[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note 3] GameBoiye:
Just figured I'd post a more technical answer for people here who are wondering. The Note 3 does not appear to support hardware acceleration for High 10@L5.1, or for most people who watch anime know it as, 10-bit. Now that doesn't mean it won't play it, but you aren't going to get 100% smooth video with it when video higher bittrate or 1080P video.

Just so you know I've pretty much watched every new anime that came out this season on my Note 3 (20+ shows) and not a single one had issues. At most I've only had one or two instances of stuttering which was attributed to other tasks in the background doing stuff, since it still is a phone. The Note 3 definitely is a beast and probably the best phone you could get for watching Anime. Heck, there's times where I'll sit on my bed watching an episode because it looks better than my computer screen.

But regardless, just know it doesn't really support it. This means that the H/W and H/W+ modes in MXPlayer (or any player you can get from and Android store) don't work on the video and it'll force you to use S/W mode (you can tell by the S/W mark on the top right of the video when you open the seek menu within MXPlayer)

So what does this mean exactly? Well even in S/W mode the phone has enough power to force its way through rendering anything as long as it's not too demanding. Several of the shows that came out this season are encoded 10-bit by quite a few groups and I have had no issues. The biggest one I've watched without issues is [UTW-Mazui]_Toaru_Kagaku_no_Railgun_S_-_24_[720p][1E0D545F] which comes in at about 800mb for the episode and definitely has one of the highest bittrates you'll see for currently aired Anime. Though do note the video is High 10@L4.1 so it's not the newest format profile but it still forces the phone to use S/W mode. However the video plays perfectly fine with no stuttering or lag issues.

But once you go beyond that the phone's power just isn't enough to make up for the lack of hardware support. Playing [Coalgirls]_Sword_Art_Online_02_(1920x1080_Blu-ray_FLAC)_[483024FB] shows noticeable lag and is practically unwatchable. I would say I get around 10-15FPS, but that's really only an estimate. My guess is most 1080P 10-bit videos you'll watch with software mode will be unwatchable, however 720P 10-bit videos seem to be fine. I've thrown everything I can find at it and anything 720P 10-bit works perfecly. But do note that if the video is not 10-bit then you should have no problem at all watching it. I've watched [Coalgirls]_Infinite_Stratos_01_(1920x1080_Blu-Ray_FLAC)_[A9B39255] without any issues, and in fact completed that entire series on my phone without a single issue, however the phone does play back the video in H/W+ mode because it's not 10-bit.

I hope this helps someone decide on this phone. It is honestly the best phone I've ever owned and finally lets me watch all the Anime I want. While I wish it would watch every video I have as I have a lot of newer 1080P 10-bit stuff it still gets the job done better than any other phone I've tested. And my god lets not forget to mention the screen which is absolutely perfect for Anime viewing. The size makes the viewing a pleasure and the extra color options really make it perfect. Though there are settings to get the color accuracy down to normal if it is too colorful for your taste.

P.S. I also have a paid Chrunchyroll account and have had no issues watching anything there.

---------- Post added at 11:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 PM ----------

I just want to make sure that no one buys the phone thinking this is true. MXPlayer will play 10-bit anime in S/W mode and the built in video player will say "unsupported video codec" While not ill intent was involved my guess is that wiimonkey9 probably tried 1080P MKV blu-rays that weren't 10-bit encoded. Read my post above if you want more information but I figured I'd quote this in case anyone does a Google search to get here like I did and immediately read his response.