NFC on the Note 2 - Overrated or Useful or Indifferent?

[drexappeal]

With all the hype about NFC, Google Wallet, etc. on 2012 phones, I wanted to see what everybody thought about it.

I personally feel like it was completely overblown. And these are my gripes:

1) NFC file transfer is awful and unreliable compared to sending dropbox links for download, or even transferring via wifi. I spent a good amount of time just trying to get my Note 2 to sync up with my cousin's Photon Q. Then, once it did seem like it transferred, when I looked at his phone, there were no files transferred at all. That commercial where the 2 guys transfer a playlist using NFC with their s3's. I call b.s. That's exactly what I was trying to do between my Note 2 and my cousin's Photon Q. In the amount of time that I was trying to transfer an album to him, I could've already uploaded the files onto dropbox, sent him the download link, wait for him to download, and delete the album from my dropbox account.

2) Google Wallet...great concept, but there are no stores/gas stations/etc. anywhere near me that actually use this form of payment. Only exception is The Container Store (and only time I've shopped there is to purchase a collector's box to house my signed boxing glove). And it's not like I'm in a market that wouldn't use it (I live in L.A.).

3) Even though I can set up wireless charging with both my International Note 2 and Sprint Note 2, what's the point of that if it takes so much longer to charge?...LOL. This isn't an issue for me, since I have extra batteries, but still another thing that's more "gimic" than anything I find completely useful.

I'm curious as to what everyone else feels about this. I seriously might not even keep my NFC tags. Seeing as how much longer it seems for me to get NFC working on things I want it to do, the tags might annoy me just as much as the main things that I'd use NFC for.

Post your thoughts, after voting on the Poll.

 

[chimphappyhour]

Yeah, haven't really found it all that useful.

Can't use GWallet on my Tmo Note 2. Had it on my GNex. The only places I could use it were a bunch of places I don't frequent and McD's. At the McD's, only about a 1/3 of the terminals actually functioned and the stores don't seem to care. When it did work, in the places I was using it, one would have to try pretty hard to get to the limit where the store asks for a sig on card transactions. The phone payments always seem to take longer to communicate to the terminal, then have the actual transaction process. With my card, I swipe and walk away in about the same time it takes for Wallet to talk to the terminal the first time.

Transfers, can't say I've found a good use for them other than novelty and yes, so far, those are slow. It's easier for me to say that I'll email it to them at some point when it is convenient.

I bought some of the Tectiles. Some of the features don't even work right and it seems the actual Tectiles won't work with my GNex or my N7. I can program them with someone else's program but then you have to have that program on any device you want to have read it. Which means using it as a form of "business card" or calling card is hit or miss at best as there doesn't seem to be a standard from what I'm seeing.

So far, I'm unimpressed.

 

[chasers]

My family used the NFC chip last night sharing a 4 min video it was easy once we lined up the S3's to my N2. Transfer was smooth.

 

[wyndslash]

1) isn't that s-beam? i use an nfc tag before going to bed and after getting up. i find it's useful for me so i won't have to toggle all the settings over and over. it's not bad. i can live without the feature, but it's nice to have.

3) i think wireless charging would be useful for those microusb ports in the phone that are already loose and won't charge as fast as it used to...?

 

[chasers]

1) isn't that s-beam? i use an nfc tag before going to bed and after getting up. i find it's useful for me so i won't have to toggle all the settings over and over. it's not bad. i can live without the feature, but it's nice to have.

3) i think wireless charging would be useful for those microusb ports in the phone that are already loose and won't charge as fast as it used to...?

Ya know I think you're right oops

 

[drexappeal]

Ya know I think you're right oops

Yeah, S-Beam might be okay, but S-beam I think is a combination of wifi and NFC...I believe.

NFC transfer between different OEM's...pretty awful. What's funny is, I did a quick search while trying to figure out why it wasn't working, and there are a few places talking about how it doesn't work well. As much as people were yelling for NFC to be included in last years phones, I almost want to say that the product wasn't ready for all the things that it's supposed to accomplish. Even though the phones are NFC capable, it loses appeal quick when it doesn't work easily and smoothly right away.

 

[chasers]

Yeah, S-Beam might be okay, but S-beam I think is a combination of wifi and NFC...I believe.

NFC transfer between different OEM's...pretty awful. What's funny is, I did a quick search while trying to figure out why it wasn't working, and there are a few places talking about how it doesn't work well. As much as people were yelling for NFC to be included in last years phones, I almost want to say that the product wasn't ready for all the things that it's supposed to accomplish. Even though the phones are NFC capable, it loses appeal quick when it doesn't work easily and smoothly right away.

Def didn't use wifi when doing the transfer last night. I'm gonna do my homework on NFC. Really didn't consider that a factor when purchasing this phone

 

[drexappeal]

Def didn't use wifi when doing the transfer last night. I'm gonna do my homework on NFC. Really didn't consider that a factor when purchasing this phone

Then maybe it was the fact that they're the same manufacturer. Cross manufacturer transfers via NFC are definitely a PITA.

Me neither. NFC was more of a "bonus," for my needs. But there were a lot of people last year, while waiting through all the phone releases, that were whining and complaining about there being no NFC in any of the phones.

But now that it's here, it's been more of a joke to me than actually useful.

 

[gspam1]

I find the Tec Tiles to be unreliable. It takes a long time for the phone to read them. I use them to change phone profiles but they're finicky to active.

 

[lcneed]

The touch phones back transfer thing uses NFC to establish contact between the 2 phones, and then use S-Beam which uses direct WiFi between the phones to transfer the files. That's what they shows on commercials. It does work really well. My niece and I both goth the Note II and we could transfer media files between the phones really fast. I am sure it doesn't really "need" the NFC to establish contact. It could've been just be like BT and select a phone and do it that way. I guess NFC touching is just cooler.

There are people who use the NFC tag like macros... to perform certain things. I am sure it is handy, but I don't think it is for me. As of now, I don't really need the NFC.

 

[almath]

What I remember most about near field communication is for the pumped up, highly disappointing Google wallet. Oh it was mentioned all the time "it has near field communication". Personally I was totally let down by Google wallet, I only used it so I could spend that free money they gave me. Remember the video, had us all souped up! I'm not one bit worried about Google wallet or nfc tags and such, didn't care when I purchased this phone. OVERRATED!

 

[Thomas S]

I find it useful. I've used it with several friends to transfer files and it works really well. Haven't used Google Wallet but I plan to.

 

[BRM10984]

It's only really of value to me for mobile wallets. I'm not willing to engage in the amount of hackery necessary to get Wallet working on the phone at this point, and ISIS isn't available here yet. I'm a fan of NFC payments overall, so I'll be using whichever one becomes available first- but bonus points go to ISIS as I have a Chase Freedom card, and their setup won't launder transactions like Wallet does... so I should still get my rewards points in the quarterly specialty categories.

I may call TMo and see if I can con them out of an NFC SIM.

 

[FrancisJ]

I really haven't had much problems with NFC but then again i really don't use it much. Cant seem to find people with NFC enabled phones and the few times had opportunity to use it, most of the time i forgot i had it and just MMS pics or shared files on Drive.
I bought some NFC tags but i always seem to forget to use it. And now that i have discovered Tasker, tags seems useless.

 

[ScandaLeX]

You're good- I was about to ask where the poll was but something said "refresh" before replying. LOL!

I haven't used NFC. In fact I returned the TecTiles. I realized they were more than I need.
I could see programming 1 or 2 but 5- no need for that many.

Haven't been able to use S-Beam; no one else has a Note II or SIII to beam anything to.
Everybody around me either has the SII or some no named phone I've never heard of.

I think I need to find me some technically advanced friends.....

 

[chasers]

You're good- I was about to ask where the poll was but something said "refresh" before replying. LOL!

I haven't used NFC. In fact I returned the TecTiles. I realized they were more than I need.
I could see programming 1 or 2 but 5- no need for that many.

Haven't been able to use S-Beam; no one else has a Note II or SIII to beam anything to.
Everybody around me either has the SII or some no named phone I've never heard of.

I think I need to find me some technically advanced friends.....

The S Beam on the S2 works on my mom t mobile phone. She had to use kies to update software though. The setting is there for NFC and S Beam

 

[drexappeal]

Just tried it again with my cousin's s3. Still doesn't work properly, way overrated.

 

[Veritas4420]

Just transfered christmas photos from my N2 to my cousin's S3. Photos were really quick and a short video I took trabsfered in about 25 seconds.

 

[chasers]

Just tried it again with my cousin's s3. Still doesn't work properly, way overrated.

Actually it took some time to line up the chip on the note 2 and the S3 because of the size difference. We thought it was cases that prolonged the transfers

 

[suprmallet]

I use NFC tags (not TecTiles, those seem like a rip off) at home, work, and in the car. Very nice and easy to use.

 

[drexappeal]

Actually it took some time to line up the chip on the note 2 and the S3 because of the size difference. We thought it was cases that prolonged the transfers

Yeah, it was the same thing for me. After multiple attempts just trying to get that ish to work right, I finally gave up and just set up a dropbox link. SO much faster and easier.

There hasn't been a single instance in my using NFC transfer where I've felt there wasn't a faster way to transfer/share files.

 

[ren857]

Both my husband and I have Note 2s.

SBeam works like a champ for sharing pics and videos (and that's with the Otterbox Defender case)! It's quick and easy! Love it!

 

[badankles]

Wait, what? Wireless charging? Even if it's slow, it might be worth it for overnight charging. I have not had a device with NFC so have not used it. There are too many cool things with this Note 2 right now to keep me occupied until NFC is better.

 

[Bodestone]

I know a few people have mentioned it but there seems to be some confusion still.

NFC is short range and very slow. It is for exchange of tiny amounts of data.
As mentioned, for the file transfer NFC is only used to establish connection credentials. The transfer is done via wi-fi.

Wireless charging is totally separate from NFC or wi-fi. The connectors are present in both the S3 and Note 2 but no wireless charging coils have yet been released.

I bought a bunch of programmable NFC tags - NTAG203 (137 bytes usable memory) from RapidNFC.

I have one by the bedside that puts the phone into flight mode to save battery and being woken up. Tasker takes it out of phone mode when I next unlock the screen.

I have one on my monitor at work that switches on wi-fi if off, and turns off bluetooth if on.

I've been playing with another which just contains a URL to an online business card.

I was disappointed that I could not get a full vCard on this (the most commonly supported and reliable NFC chip). When I bought them I knew little about NFC and the usable size was not advertised as clearly. There are ones with more storage but they are not 100% supported.

 

[badankles]

...Wireless charging is totally separate from NFC or wi-fi. The connectors are present in both the S3 and Note 2 but no wireless charging coils have yet been released. ...

The connectors you mentioned, are they part of the device separate from the NFC part and also not part of the battery?