So I finally got my hands on my white GN2 last night after work (was shipped to the house around 3:15pm EST or so - well before the initial 7pm delivery time), and I have to admit it - this thing is big. There's no getting around it. The good thing is that I'm 6'3" with huge hands, so one handed operation for me is damn near perfect. The craziest thing I noticed after nearly 3+ hours of playing with it was how quickly I began to think of my 4.3" Droid RAZR screen as small. Fits easily into both my pants and jacket pockets and the s-pen works as advertised. Put on the
Mercury White TPU case (which doesn't add ANY real bulk - awesome!!) and I'm absolutely loving the classy look of all white on my device.
This might come as a surprise, but I actually like the home branded VZW button. The silver they used accents the silver border around the phone quite nicely. The hardware on this phone is AMAZING! - No lag whatsoever. It just works! I initially tried setting up my homescreen as shown in the ColdFustion video and hated it. I actually prefer TouchWiz more - just more responsive IMHO.
The camera is 1000x better than the one on my Droid RAZR - I mean, it is just leaps and bounds better. This thing seriously comes very, very close to iPhone camera quality. I know people were asking about the battery, and from the 3+ hours I was messing with it (every single toggle was on), I still had 30 something percent left (the battery in the original packaging had less than a 50% charge). I'm so not worried about the battery life on this thing anymore! - according to one of my widgets, I have 20 hours of battery left!
I'm still getting adjusted to the S-Pen and had the phantom writing issue some people had raised. A quick few taps to the side of the pen on a table fixed that problem right up. I'm amazed at how well it can recognize my handwriting - and once I get the hang of using the pen for its other uses, man oh man is it going to be fun using this phone!
Tried using some of the motion features on this thing, but they've been hit or miss so far. I'm going to chalk that up to user error than a device issue.
So far, I'm thoroughly enjoying this thing. My wife couldn't get over how big it was and still thinks I'm crazy for getting it. Will add more posts as I get more real world mileage out of this thing.
**Update as of 11/30/12 @ 2:00pm EST**
Just had a 30min phone call on the phone and the sound quality (when held to the ear) is phenomenal! I wasn't thrilled with the call quality on my Droid RAZR. But the ear piece and speakerphone volumes and sound are really nice - pleasantly surprised when compared to my Droid RAZR.
**Update as of 12/3/12 @9:26AM EST**
I really tried to temper my expectations with this phone - it's so easy to get caught up in the "pixie dust" factor for a new phone. But man, I have literally thrown everything I can at it from the different ways I would use it and I can't be more impressed. The battery life is phenomenal. I literally had a 2 hour drive from PA to upstate NY on 12/1 with bluetooth audio streaming in my car (and all of the other toggles were ON mind you), had my daughter play games on for it for a bit, did that 2 hour drive back to PA and was only down to 40% by 11pm EST - I was off charger for nearly 16 hours!! I have never had a phone that didn't require me to recharge at least one during my normal course of usage during the day. Yesterday (Sunday, 12/2) I was at over 20 hours off charger before plugging it in for the night (which was actually at 3am this morning), and when I went to plug it in it showed 40% remaining. A big shout out to ScandaLex because she was right on about lowering the screen brightness and not having it be an issue. I think I have it down to 30% and have no issues viewing wise.
upon seeing it today, I realized it is NOT as gargantuan as I expected it to be. typing on it is a BREEZE!! i have a heck of a time typing (even swype) on my little bionic. I saw the DNA too--i have issues with the edges of the screen being grayish (on white backgrounds) and the sound quality is subpar IMO. I just used the N2 for a phone call (earpiece) and music via the speakerphone speaker--both were excellent--better than my bionic.
