Samsung Unpacked 2013 Episode 2, Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Gear and Galaxy Note 10.1 unveiled

[LAwLz]

Note 3 looks pretty awesome, glad that I didn't change to Note 2. Only thing I'd like to know is about battery quality. Hope they put a better quality battery in Note 3.

It's 100mAh bigger than the Note 2s battery, and the processor has higher performance:watt ratio.

[rangat]

Already ordered mine :0

How did you, and for how much??

[Nicktrance]

 and the processor has higher performance:watt ratio.

 

As long as you get the Snapdragon 800 version not the Exynos.

[LAwLz]

As long as you get the Snapdragon 800 version not the Exynos.

Even the Exynos version has better performance:watt. Both A7 and A15 are better than A9 in that regard.

I am not 100% sure, but I think the Galaxy Note 3 uses the Exynos 5420 which is a big improvement over the 5410 (if they fixed the CCI-400 bug).

[Nicktrance]

Even the Exynos version has better performance:watt. Both A7 and A15 are better than A9 in that regard.

I am not 100% sure, but I think the Galaxy Note 3 uses the Exynos 5420 which is a big improvement over the 5410 (if they fixed the CCI-400 bug).

 

We'll really have to wait for some tests to see, I haven't read any news about them fixing the problems with the GS4 not distributing processing efficiently among the cores, which mean the S600 had almost the same performance but much better battery life but if they have it should be extremely efficient, in theory at least.

 

There's another reason why I would avoid Exynos if you like to flash custom ROMs, Samsung has a history of not sharing complete Exynos source files unlike Qualcomm.

[Nicktrance]

I was just watching Samsung's introduction video and I spotted this:
 

 

Firstly they went with a bottom speaker but more importantly, they're using a different connector, hopefully it's not proprietary but it looks like USB 3.0 micro A rather than the usual 2.0 micro B.

 

Edit: after some searching I found that it is actually the first phone to support USB 3.0. This allows it, not only to transfer data faster, but also to charge faster from a PC as long as you use a USB 3.0 port. USB 3 allows it to provide 900mA rather than the usual 500mA.

 

 

The port is actually USB 3.0 micro B (it looks more like a regular rectangle in the video which is why I though it was micro A) but is backwards compatible with usual Micro USB 2.0 micro B cables.

 

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/5/4696874/galaxy-note-3-usb-3-0-power-connector-explained

[coen113]

From what I understand it's fake leather, it does feel like leather not just hard plastic like usual but I'm guessing the layer of it is very small in order to make the phone feel more solid and avoid tears.

 

its plastic

[Nicktrance]

its plastic

 

It's faux leather, which is plastic but it feels much better than the usual plastic.

[coen113]

It's faux leather, which is plastic but it feels much better than the usual plastic.

still plastic, and i use a case against scratches anyway

[Nicktrance]

still plastic, and i use a case against scratches anyway

 

Did you expect them to use real leather ?? Of course it would be fake, but it definitely gives it a more premium feel. Either way it really shouldn't matter if it's plastic or not if you're using a case.

[coen113]

Did you expect them to use real leather ?? Of course it would be fake, but it definitely gives it a more premium feel. Either way it really shouldn't matter if it's plastic or not if you're using a case.

i would like a metal backplate, like the ones you can buy for your s2

[Nicktrance]

i would like a metal backplate, like the ones you can buy for your s2

 

You can already buy metal backplates for the GS4 so there will probably be ones for this too. Also what's the point of a metal backplate if you're going to be using a case? It's not like metal isn't scratch prone.

[coen113]

You can already buy metal backplates for the GS4 so there will probably be ones for this too. Also what's the point of a metal backplate if you're going to be using a case? It's not like metal isn't scratch prone.

no, but metal definitly feels better, and if there was a metal backplate, i would not use a case, for it looks much better without

[SteepGnomeKing]

Well looks like I'm going to be selling my Note2 here for the new one. Such a different design change. That's what is really getting me.

Bit more square, better speaker, much better charging port faster in speed and charge, new S-pen, nicer back, bigger screen, higher resolution.

I'm quite excited.

[Nicktrance]

no, but metal definitly feels better, and if there was a metal backplate, i would not use a case, for it looks much better without

 

I definitely agree metal looks better than the regular hyperglaze plastic, as for the new faux leather finish I'll have to actually see it IRL but it's definitely way better than hyperglaze.

 

Well looks like I'm going to be selling my Note2 here for the new one. Such a different design change. That's what is really getting me.

Bit more square, better speaker, much better charging port faster in speed and charge, new S-pen, nicer back, bigger screen, higher resolution.

I'm quite excited.

I'm not sure about the note II but I was really surprised how fast the Galaxy S4 charged compared to GSIII or GSII, within an hour from completely empty it is almost completely charged. Only reason I'm not really considering the Note 3 yet is the Nexus 5.

[coen113]

 

I definitely agree metal looks better than the regular hyperglaze plastic, as for the new faux leather finish I'll have to actually see it IRL but it's definitely way better than hyperglaze.

 

I'm not sure about the note II but I was really surprised how fast the Galaxy S4 charged compared to GSIII or GSII, within an hour from completely empty it is almost completely charged. Only reason I'm not really considering the Note 3 yet is the Nexus 5.

i dont like it at all but opinions are allowed, i thought the plastic was better than fake leather

[Nicktrance]

i dont like it at all but opinions are allowed, i thought the plastic was better than fake leather

 

To each his own I guess, but the back is still removable and if it's anywhere near as popular as it is expected to be there shouldn't be any problem getting a different metal or plastic case.

[coen113]

To each his own I guess, but the back is still removable and if it's anywhere near as popular as it is expected to be there shouldn't be any problem getting a different metal or plastic case.

i would love to have my entire case replaced like the htc one is right now, but with removable battery

[wkronbaek]

Galaxy S3 backing looks sooo cool. Seriously. It's amazing. Really. Even though it's just faux leather, It looks waaaaaaay better than plastic

 

Although that smart watch is kinda ridicoulous at $200, That'd be around $300-400 Here I guess so yeah. No.

[LAwLz]

We'll really have to wait for some tests to see, I haven't read any news about them fixing the problems with the GS4 not distributing processing efficiently among the cores, which mean the S600 had almost the same performance but much better battery life but if they have it should be extremely efficient, in theory at least.

 

There's another reason why I would avoid Exynos if you like to flash custom ROMs, Samsung has a history of not sharing complete Exynos source files unlike Qualcomm.

The problem with the Exynos 5410 was that it is a bug in it, and to solve it Samsung disabled the CCI-400. That means that every time you migrate from one cluster to another, the whole cache is wiped and has to be fetched from RAM again, which wastes a lot of energy and takes a lot of time (compared to just copying between the CPU caches directly). That seems like it has been fixed in this new Exynos Octa, and they changed to a much more powerful GPU as well. If this is correct, then the Exynos Octa model will have lower power consumption in the low power state, much higher performance in the high performance state, and a greater dynamic power consumption (unless you spend a lot of time running demanding games) than Snapdragon 800.

 

It's still not optimal in how it handles the cores, like you said. It's still limited to either only the A7 cluster, to only the A15 cluster being active. It doesn't really affect minimum power consumption, or maximum performance, but it would be better to be able to mix cores (like running music on an A7 and then maybe two A15s for a game).

 

I agree with you on avoiding Exynos if you want custom ROMs though. I wish Samsung would release the documentation for their chips. It's strange that they aren't, since they were so helpful when the Galaxy S 2 was released (sent free phones to the Cyanogen team to experiment with).

[Nicktrance]

It's still not optimal in how it handles the cores, like you said. It's still limited to either only the A7 cluster, to only the A15 cluster being active. It doesn't really affect minimum power consumption, or maximum performance, but it would be better to be able to mix cores (like running music on an A7 and then maybe two A15s for a game).

That was the intention I believe, Samsung were supposed to deliver a firmware update which should have optimized the way the processing was distributed, not sure whether they did that or whether they figured it out with the Note 3. Either way this is all theoretical, we'll realyl have to wait for battery tests to find out.

 

I agree with you on avoiding Exynos if you want custom ROMs though. I wish Samsung would release the documentation for their chips. It's strange that they aren't, since they were so helpful when the Galaxy S 2 was released (sent free phones to the Cyanogen team to experiment with).

Actually, Galaxy SII is where the problems started. Up to ICS there were no problems since the GS II was still very well supported by Samsung and code from official leaks could be used in ROMs. When JB was released however, Samsung moved to supporting the GS III and stopped caring about GS II and since full documentation wasn't released the first versions of JB ROM performed worse than ICS and Project Butter could not be implemented.

 

There were some official leaks early this year of JB running on GS II with the new version of touchwiz and most of the features of the GS III, but by that time the CM team had already figured most of it out, even if it did take too much effort and the GSII could never make it to a stable release (it still never has) and they were considering not supporting the GS4 i9500 version because of that.

 

The funny part is that at the exact same time there was a much less popular version of the GS II (the i9100G) which was available to a very small market which was performing extremely well right from the first nightlys since it had a dual core TI OMAP processor, which, while being quite a bit slower than the dual core Exynos, was very similar to the SOC in the Galaxy Nexus.

[LAwLz]

That was the intention I believe, Samsung were supposed to deliver a firmware update which should have optimized the way the processing was distributed, not sure whether they did that or whether they figured it out with the Note 3. Either way this is all theoretical, we'll realyl have to wait for battery tests to find out.

I haven't heard or read anything about them changing it, so I am 99% sure it's still cluster based and not as flexible as being able to run let's say one A7 and one A15 at the same time. It is still much better, and much more efficient than the old Exynos Octa though, thanks to them fixing the bug with the CCI. That alone is a huge improvement.

 

Anyway, personally I can't wait to see how the Note 3 performs. On paper it's ridiculously powerful. If the Xbone only uses 4 cores for gaming (and 4 other for apps and such) then there is a high chance that this phone has higher CPU performance than the Xbone. The GPU is about 1/2 as powerful as the Xbox 360's GPU as well (at least if you count GFLOPs, which isn't that good of a measurement but whatever). Our phones will soon be more powerful than our desktop computers used to be ~7 years ago.