE HOURS: It's the best phone ever made. That's only my opinion, obviously, but I mean that with no hyperbole. I'm still going to suggest that my mom get an iPhone 5c or 5s, but for android fans, and maybe even for apple defectors, this is it. This is the best. LOVE IT!!

Oh, and on a somewhat negative note? Holy $!&% is this thing full of... "features." I mean, a lot of them are kinda cool, a few are genuinely awesome, but most are just... I don't know, not bad, not good, just overload. After three straight hours, I seriously feel like I haven't even scratched the surface. I saw "trip adviser" on it (which was, thankfully, the only app that really stood out to me as BLOAT!), and went to uninstall, but I could only turn it off, not uninstall... it's a small app, but still, kinda annoying. Hopefully I'll have it rooted soon!