Galaxy note 2 questions

[charlieegan3]

I've recently discovered in my new life that I need my mobile phone much more than I had previously, I've spent £5 on in credit in the last 2 days so I need to do something.

I was going to hang around for the rumoured iPad mini but now with this new voice calling need i'm thinking I need a phone instead.

However I don't think I want an iPhone 5 - I do however like the look of the Galaxy note 2. I think it might be the perfect fit for my needs however I have a few questions (I have a mac and have my calendar/contacts all setup using the apple ones and i'm very happy with them)

1. How easy is it to set up contact,calendar and email sync, can I use my google account to make this work?
2. Does samsung have a service like 'find my iPhone'?
3. will it come with a cable to connect it up and transfer over content like music and videos or is there an easy way to sync this kind of content easily from mac to the phone?
4. Does this phone have one of those cool keyboards where you kind of swipe your finger over it to make a pattern of letters? I think this might be called swipe but i'm not sure.

I also have a few UK carrier related questions:
5. If I were to take out a contract with 3 would they give me a sim card that I could put in the note 2 when it comes out?
6. one the whole contract front i would imagine that i'm a fairly low level user, I can't see my self using more than 200minutes a month. So one contract is like 6.90 a month. Does it make sense to buy the contract + phone separately or together? what normally works out as the best deal? bearing in mind that the amount of use that i'll be at.
Note: I don't really want to be on a contract for more than 12months.
7. If you do go with the 'free phone' contracts do you get any upgrades at any point? like say you're on a contract for 12months, once that's up do you get the option to upgrade?
note: I'm quite happy to be on any network but Vodafone. 3 is what i've suggested above because they seemed to have quite nice contracts.

I know it's a bit of a long one but I hope that someone out there can provide some insight. I'm quite good at all the mac side of things, I just know next to nothing about the whole phone and contracts scene.

thanks, Charlie.

 

[charlieegan3]

I just went for it in the end. Here are the answers, Or at least my experiences.
1. Everything is Completely seamless with the Google account and everything is synced and updated.
2. Yes there is the Samsung service however I have yet to set it up and have not tested it out yet, this is something I should probably do
3. There is an app called doubetwist But it doesn't work on new phones annoyingly, I've just copied it over manually and have had to put up with the fact that the playcounts will not be updated
4. The swype Keyboard is absolutely incredible, it is available for download from their website and not on the App Store, You have to create an account and things but apart from that it's totally free,Probably the most important app I've got.
5. I'm not sure how relevant to the UK carrier questions are but ill answer them all the same. I have a contract with three UK, I used an existing phone with our standard size sim before and then had to pay 5 pounds to get the new micro Sim For the notes II.
I'm on a 12 month contract that costs £6.90 Per month. with three uk
6. I paid up front for the note II in the end and so was not required to look into the contract options - I believe it costs about £30-£40 a month.

Hope that answers some questions that you may have had. Feel free to quote me back if you have any more questions about the note II, it's a great phone.

 

[IFRIT]

Use Cerberus instead of find my phone as it's awesome. Allows all kinds of things to be done remotely.

 

[joudbren]

I just went for it in the end. Here are the answers, Or at least my experiences.
1. Everything is Completely seamless with the Google account and everything is synced and updated.
2. Yes there is the Samsung service however I have yet to set it up and have not tested it out yet, this is something I should probably do
3. There is an app called doubetwist But it doesn't work on new phones annoyingly, I've just copied it over manually and have had to put up with the fact that the playcounts will not be updated
4. The swype Keyboard is absolutely incredible, it is available for download from their website and not on the App Store, You have to create an account and things but apart from that it's totally free,Probably the most important app I've got.
5. I'm not sure how relevant to the UK carrier questions are but ill answer them all the same. I have a contract with three UK, I used an existing phone with our standard size sim before and then had to pay 5 pounds to get the new micro Sim For the notes II.
I'm on a 12 month contract that costs £6.90 Per month. with three uk
6. I paid up front for the note II in the end and so was not required to look into the contract options - I believe it costs about £30-£40 a month.

Hope that answers some questions that you may have had. Feel free to quote me back if you have any more questions about the note II, it's a great phone.

2. There are also many apps that provide this service. Not sure in the U.K. but in Canada I use both Cerberus and Where's my Droid?. I believe some of the newer Android antivirus apps provide this service as well. Also check with your carrier to see if they offer this service. Rogers in Canada does this for free up to five times a month and then 20 cents per location track after that.

3. Give iSyncr a try. Still one of the best and now they've incorporated their USB and WiFi versions into one app. They have different versions for PC and Mac and it supports playlists and I believe play counts as well.

4. SwiftKey3 also comes highly recommended but it's not a Swype style keyboard.

Enjoy your Note 2! I bought one a week ago and gave my Galaxy 3 to the wife. Note 2 so far is the best phone I've ever owned. Period. I am so done with iPhones....

Cheers!

 

[charlieegan3]

Use Cerberus instead of find my phone as it's awesome. Allows all kinds of things to be done remotely.

This does look very good, quite like hidden for mac.

 

[IFRIT]

This does look very good, quite like hidden for mac.

It's possible to install it as a system app as well so even if someone stole your phone and factory reset it the app would still be there.

The Android 4.2 that getting released with the Nexus 4 comes with a built in swype style keyboard.

 

[charlieegan3]

It's possible to install it as a system app as well so even if someone stole your phone and factory reset it the app would still be there.

The Android 4.2 that getting released with the Nexus 4 comes with a built in swype style keyboard.

That is a good feature too.

 

[theluggage]

1. How easy is it to set up contact,calendar and email sync, can I use my google account to make this work?

Yes - the phone will sync with Google calendar & contacts, just set iCal and contacts on the Mac to do the same. The Phone comes with 2 email apps - Gmail and it's own mail. The former will do push email via Gmail. The latter will connect to POP, IMAP and Exchange (or you can set your Gmail account to consolidate the mail from other sources 'in the cloud').

3. will it come with a cable to connect it up and transfer over content like music and videos or is there an easy way to sync this kind of content easily from mac to the phone?

This is a weak point - see https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1468070/ - Samsung supplies its own sync app, which is a bit uninspiring and temperamental - but there are various solutions.

4. Does this phone have one of those cool keyboards where you kind of swipe your finger over it to make a pattern of letters?

Yes, there's an option for that in the settings.

I also have a few UK carrier related questions:
5. If I were to take out a contract with 3 would they give me a sim card that I could put in the note 2 when it comes out?

The 3G/HSDPA+ Note 2 is out. Not sure about the 4G version - last time I looked you could only get that on contract with EE (what was T-Mobile/Orange).

If you buy the phone separately then you can sign up to a 'SIM only' account from most carriers and get a SIM card (just get the correct size for the phone, which takes a micro-SIM).

Does it make sense to buy the contract + phone separately or together?

If you get the phone on contract, you're usually locked in for 24 months, and the lower usage contracts still usually require you to pay £100-£200 up front for the phone.

If you buy the phone, it costs you an arm+leg up front, but you can usually get a much cheaper sim-only contract, often available on a 1-month rolling basis - so you can 'try out' the carrier and plan without penalty.

Of course, the carriers don't make it easy to make comparisons (e.g. their SIM-only tarriffs have different allowances to their with-phone contracts) What you need to do is get a spreadsheet and cost out the alternatives over 24 months.

When I costed it out, there wasn't a lot in it. My suspicion is that, if you're only after 200 voice minutes and can afford £500-ish up front for the phone, you'll do better that way - and even if it's slightly more expensive over 24 months, the freedom to change carrier and contract without penalty is worth the extra.

Yes - the plans from Three with limited minutes & lots of data sound good - I'm paying £13/month for 200 minutes and unlimited data on a 1-month contract.