The Galaxy Note 2 came out last week. I couldn't wait to upgrade from my Note 1. The phone costs around £520 sim free or on contract around £40-45 a month. The phone comes in two colours black and ceramic white. I chose the ceramic white version.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Galaxy Note it is a cross between a tablet and a phone or a phablet. The first thing you notice about the phone is the size of the screen, it dominates the handset. It's a massive 5.5 inches. The phone is very sleek and is similar in appearance to the Samsung Galaxy S3. The size of the screen means that the phone is fairly large. However it is still thin at 9.4mm and weighs in at a suprisingly light 198g. The ceramic white version is very smart looking it has a shiny white battery casing and the edges are silver. Like other Samsung phones the power button is to the right of the phone and the voluke buttons on the left hand side. The front of the phone has a home button and a back and menu button which illuminate when in use. The top of the phone has a headphone jack and finally at the bottom the micro usb port and the Samsung 'S Pen' which is stored inside the phone when not in use. Also inside the box you get headphones, a charger and a usb cable. The accessories are white to match the phone. The phone requires a new micro sim to operate.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 features an S Pen which is a pen that you can use to carry out tasks on the phone. The pen is ergonomically designed which makes it far better than the previous Note as it fits in your hand better. There is also a feature on the phone where when the S Pen is removed it launches the S Pen application. There is also a warning on the phone so if you leave the pen in another room the phone will notify you. The main feature of the S Pen is a notepad which you can write memos on using the stylus. You can choose various colours and types of pen as well as different backgrounds. These notes can then be forwarded to friends or family or saved. The pen is very receptive and the slightest touch with the pen on the screen is sufficient. The pen also allows you to hover over icons and it will give you information about the app without you actually pressing anything.

The Galaxy Note 2 is the most powerful phone on the market currently it features a quad core processor which makes it very fast compared to my previous phone which was dual core. The first thing I noticed when I turned on the screen was the vividness of the display the resolution is 1280 x 720 and like other Samsung phones has a super ameloid screen. The quality of the display is far superior to other phones I looked up in the shop. You also get an 8MP camera with a flash which takes great quality photos. I don't have a digital camera anymore as I find that the quality of the photos on most smartphones are so good it suits my needs. The phone runs on the latest version of Android which is 4.1 Jellybean. Like other Android phones you can download apps from the Google Play store and arrange the icons to suit you on the screen. As the Note has such a big screen you can put lots of icons on the one page. You can also choose widgets such as a month view calender or your email inbox.

I use my phone mainly for browsing online and texting. For using online this phone is excellent the size of the screen means it is easy to use full web pages on the phone. Also when the touch screen keyboard is active there is still enough space to view the webpage. The phone is also great for watching videos on and playing games. It isn't much smaller than a tablet so the quality of the video playback is excellent and my daughter loves watching the iPlayer when we are out and about. You may wonder about the battery life as the phone has so many functions well it comes wirth a 3100 Mha battery which lasts forever it seems. With previous phones I have owned the S2 and the original Note I found by the end of my work day after average use my phone was almost dead. The battery in this phone is a huge improvement. I can use the phone heavily throughout the day and still have 30-40% battery remaining at the end of the day. The phone phone also has a notification light at the top which I have found saves my battery life as I am not continually pressing the home button to check for emails and texts. The led will flash blue for emails and texts, red for low battery or when on charge and green when fully charged so at a glance you know if there are any texts. The phone comes with a 16gb built in memory which can be extended by using a micro sd card. I have found that even though I have 1000s of photos and quite a bit of music stored I still have lots of memory left.

The only negative thing I can say about the phone is that there are a lack of accesories currently but that will change once it's been out a while. Also for some people the size may be off putting. It is odd to use as a convention handset as it is a lot bigger. You can alter the set up of the keyboard to enable single hand use for left or right handed people.

All in all I would recommend this phone it is so fast the pages change so quickly. It is great for gaming and video playback. Also as I have said above the battery life is amazing. I love this phone. 5 stars from me.