What the new model adds is a good number of particularly useful new ideas: S Note, the notetaking programme is now accompanied by 'Action Memo'. This is one of the options you can choose immediately you extract – with some difficulty – the stylus from the back of the device. It allows users to, say, write an email address and then get the device to recognise it and pop it straight into the 'To' field of an email; write a phone number and it will take you straight to the dialler; write a postcode and it can take you straight to a map. These are genuine time-saving features that make the most of accurate handwriting recognition and instant access to the internet, although why notes and memos are different is a moot point. By and large, though, the menu that appears as soon as you extract the ‘S Pen’ stylus makes the Note easier to use than its predecessor.
Other options instantly accessible from the stylus's default menu are the ability to annotate whatever is on the screen and then save it as a picture – useful but not novel – and the chance to add content to a digital scrapbook or to search the device. An 'Easy Crop' option makes cropping pictures a lot easier, too.
What's perhaps most useful, of the other options, however, is Pen Window. It allows you to draw a rectangle whatever size you want and then have another programme running in it. It's the multi-window option that everyone is used to on computers brought to the tablet, but defined by you. So you might have your email running in front of a web browser window, for instance. While Samsung has offered multi-window or pop-out videos, this new option adds a level of flexibility that makes it much more useful for the first time.
The large size of the Note 3 means the screen is a drain on power but also allows a large battery to offer everything I needed to get through a whole day. The device charges through a new, larger Micro USB 3 port, which happily incorporates an existing Micro USB jack too, so all your old cables aren't redundant. With a USB 3 connection, it offers faster charging and data transfer. The 13MP camera is perfectly decent, but a phablet is not the ideal device to capture pictures – improved speed and memory are also welcome additions.
Users may have mixed feelings about the leather back Samsung has added to the Note 3 – it doesn't feel quite like the premium product Samsung is hoping for, but other options are available, and the aim to soften what might otherwise be a rather large chunk of plastic is surely the right one.
Overall, on the one level the Galaxy Note 3 is simply an iterative improvement over the existing, excellent models – but those improvements are pretty substantial leaps. Action Memo, in particular, is a really useful addition to a product that already has the potential to revolutionise the very idea of taking notes. Samsung hopes many users will pair the Note 3 with the Galaxy Gear smartwatch. That offers the prospect of a far greater revolution – and both are categories Samsung has pretty much to itself.
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