[Verizon Galaxy Note 3 General] thechad1215:
I am nearing the end of my 14-day "trial" so I'd like to take this opportunity to spout off a bit because I've gone back and forth about a dozen times over the last two weeks on whether I'd like to keep this phone. Not sure if this will influence anyone's decision, but it's therapeutic for me to get it all out. :o (btw, many of these are hugely nitpicky--it's the little things).

Likes:

S Pen. Love that it can be used like a mouse. Changes the whole experience of Remote Desktop and DosBox (scumm games anyone? yes please).

Multitasking. Huge for me. One example, if you've got a Google Hangout going and you go check an email or something, the camera turns off--the other person can't see you until you come back to the chat. BUT on the note, you can open a 2nd window and, say, browse twitter while chatting. Really cool.

Access to the notification bar in full-screen apps

Specs (battery, screen, performance, blah blah blah). I came from a Gnex, which is just blown out the water. What? I don't have to charge my phone at 11:00am?!

Band 4 (and unlocked SIM). Not relevant now, but a lot of Verizon's 4G network is getting pretty congested. Looking forward to LTE-A. And if Verizon pisses me off, I can take this phone to T-mobile and only be missing their HSPA 1700 band.

Gripes:

Build quality. Meh at best; shoddy at worst. I've already replaced it once due to a janky headphone jack. Don't mind the faux-leather back, but can't stand the faux-metal sides.

Everything Verizon touches. Can't think of a single "value-add" other than getting NFL game audio for free, and even that app is terrible. If I can't scroll smoothly on this beast, you've got some big problems.

On that line, why am I forced to use Verizon's mobile hotspot app despite this capability being build directly into the phone software? And don't say you need to check for subscription because my stock android Gnex could do this. At least make the notification icon look like it's something other than a crop and shrink from Microsoft Paint.

The likely update schedule (ie, 6-12 months behind)

Missing toggles (flashlight? hotspot?)

There's something wrong with WiFi. It often gets repeatedly disconnected, I think, due to multiple routers with the same SSID (eg, at a hotel or office). Appears the fix for this is in the hidden menu, which is (surprise!) disabled.

The extra brightness on auto-brightness is gone. Wtf Verizon, what does that feature have to do with anything?

Notification vibrations. Is this bugged? Everything other than the stock Messenger is just one long vibration like your phone is ringing. No way to change it; oh, and you can't disable individual apps' vibrations in Vibrate mode.

Pen Window Phone app. This is strange. You can make a call with the windowed app, but then the full-screen phone pops up and the window becomes useless (but stays open on top). If there's any app that I *don't* need full screen, it's the phone. This may be a limitation of android, however, to ensure the phone app stays in memory.

Samsung bloat. This is *almost* as bad as Verizon bloat. I have no interest in Samsung's "ecosystem" but they insist I use S Voice/S Find instead of Google Search, Samsung Music/Video instead of Google Music or Spotify, and what the heck is with My Magazine? It's a bad sign when there are more Samsung apps that I can't disable than Verizon apps.

Locked bootloader. Probably should have added earlier that I won't be rooting because my firm uses Good for Enterprise. Being able to modify things from CWM on my Gnex alleviated just about all of the Verizon nonsense.

All that said, I think I'm going to keep the phone. I've debated ditching Verizon for AT&T or Tmo to get the Nexus 5, but I'm pretty reliant on Big Red's coverage, sadly. I've looked at the Moto X to avoid Samsung bloat and even (gasp!) the iPhone to avoid Verizon bloat, but on the whole, I'd be giving up too much. This is really a great phone, nitpicks aside. I think it'll easily get me through Verizon's new 24-month upgrade schedule (don't get me started...).

Let me know if there are any other burning questions. There were a lot of things I wondered about but couldn't actually find answers for until I had the phone in-hand.

-Chad