Samsung Galaxy NotePRO 12.2 : Full Review
By Deepanshu Kumar, March 26th, 2014
The market has been constantly plunged with a huge range of mid-range and high-end tablets since past couple of years. But the question is have any them been able to prove themselves in terms of utility? When it comes to tablets and laptops, it’s a black-and-white world. Tablets are for consumption, while laptops are for getting work done. Although some use tablets for productivity tasks, but still does it rule out the need for a laptop?
The Galaxy Note Pro looks has a oval home button, stylus and faux-leather material used at the back are reminiscent of the Note 3. The faux-leather material is not that popular, but in this case it has turned out to be a plus point. The material makes the tablet good to hold and adds to its looks as well. The build quality of the tablet is good and the metal finish on the sides add to its sturdy frame. It’s hard to use this tablet with one hand, even though Samsung has made it sleek and light for its size.
One new component is the new charging port and the microUSB 3.0 charging cable with two heads. One of these heads is the standard microUSB connector, while there’s another, slightly wider connector right next to it. This means that you can use your phone’s microUSB cable to charge the Note Pro and transfer data, but that will be a lot slower than with the new cable. You’ll also have to make sure that you maintain the cable very well. If you lose or break it, you’ll have a hard time charging the Note Pro’s massive 9,500 mAh battery.
The Galaxy Note Pro looks has a oval home button, stylus and faux-leather material used at the back are reminiscent of the Note 3. The faux-leather material is not that popular, but in this case it has turned out to be a plus point. The material makes the tablet good to hold and adds to its looks as well. The build quality of the tablet is good and the metal finish on the sides add to its sturdy frame. It’s hard to use this tablet with one hand, even though Samsung has made it sleek and light for its size.
One new component is the new charging port and the microUSB 3.0 charging cable with two heads. One of these heads is the standard microUSB connector, while there’s another, slightly wider connector right next to it. This means that you can use your phone’s microUSB cable to charge the Note Pro and transfer data, but that will be a lot slower than with the new cable. You’ll also have to make sure that you maintain the cable very well. If you lose or break it, you’ll have a hard time charging the Note Pro’s massive 9,500 mAh battery.
At 11.64 inches wide by 8.03 inches tall and 750g is a lot of weight to hold — a tablet of this size would need to be cradled in the crook of an arm rather than held in one hand. The leather-like finish at the back, with the faux stitching is definitely a massive step up over the shiny plastic that Samsung was often criticized for. This is the kind of finish that has its fans, and critics which boils down to personal choice. Personally, I like the looks of this leather-ish finish, which feels premium and doesn’t catch smudges.
Like other Galaxy Notes, the Galaxy NotePRO 12.2 has an S Pen stylus. Samsung does stylus-based input better than any competitor, and at this screen size the stylus is more usable than on any previous Note device. It's a good way to interact with a screen that is, after all, only slightly smaller than an A4 sheet of paper.
The Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 runs Android 4.4 KitKat, the latest version of Google’s Android operating system. The Galaxy Note Pro is powered by the same Exynos 5420 processor clocking at 1.9GHz, as inside the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition and features an identical 3GB of RAM. Before we get down to the performance aspects of the device in question, it is important to take a look at the ever evolving TouchWiz UI. With each iteration, Samsung has made subtle tweaks to the looks of the interface. While the TouchWiz UI doesn't work well at times, in the case of the Galaxy Note Pro, it most certainly does. Widgets look a lot better and don’t look like plastered boxes, and fill the screen a lot finer than earlier.
Coming back to the system performance, the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 has the same hardware and the specifications that catapulted the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) to the top of the Android tablets scoresheet. Needless to say, you really only need to figure out if this tablet fits your usage scenario, because the performance will be absolutely fantastic. No slowdowns, no sluggishness and the UI has been streamlined along the way that it doesn’t get in your way - either in terms of performance or in utility. For gaming, this may be a tad too big to be moved around as you power-slide your way through a corner at the Laguna Seca Raceway in Real Racing 3. But, game load times are quick and the gaming performance is very good.
Battery life is a tad lesser than the 10.1-inch sibling. In the video battery drain test, with the same HD video used on both devices via VLC with screen brightness at 100% and volume at 50%, the Note 10.1's battery dropped to 86% in an hour. The Note Pro’s battery level was at 81% after the same duration. The bigger display was bound to have a slight negative impact on the battery, but we don’t think the impact is big enough to have an impact on your consideration.
So coming to a conclusion, The Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 might not completely rule out the need of a laptop, but it comes as close as possible. At least, you'll actually be surprised by the utility of the tablet.