It was that time of the year when my xPeria L has got a little long in the tooth so my hunt for a phone began a month ago. First and foremost thing was I didn’t want to spend more than 15K (INR) on a smartphone. Second it should be a worthy upgrade from xPeria L. Third, it should have proper software support for atleast a year.
So as my search began and I narrowed down to these few phones Moto G (2014), Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC Desire 620G, Nokia Lumia 730, Sony xPeria T3, Lenovo Vibe X2, Alcatel OneTouch Idol X+. As you can see from the list most of the phones are in the 5″ screen size range as I thought 5.5″ or more was a crazy size for me to carry (how wrong I was to assume !!) . Moto G was my first choice with it’s pure android UI and decent hardware. But with only 1 GB RAM I was not sure it could hold up for 2 or more years of usage. Even though Samsung TouchWiz UI was not my favourite the S4 with the latest lollipop update and excellent specs and size made it the “choice” to go…
And then one of my friends suggested Galaxy Note 3 Neo with specs close to its older sibling Note 2 it was a more recent phone (2014 launch) compared to S4 (2013) and had a massive 3100 mAh battery to go with it. With a price of 18K it was a good deal and I for one have learnt that it’s always better to go for a older flagship range of phones from top brands like Sony (Z series), Samsung (Galaxy series) and HTC (One series) as the probability of getting software updates for 1-2 year old phones seems higher.The next stumbling block for Note 3 Neo was it’s huge 5.5″ screen size so I decided to give a test run of my friend’s 2 year old Note 2. It’s true that 5.5″ is a hassle to handle with single hand but the battery and stylus was it’s positives. With S4 almost now 2 years old I was not sure about whether it will get future software updates but that being said Note 3 Neo hasn’t been confirmed for Lollipop update so far….
Anyway it’s almost the end of this story I went ahead with Note 3 Neo and it’s been a week now since I’ve started using it. Yes it’s definitely a large phone to use but the AMOLED 5.5″ screen with a screen resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (267 ppi) is a delight to look at. The phone is slim enough(148.4 x 77.4 x 8.6 mm) and the bezels also thin enough to use it with a good amount of ease. But typing and fiddling around this phablet needs my 2 hands for sure….
More about the “Neo” Phablet in my future posts 