Oh sh*t. Guess who got the Galaxy Note 7? It actually wasn’t Eduardo. It was me! Yes, your Starbucks loving, Ipsy subscribing, basic b*tch decided not to upgrade to the next iPhone. Please, contain your horror.
Eduardo has the Galaxy Note 4 and even though his phone is huge 😉 it’s fairly easy to use and it functions so much better than my iPhone 5c. I’ve had an iPhone for more then four years, and I’m pretty loyal to the iPhone sku. My entire family has iPhones, my siblings recently got the iPhone 6, my mom has a 6s, my dad is still on the 5 but he will be upgrading soon enough… We’re a pretty heavily involved iPhone family.
I did have some problems with my beloved iPhone 5c. The screen cracked after falling off the bed, by the end of my two years I had replaced the screen three times and it had a crack in it when I finally threw it out. My phone stopped connecting to wifi and bluetooth more then a year ago. Apple support offered little to no help, the phone is an older model, I didn’t have insurance, blah blah blah. The camera sucks, just in general. I also had the 8g model. iOS used more than 4g. I could only take a couple dozen pictures. I had zero options for installing apps. Also, I don’t have any other Apple products, so iCloud was a bust.
Despite its drawbacks, I personally like the fact that iPhones are intuitive, I didn’t have to download other things or change anxiety provoking settings, everything just worked. When I heard that the Note 7 would not be bigger than any of its predecessors I made the decision to switch from Apple to Android.
The Note 7 is a completely different phone experience when compared to the iPhone. iOS and Android run on two different wave lengths. Not all bad, and not all good. So, I’ll break it down in a really simple way, pros and cons.
The Good
Space: I have so much more space now and I honestly have no idea what I’m going to do with it.
Camera: The camera is absolutely stunning, and I’m a snapchat/instagram obsessed person.
Size: I thought I would be bothered by how large the phone is, but it’s actually really nice. I love that I can sit in bed and watch Youtube videos without having to drag out my laptop.
Wireless charging: When I bought my phone I purchased a product bundle from Verizon that included a Zagg screen protector, an Otterbox, a car charger, and the Samsung wireless charging dock. This is amazing. I set my phone on it before I go to bed and it props the phone up so the ‘always on’ display becomes my bedside table clock. The brightness has less effect on my sleeping than a traditional alarm clock. It’s amazing.
The Bad
Android: Messing with settings literally causes me anxiety, I never want to change factory settings, it annoys the sh*t out of Eduardo but I almost never remove things or change things that my technology comes with. Android was created so people could mess with their settings. User interface was not a key concern for whoever invented, and keeps developing, the Android operating system. (I work in tech, yes I understand Android is open source blah, blah, blah.) I hate that my keyboard is hard to use, however, it’s really hard for me to change it. I installed some platform launcher (what?) and some unread icon thing and it actually makes me really excited my unread ticker can match my background, not going to lie, but that’s already too much.
Speaker(s): The speaker on this phone really bothers me, it’s on the bottom right of the phone and I’m always having to move the phone because I’m blocking the speaker in one way or another.
The Ugly
Screen protector: Maybe it’s because the phone is new, maybe it’s because curved edges aren’t the norm yet, but my screen protector is a piece of sh*t. The edges are constantly curling up and I won’t notice and I’ll put my phone in my pocket… My screen looks like I laid the screen protector on Lucy before I put it on my phone.
Phone case: The screen protector curls up on the corners, so putting a case on the phone just makes this problem worse. The guy who sold me the phone argued that after 48 hours I would be set. Liar. At this point I have to choose between screen protector and case, because of the viral scratch test I’m going with screen protector.
HOWEVER
It’s been almost two weeks since I went out and purchased this phone. My first few days were difficult. After a week, I did decide that Android was not for me and I was going to pay the restocking fee and wait for the iPhone 7 to be released and switch back to iOS… I picked up my sister’s phone the other day and I was actually really surprised with how positively the shape of the Note 7 affects me. Both the front screen and back glass of the Note 7 are curved, I don’t know why but this makes a significant impact on my day to day phone use.
Plain and simple, I am keeping the Note 7 because of the curved screen. Yep, you read that right. I just wrote a full review of this phone only to tell you that my favorite feature is the curved screen.
Until next time. Xx.
P.S. They redid the scratch test, showing that the Note 7 is more scratch resistant than previously shown.
Team Santana 