Hey there guys. Finally got tired of me old S3 and the puny 1GB of RAM. Went out and tried the N3... Went back home with an N2 instead lol as I got a pretty good deal for it.

Happy to report that with 4.3 aboard I'm extremely happy with the N2, As about the ONLY thing I really liked about the N3 was the floating keyboard - which the N2 gets anyway with 4.3. Everything else on the N3 was simply overkill for me.

Plus N3LTE = No Wolfson. N3Octa = Wolfson = No LTE. Sigh, guess I'll wait for the N4 and see if Sammy gets this right the next time.

That said, quite surprised with me getting satisfied with something not cutting edge. Maybe I'm getting old lol.

I got a "sane" eMMC out of the box, so that's good. My previous S3 already died once from SDS lol so wasn't really keen on going through that again.

A shame SME isn't bringing in the N2LTE though. I'm too spoiled by SME service to risk going the AP route.

As for 4.3... Using Wanam from a full wipe here and I've been having zero issues so far. Besides Knox being a total ass - nothing a quick freeze in TiBu can't handle.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 13 2013, 04:47 PM

Thanks. Enjoying the leaked 4.3 so far. Almost feels like I'm using a N3 software wise - with a hella lot more "customizability"...

AND we get to KEEP "Quick Controls" in stock browser... Which N3 will probably NEVER get back (quick tip: Install "Android Browser" from Play)...

Missing the JKays framework though. Xposed is good, but it's no JKF. Also, updating or adding new languages to the sammy keyboard seem to break stuff so don't.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 13 2013, 04:59 PM

Hopefully. I'm already missing Perseus.

Done. Great job maintaining the thread BTW, the info load on FP is simply awesome.

Tho things are understandably slow here since the launch of the Note 3.

I'll be keeping this baby hopefully up to when the N4 comes out. With the Exynos and 2GBs it should hold the fort fine.

Then it'll be another round of "Cutting Edge" vs "Money Pinching", see if the N4 has enough jelly specs to sway me from getting a deeply discounted (and, by that point, developmentally matured) N3.

Not to say the N3 isn't gorgeous. I was pretty jelly with my time hands on with it - it's a great device.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 13 2013, 07:28 PM

Don't forget that beautiful, beautiful FHD screen. THE ONLY real niggle I had with the N3 was that the SPen was really (and I mean REALLY) hard to pull out of its silo.

Annnd that was it. Lol.

Damn, now I regret playing the sensible penny pincher lol.

Anyways, now reporting another weird thing with the MI6 leak: My old flipfonts (and other font apps that supposedly work fine with the N2 before) don't work anymore...

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 13 2013, 07:39 PM

Thanks for the info mate. Will try it out.

@Noobie3: Hey there bro!

@windweaver: Nowadays much less of a flashaholic. Not enough time to tinker around these days.

That said I feel fortunate that I started out with Wanam's MI6 as it has been one of the most trouble free "leaked" ROM I've used so far. Thankfully the modem's rock solid too, so I don't have to fiddle around with EFS to get back to something else.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 13 2013, 09:37 PM

Not liking the instability. Will wait until the FCs are resolved.

Like I said, less of a "cutting edge" type of guy nowadays. Though the floating keyboard alone is worth jumping to MI6 for me.

Not sure why, everything - 3G calls included - works fine for me so far on MI6.

Hmm.

Just act like you're a 2nd hand owner ("I dunno lar the first owner...") and bluff your way through the SC. Works 80% of the time lol.

At least it worked for my S3 last time. I got dumb and sent it fully custom, modded boot animation and all. Suffice to say I won't be doing it again though lol.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 15 2013, 08:13 PM

Also the battery and the bare open back of the unit with the battery out. Need to check all the relevant stickers are in place.

I think it's the so the they can provide one to one exchange, like someone else mentioned here.

If so, woah, that's actually good.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 15 2013, 11:53 PM

SME Sets with LTE!!!?

I saddingz nao.

Anyways, got mine (SME Non-LTE) for 1450 from one of the shops up top at the Mines just last week. If you don't need LTE, the 13MP cam and the IR blaster, the N2 is STILL a very relevant choice - especially if you're penny pinching like me.

Plus it seems the new batch all get revised, non insane eMMC firmwares, which is super.

Also, if you like modding, the mod scene is relatively more matured due to the age of the device.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 16 2013, 03:11 PM

Ditto what joytest said.

The N2 has 2GBs of RAM and a Quad core. To put that into perspective, my old 5 year old laptop (which is 12 inches and weighs 4kg) has ONLY 2 bloody cores and the SAME amount of RAM - and it could not only run Vista smoothly, it could play some of back then's more demanding games at low with no issues.

The N2 has more powerful specs and can fit in your pocket...

Android has been OPTIMISED for low resources. Gingerbread can run smoothly on a crappy Xperia X8 with 168MBs of RAM and a darned slowpoke 600MHz single core processor with zero issues (at least until you load crappy coded RAM suckers like WhatsApp and Facebook).

In short, if you can stand...
1) The size.
2) The fact you're using LAST YEAR'S best.
3) The fact that, like Windows, performance depends on what you stuff into it.

... then you will enjoy the Note 2. Otherwise, get an fruit phone and never worry about lagginess because Apple won't allow you to slow the phone down to begin with.

For a good price on an SME Ori set, cheapest I've found is from a kiosk at the Mines top floor, at the very end near the HTC store. Slightly below 1.5k for a brand new, SME set with free SP and a Mercury jelly case.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 16 2013, 06:45 PM

This is actually VERY sound advice. If you can't afford to buy OR simply don't want the hassle of carrying two things at once the Note 2 is great. But, if you're in a "high risk" environment like college dorms, remember that a top end phablet (or even a top end phone for that matter. Doesn't matter if it's "last year's best", still considered top end lol) is a theft magnet.

Though also to consider is the fact that if you have 2 devices, you will have to take care of both. If you only get one... you get the drift. It all depends on your living conditions and the environment around you.

But to summarise, you can't get better than the Note 2 for a phablet below 1.8k. Especially with the SPen. Nothing else in the market even comes close unfortunately.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 16 2013, 06:41 PM

Check drawer settings or something like that. Should be able to turn off the Widget page. At least that's how it works with Apex Launcher.

You can always install "Android Browser" from play and get the quick controls back. Not sure if it would work well with pen windows though.

New SwiftKey Beta with undocking out. Unfortunately it's still inferior to stock Samsung as far as undocking is concerned IMHO. No matter what size we choose, it's far too huge.

Plus stock already has SwiftKey predictions anyway lol.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 18 2013, 02:34 AM

Lol. My warranty is barely 2 weeks old. A lot more weeks to go.

That said I've been running the leaked 4.3 since day one anyway...

Still, if the official 4.3 removes the browser quick controls, I'm sticking with the leak until they figure out a way to put QC back into the browser. I use QC too much to live without it.

Even if the new FW comes with the Note 3 pen actions lol.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 18 2013, 12:58 PM

Wouldn't that FC the browser when used in pen window? Assuming PW is available on the 4.3 release ROM.

Also, changing browser apk = all sorts of weirdness. I tried before replacing the stock browser with the AOSP browser apk. Suffice to say I reverted back to the stock Sammy one quick quick.

This post has been edited by Eiraku: Oct 18 2013, 02:39 PM