The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is an Android

phablet A phablet (, ) is a mobile device combining or straddling the size formats of smartphones and tablets. The word is a portmanteau of ''phone'' and ''tablet''. Phablets feature large displays that complement screen-intensive activity such as mo ...

smartphone produced by

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, a ...

as part of the Samsung Galaxy Note series. The Galaxy Note 3 was unveiled on September 4, 2013, with its worldwide release beginning later in the month. Serving as a successor to the

Galaxy Note II The Samsung Galaxy Note II (or Galaxy Note 2) is an Android phablet smartphone. Unveiled on August 29, 2012 and released in October 2012, the Galaxy Note II is a successor to the original Galaxy Note, incorporating improved stylus functionality ...

, the Note 3 was designed to have a lighter, more upscale design than previous iterations of the

Galaxy Note series The Samsung Galaxy Note series is a discontinued line of high-end Android phablets and smartphones developed and marketed by Samsung Electronics. The line is primarily oriented towards pen computing; all Galaxy Note models ship with a styl ...

(with a

plastic leather Artificial leather, also called synthetic leather, is a material intended to substitute for leather in upholstery, clothing, footwear, and other uses where a leather-like finish is desired but the actual material is cost prohibitive or unsuitab ...

backing and faux metallic bezel), and to expand upon the

stylus A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a writing utensil or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example, in pottery. It can also be a computer accessory that is used to assist in navigating or providing more Accuracy an ...

and multitasking-oriented functionality in its software—which includes a new pie menu opened through the button on the stylus for quick access to pen-enabled apps, along with pop-up apps and expanded multi-window functionality. It additionally features new sensors, a

USB 3.0 USB 3.0, released in November 2008, is the third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices. Among other improvements, USB 3.0 adds the new transfer rate referred to as '' ...

port, 3 GB of RAM, and its video camera has been upgraded to

2160p 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the dominan ...

(4K) resolution and doubled framerate of 60 at

1080p 1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen verti ...

, placing it among the earliest smartphones to be equipped with any of these. The Galaxy Note 3 is the only smartphone in its series to be equipped with temperature and humidity sensors and a touch screen able to detect a floating finger, all of which were first featured on the

Galaxy S4 The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succes ...

released earlier that year. Samsung sold 5 million units of the Galaxy Note 3 within its first month of sale and broke 10 million units sales in just 2 months.

Specifications

Hardware

Design

White Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (rear and pen)

The Galaxy Note 3's design was intended to carry a more upscale, "premium" look in comparison to previous Samsung devices.Samsung Galaxy Note 3 review – Worldwide24-chop.com, September 2019
/ref> Although it carries a similarly polycarbonate-oriented design to other recent Samsung devices, the Galaxy Note 3 has a faux metallic bezel and a rear cover made of

with faux stitching. With a thickness of , it is slightly thinner than the Galaxy Note II, and is slightly lighter. The speaker is placed at the bottom instead of the back,Pictures of the Galaxy Note 3 – GSM Arena
/ref> while placed on the rear side on the Note 1, 2 and 4., in comparison to the back side speaker of the Note 1, Note 2 and Note 4. The Galaxy Note 3 was first made available in black, white, and pink. In December 2013, Samsung introduced three new color schemes for select markets; black with gold-colored trim, white with rose gold-colored trim, and red with silver-colored trim.

Display

The display of the Galaxy Note 3 is a 5.7-inch

Super AMOLED display, which is 0.2 inches larger than the 5.5-inch display of the Galaxy Note 2, and a resolution upgraded from the Note 2's

720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...

display.

Storage

The device includes 3 GB of RAM for the first time in a mobile phone, and internal storage options of 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. The Galaxy Note 3 is also the first smartphone to include support for

, which enables faster data transfers and charging when connected to a compatible port.

Battery

The battery size of the Galaxy Note 3 is 3200

mAh ''Mångha'' (') is the Avestan for "Moon, month", equivalent to Persian ''Māh'' (; Old Persian ). It is the name of the lunar deity in Zoroastrianism. The Iranian word is masculine. Although Mah is not a prominent deity in the Avestan scrip ...

, which is 200 mAh higher than its predecessor. On the ''Unpacked'' keynote of the Galaxy Note 3, Samsung has claimed significant improvements over the Galaxy Note 2's battery run time due to increased efficiency, such as four hours of additional video playback time.Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2013 – Episode 2 (Keynote event in Berlin) at 01h:48 m:26s – Presentation of battery run time improvements
/ref>

Chipsets and connectivity

The LTE version sold in the European Union and North America of the Galaxy Note 3 (N9005) uses a 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chip, while the

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such as ...

-only model (N9000/N9006) sold outside aforementioned regions uses an octa-core Exynos 5420, consisting of four 1.9 GHz

Cortex-A15 The ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture. It is a multicore processor with out-of-order superscalar pipeline running at up to 2.5 GHz. Overview ARM has claimed th ...

cores and four 1.3 GHz

Cortex-A7 The ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore is a 32-bit microprocessor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture announced in 2011. Overview It has two target applications; firstly as a smaller, simpler, and more power-efficient success ...

cores. Testing has shown similar performance for both models. Galaxy Note 3 Duos (N9002) is based on the LTE variant but adds an additional second SIM card slot.

Sensors

The Galaxy Note 3 is equipped with the common sensors (

accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is accel ...

, gyroscope, digital compass, front-facing proximity sensor and a

barometer A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis ...

sensor). In addition, it has a sensor for the air hand gestures (''Quick glance'', ''Air jump'', ''Air browse'' and ''Air call-accept''Video
''Air Call Accept on Samsung Galaxy Note 3''
– Techniqued – November 14, 2013) and a hall sensor for detecting the closure of the S-View Cover accessory. As the only Samsung flagship mobile phone next to the

, it is equipped with thermometer and hygrometer sensors, mainly used by the Samsung ''S Health'' app and some third-party weather station software.''"Turn Your Samsung Galaxy Note 3 into a Personal Ambient Weather Station with These Apps & Widgets"'' – Gadget Hacks – December 06, 2013
/ref> Samsung Galaxy Note 3 specification sheet – GSM Arena
/ref> For detecting the floating finger for

Air View The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succes ...

functionality, the Galaxy Note 3 is equipped with an additional self-capacitiveSelf-capacitive touch described on official Sony Developers blog
/ref>

touch screen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is often ...

layer.

Camera

The Galaxy Note 3 is equipped with a 13-megapixel (4128×3096) rear-facing camera capable of filming video footage in 4K (2160p) resolution at 30 frames per second (capped at 5 minutes per video) and in

at 60 frames per second. Slow motion video footage is recorded at

at 120 frames per second, but without audio track. The pre-installed video player software benefits from the raised video resolution, as it allows zooming in during playback, frame-by-frame navigation while paused, and extracting frames as standalone photographs. Note that only the

Snapdragon ''Antirrhinum'' is a genus of plants commonly known as dragon flowers, snapdragons and dog flower because of the flowers' fancied resemblance to the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed. They are native to r ...

variant can record in 4K. The

Exynos Exynos, formerly Hummingbird (), is a series of ARM-based system-on-chips developed by Samsung Electronics' System LSI division and manufactured by Samsung Foundry. It is a continuation of Samsung's earlier S3C, S5L and S5P line of SoCs. Ex ...

variant supports recording at up to 1080p only.Samsung Galaxy Note 3 review — GSMArena
/ref> Like the

, released half a year earlier, the rear camera of the Note 3 uses the

Sony Exmor RS Exmor is the name of a technology Sony implemented on some of their CMOS image sensors. It performs on-chip analog/digital signal conversion and two-step noise reduction in parallel on each column of the CMOS sensor. Exmor RS is the world's ...

''IMX135'' image sensor. The camera software and user interface resembles that of the S4 as well.Article on the Galaxy Note 3 by AnandTech
/ref> The Note 3 is the first Samsung mobile phone and one of the first mobile phones to support

video recording,

at 60 frames per second (compared to 30 fps) and

at 120 frames per second. The front camera has an aperture of 2.4 and uses the same image sensor as the Galaxy S4, a Samsung CMOS ''S5K6B2'', and similarly captures both photos and videos at

(2.1 megapixels); the latter at 30 frames per second.Samsung Galaxy Note 3 review by AnandTech – Page 6: Camera
– October 1st 2013

S-Pen

As with other

devices, the Galaxy Note 3 ships with an S Pen

, which has been updated to use a more symmetrical shape. Like on the predecessor, the WACOM digitizer is able to distinguish between 1024 pressure sensitivity levels. (mentions Galaxy Note 3) Removing the stylus from its compartment or pressing its button whilst hovering over the display activates the new "Air Command" pie menu which provides shortcuts to pen-oriented features such as Action Memos (on-screen

sticky note A Post-it Note (or sticky note) is a small piece of paper with a re-adherable strip of glue on its back, made for temporarily attaching notes to documents and other surfaces. A low- tack pressure-sensitive adhesive allows the notes to be easil ...

s that use handwriting recognition to detect their contents and provide relevant actions, such as looking up addresses on Google Maps and dialing phone numbers), Screen Write (an annotation tool), Pen Window (which allows users to draw pop-up windows to run certain apps inside), the search tool ''S Finder'', and Scrapbook (which allows storing and categorizing image and text excerpts from various apps). The multi-window functionality has also been updated with expanded app support, the ability to run multiple instances of a single app, and the ability to drag and drop content between apps. The device also ships with a news aggregator app known as My Magazine, accessible by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, and an updated version of S Note. The Galaxy Note 3 is the first mobile phone with the ability to open a supported range of applications into floating pop-up windows. By default however, the feature is only accessible using the so-called ''Air Command'' menu opened using the button on the stylus.Review of the Galaxy Note 3 S-Pen — GSMArena
/ref> The stylus allows accessing Samsung

, which shows a preview of content when hovered above it, including albums in Samsung's precluded gallery software,

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

messages, speed dial contact information, text boxes such as a browser's URL bar and a preview bubble from the seek bar of the Samsung video player (as also known from the desktop websites of YouTube and Dailymotion). The S Pen can also be used for scrolling by hovering it to the upper or lower edge of the screen, and hovering above folders on the home screen does expand the icons. The Galaxy Note 3 is the only mobile phone in the Samsung Galaxy Note series to support

with both the stylus and floating fingers.

S-View Cover

The ''S-View'' Cover accessory is a horizontal flip

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...

with a preview window through which the Android status bar (with battery and signal indicators, and notification icons), a clock, and the number of unread messages and missed calls can be seen. There are also interfaces for answering incoming calls and snooze or stop a ringing alarm clock, music playback controls, title and artist name,

album cover An album cover (also referred to as album art) is the front packaging art of a commercially released studio album or other audio recordings. The term can refer to either the printed paperboard covers typically used to package sets of and 78-rpm ...

and

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has seve ...

browser; the ability to create ''Action Memos'' (digital post-it notes), weather information, '' S Health'' step counter (if activated), and a basic photo camera interface with the ability to browse recent photos. The size of the preview window has doubled compared to it on the

, the earliest Samsung device to feature such accessory. Features listed above since music playback controls have been added. The accessory is attached replacing the default rear cover rather than covering it, and is detected through pins on its inner side rather than a hall sensor used on the Galaxy S4.

Software

General

The Galaxy Note 3 comes with Android 4.3 "Jelly Bean" and Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz NatureUX 2.5

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fr ...

and software. Additional pen-oriented features have been added to the Note 3's software. The Galaxy Note 3 has inherited the interaction functionality of the Galaxy S4, such as

, Air Gestures, Samsung ''SmartScreen'' and on-screen motion gestures.Samsung Galaxy Note 3 user guide
/ref> The split-screen view is able to run select applications twice, and allows dragging and dropping items in between. The Samsung Group Play software introduced on the

has been extended by the ability to play back video across up to four Galaxy Note 3 units which form a larger screen surface together. Due to the large screen size of the device, a new feature that allows simulating a smaller screen size for single-handed operation has been added. An

FTP client The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

feature has been added to the precluded "''My Files''"

file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files inclu ...

, and a search feature has been added to the system settings. In addition to the camera functionality of the

from earlier that year, a spherical panorama and a "Golf mode" feature were added. Spherical panorama, which is referred to in the software as "photo sphere", merges pictures captured in all directions from a point, and "Golf mode" captures golf swings for forward and reverse playback. A subsequent software update inherited the "Virtual Tour" feature from the 2014

Galaxy S5 The Samsung Galaxy S5 is an Android-based smartphone unveiled, produced, released and marketed by Samsung Electronics as part of the Samsung Galaxy S series. Unveiled on 24 February 2014 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, it was rele ...

, which can create 3D room tours with a map which tracks the direction.

Android 4.4.2 KitKat update

On January 13, 2014, an update to Android 4.4.2 "KitKat" was first made available through

Samsung Kies Samsung Kies is a freeware software application used to communicate between Windows or Macintosh operating systems, and recently manufactured Samsung mobile phone and tablet computer devices, usually using a USB connection (though wireless LAN Ki ...

in Poland for LTE models. The update adds user interface tweaks such as a camera shortcut on the corner of the lock screen, options for setting default launcher and text messaging applications, support for printing, and a new location settings menu for tracking and controlling the use of location tracking by apps. 4.4 also makes significant changes to the handling of secondary storage on the device for security reasons; applications' access to the SD card is now restricted to designated, app-specific directories only, while full access to internal primary storage is still allowed. Although this behavior has existed by default since Android 3.0 ''Honeycomb'', OEMs such as Samsung previously modified their distributions of Android to retain the previous behavior, allowing applications to have unlimited access to SD card contents. The update inherited functionality from the

, including ''Spherical Panorama'' and ''Virtual Tour'' in the camera software, ''Download Booster'' and Samsung ''Kids Mode''.

Android 5.0 Lollipop update

Samsung began rolling out an update to Android 5.0 "Lollipop" in January 2015. Changes visibly affected the user interface, replacing TouchWiz Nature UX 2.5 with 4.0.

Release

Samsung first teased the unveiling of the Galaxy Note 3 with its announcement of a ''Samsung Heavy Packed'' event on September 4, 2013 at

IFA Berlin The IFA ( ) or Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (International radio exhibition Berlin, a.k.a. 'Berlin Radio Show') is one of the oldest industrial exhibitions in Germany. Between 1924 and 1939 it was an annual event, but from 1950 it was ...

, which contained the tagline "Note the date." The international Galaxy Note 3 was released on September 25, 2013 in over 140 countries, while its U.S. and Japanese releases were released in October 2013. All Galaxy Note 3s will also include a free one-year subscription to Evernote Premium. The American, European and Indian models of the Galaxy Note 3 implement a

regional lockout A regional lockout (or region coding) is a class of digital rights management preventing the use of a certain product or service, such as multimedia or a hardware device, outside a certain region or territory. A regional lockout may be enforced ...

system in certain regions; requiring that the

SIM card A typical SIM card (mini-SIM with micro-SIM cutout) A GSM mobile phone">Global System for Mobile Communications">GSM mobile phone iPhone_6s.html"_;"title="T-Mobile_nano-SIM_card_with_NFC_capabilities_in_the_SIM_tray_of_an_iPhone_6s">T-Mobile_ ...

used on a European and North American model be from a carrier in that region. While a Samsung spokesperson claimed that the lock would be removed once a valid SIM card is used, it was reported by users that this was not the case. Although an

XDA Developers XDA Developers (also known simply as XDA; often stylized as xda-developers) is a mobile software development community launched on 20 December 2002. Although discussion primarily revolves around Android, members also talk about many other opera ...

user developed a tool to clear the carrier

blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...

that the system uses, it requires that the phone be rooted. A spokesperson claimed that the system was primarily intended to prevent grey market reselling, although some critics suspected that carriers may have asked Samsung to implement the feature in order to force users to roam while travelling by preventing them from using a local SIM card. Samsung also stated that it implemented a similar policy on Galaxy S III,

Note II The Samsung Galaxy Note II (or Galaxy Note 2) is an Android phablet smartphone. Unveiled on August 29, 2012 and released in October 2012, the Galaxy Note II is a successor to the original Galaxy Note, incorporating improved stylus functionality ...

, S4, and

S4 Mini The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini (stylized as Samsung GALAXY S4 mini) is an Android smartphone developed by the Korean manufacturer Samsung Electronics. Announced on May 31, 2013 and released in July 2013, the S4 Mini is a mid-range model of its flags ...

models manufactured after July 2013. The models of the Note 3 are: SM-N900 (GSM), N9000 (3G), SM-N9005 ( 4G/ LTE), N9002 (LTE dual-SIM), SM-N9006 (China/WCDMA), SM-N900A (USA

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

), SM-N900T (USA

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic (T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland (T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobile ...

), SM-N900P (USA Sprint), SM-N900V (USA Verizon), SM-N900R4 (USA US cellular), SM-N900W8 ( Canada and some of the operators of Latin America)

Reception

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...

'' complimented the incremental improvements to the Galaxy Note 3's hardware and software, considering it to be the company's "best attempt yet at making touch input optional on a mobile device." Its overall design was considered to be "cohesive and well thought-out" despite Samsung's continuing use of plastic, and subtle changes such as a symmetrically-shaped stylus were also noted. However, the My Magazine app was panned for being a "tacked on" gimmick. ''

TechRadar ''TechRadar'' is an online publication owned by Future and focused on technology. It has editorial teams in the US, UK and Australia and provides news and reviews of tech products and gadgets. It was launched in 2007 and expanded to the US in ...

'' considered the Galaxy Note 3 to be an evolution in comparison to its predecessor (including its faster hardware and bigger screen), but criticized the device's design for not looking as "slick and premium" in real life as it did during the promotional video.
Some Note 3s had quality control issues. After using it for a short period of time, some users found that the home button on the phone was “loose and began to shift”. Some images uploaded by affected users shows that the Home button would shift up, down, left, or right when pressing the Home button on their Note 3 after only 3 hours of use. In a poll conducted by Android Police, there were 2,017 Note 3 users complaining that their home button was affected, but only 1150 users did not encounter this problem.

Notes

References

{{Authority control Smartphones Galaxy Note 3 Galaxy Note 3 Mobile phones introduced in 2013 Discontinued smartphones 3 Mobile phones with stylus Mobile phones with user-replaceable battery Mobile phones with infrared transmitter Mobile phones with self-capacitive touch screen layer Mobile phones with 4K video recording