Hi,

I used to own the Note 2, which was one of my favourite ever phones. I currently have the HTC One M8, which I like a lot less and has been very buggy, so i'm thinking of upgrading. I know that the Note 5 hasn't been released in the UK but I see that it's available to buy at a reasonable cost.

So, my questions are:

1. Will the Note 5 work on the 3 network in the UK?

2. Does anyone have an opinion on whether it's worthwhile to buy this over the S6 (or potentially Nexus 6P).

Thanks

Whatever deal you get I would have thought the Nexus 6p could be found a lot cheaper. Hopefully others will know a lot more than I do about the day-to day gissues, but the first thing I would notice is the OS related issue.

Samsung use Touchwiz and put bloatware on which has a reputation of getting very laggy over time. It's supposed to have improved in the Note 5 though.

Samsung only release updates for their handsets for a limited time - in years to come you might find it frustrating to be stuck on 9.0 Lemon Drizzle Cake or whatnot for ever which wipes out your GPS signal, while others are enjoying the delights of 10.0 Apple Crumble.

On the other hand all Nexus devices have minty fresh stock android with no crapware running when you boot up. Having used a Fonepad I much prefer it. As far as I know even the lowliest nexus device gets updates indefinitely.

Of course the Note has the S-pen if that's important to you.

Thanks for your thoughts.

The only reason i'm thinking of going for the Note 5 is because i've been really disappointed with the HTC One M8 and wanted to go back to a Samsung phone. I read numerous reviews about the One M8 before buying it and the Tech Radar website announced it the best Android phone at the time, however it has been a let down in almost every regard. Have sent it back for repair 3 times and HTC customer service is awful.

My first every Android was a Nexus though and that was fine (until it broke after 18 months) so i'll consider it.

You will want the N920C which covers all of the bands in Europe

Ive had one in the past and worked well with Three, although you will not get VoLTE as the phone needs Three software on (ot until theyopen it for Non Three branded handsets)

It is a great phone, i preferred it over the S6 due to bigger screen size and S-Pen

With Samsungs TouchWiz you can always change the launcher to something like Nova (really easy to do and available from the Play store).

Also with the updates I'm not too bothered if I don't get the latest update within 4/5months and also not bothered if it does not get updated at-all after 2+ years as by then I'm usually looking round for another phone.

For the price point though I would probably be looking at the Nexus (probably one of the Huawei phones like the Mate 7 for myself though if I could deal with the size of the Note etc for personal use here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/MT7-L09-MOON...ds=huawei+mate .

and here:

http://consumer.huawei.com/minisite/.../Ascend-Mate7/ )

Have been reading some of the reviews and there are people impressed by it even after having a Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus.

Is the Mate 7 not just an inferior version of the 6p?

The Mate 7 and 6P are very different phones. The Mate 7 is indeed inferior but it is a cheaper mid range phone. The Mate S is more of a 6P relation.

I just ordered the Nexus 6P

I get like that with phones: i'm a fairly frugal person so it's usually my single biggest purchase in any one year. But once I get it in my head that I want a new one I just have to get it over with and buy one

Already feel relieved that this time tomorrow I don't have to worry about my One M8 anymore.

nice one mate

6p is a great phone

"9.0 Lemon Drizzle Cake"
"10.0 Apple Crumble"



On a serious note5 (pun intended!) If you get the right version, then yes it will work on Three UK and other providers -HOWEVER!!! it won't currently work on Three UK's super duper pumped 800mz service as currently that only works on (SOME - read a few) Three branded phones. And as it's not available here (yet?) Three are not selling a version of it and so you won't be able to get hold of a copy of the Three ROM to flash to your phone as it doesn't exist. (yet)

I know this is a fun subject for DS mobile enthusiasts, but I haven't seen the point of these super speed services yet. I can't be bothered paying out for unlimited data on my contract so I don't use many services that require a high speed when i'm not on wifi.

Yeah or the N920CD which is the dual sim variant

Sorry I thought it was a very good phone and on par with some of the top end phones (especially for the price).

I did not realise there was a Mate S as well.

It's not so much the high speed, it's the fact that the "super duper rumpy pumpy" service includes VoLTE, voice over LTE is going to be the next big thing, buying an expensive phone now that isn't compatible seems like a mistake to me.

Three NEEDS 800Mhz and VoLTE, more than any other network does.

Am just setting up the new phone now:

I forgot for the first couple of minutes to check that the phone was using wifi rather than the mobile network for the updates - managed to do about 200mb of data in that time! Fortunately I haven't used too much this cycle.

Still it's a much nicer process than the old days when you had to manually input all your phone numbers back in

p.s. Does anyone know of a way to automatically transfer content from the One M8 to the 6P? I know that you can download a transfer tool to do it the otherway round, and I use the HTC back up tool.

Thanks

Good choice mate.

What's your first impressions? Nice screens apparently? Also is it a lot nicer and smoother seeing as its stock Android with no bloatware installed, compared to your M8 and note?

So far so good. Everything is working pretty quickly. I really should have waited till I got back from work to do the set up though as I was messing about trying to get on the office wifi and missed that i could easily transfer content from one phone to the other. Should get there eventually.

Samsung has reduced bloatware drastically, so to keep using the bloatware thing as an argument against Samsung means you haven't used an actual recent Samsung phone .

I have an S6 and there wasn't much to uninstall, whilst my Sony M4 Aqua, with only 8GB of storage, was packed with bloatware.