- Oct 25, 2012
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I have owned the International version of the Note II for a few weeks now. I just read Anandtech's review and as usual was of extremely high quality. But there was one thing that jumped off the page as very wrong based on my experience, and it's the measured brightness of the Note II.
The Anandtech review measured the Note II's brightness at only 244 nits. This measurement is even lower than the Galaxy S3's measurement of 277 nits.
GSM arena measured the Note II's brightness at 478 nits...
244 vs 478 nits is a highly significant difference.
As someone who owns both the Note II and Galaxy S3 ( International versions of both ), this lept off the screen to me as my Note II is very noticeably brighter and whiter than my S3. But according to anandtech measurements the opposite should be true.
I believe I may know the problem and here are the options as I see them...
1. Anandtech received a faulty Note II
2. On the Galaxy S3, there is a brightness slider and a box that you can tick for "Auto" brightness. When you tick the auto box on the S3 the brightness slider disappears. However on the Note II the brightness slider will not disappear. This is because this new feature is allowing you to fine tune the the auto brightness.
What I'm saying is that if the auto brightness is on, even if you have the brightness slid all the way to max, you still won't be getting anywhere near maximum brightness. Turning auto brightness off will result in a noticeably brighter display. This is fairly obvious however and I don't believe the reviewer made this mistake.
There is one more setting though in the Note II that can DRAMATICALLY affect brightness and it's not obvious, which brings me to #3...
3. The "Auto adjust screen tone" function.
Go to Settings -> Display -> and then scroll all the way to the bottom and it looks like this...
This feature is turned on or off by default depending on the firmware your Note II has. It is critical that this feature be turned OFF before making any brightness measurements.
For maximum brightness this feature should be turned OFF and this feature deserves a bit of an explanation. Turning this feature on and off in the menu and you probably won't notice any difference as the menus are mostly black.
However in a fully white screen ( as is how nits are measured )...
...the difference in both brightness and whiteness is DRAMATIC. This isn't something that you'll have to compare and say "well maybe I can see a bit of a difference, I guess" - No. The difference is immediately noticeable.
When this feature is turned on, whites will appear dull and somewhat cream colored. When this feature is turned off whites will be MUCH whiter and brighter. I would say 80-100% brighter. ( Yes, that much )
I tried taking screen grabs to show you the difference but it doesn't show up that way. I also tried taking pictures but my camera auto adjusts to the brightness and it doesn't show up there either.
If you have a Note II try turning OFF the "auto adjust screen tone" and you should notice a significant increase in the brightness of whites ( such as the Google search page ) or any other website which has a lot of white.
There is of course one more option...
4. The T-Mobile variant of the Galaxy Note II really is only 50-60% as bright as the International version.
Thank you for your time.
The Anandtech review measured the Note II's brightness at only 244 nits. This measurement is even lower than the Galaxy S3's measurement of 277 nits.
GSM arena measured the Note II's brightness at 478 nits...
244 vs 478 nits is a highly significant difference.
As someone who owns both the Note II and Galaxy S3 ( International versions of both ), this lept off the screen to me as my Note II is very noticeably brighter and whiter than my S3. But according to anandtech measurements the opposite should be true.
I believe I may know the problem and here are the options as I see them...
1. Anandtech received a faulty Note II
2. On the Galaxy S3, there is a brightness slider and a box that you can tick for "Auto" brightness. When you tick the auto box on the S3 the brightness slider disappears. However on the Note II the brightness slider will not disappear. This is because this new feature is allowing you to fine tune the the auto brightness.
What I'm saying is that if the auto brightness is on, even if you have the brightness slid all the way to max, you still won't be getting anywhere near maximum brightness. Turning auto brightness off will result in a noticeably brighter display. This is fairly obvious however and I don't believe the reviewer made this mistake.
There is one more setting though in the Note II that can DRAMATICALLY affect brightness and it's not obvious, which brings me to #3...
3. The "Auto adjust screen tone" function.
Go to Settings -> Display -> and then scroll all the way to the bottom and it looks like this...
This feature is turned on or off by default depending on the firmware your Note II has. It is critical that this feature be turned OFF before making any brightness measurements.
For maximum brightness this feature should be turned OFF and this feature deserves a bit of an explanation. Turning this feature on and off in the menu and you probably won't notice any difference as the menus are mostly black.
However in a fully white screen ( as is how nits are measured )...
...the difference in both brightness and whiteness is DRAMATIC. This isn't something that you'll have to compare and say "well maybe I can see a bit of a difference, I guess" - No. The difference is immediately noticeable.
When this feature is turned on, whites will appear dull and somewhat cream colored. When this feature is turned off whites will be MUCH whiter and brighter. I would say 80-100% brighter. ( Yes, that much )
I tried taking screen grabs to show you the difference but it doesn't show up that way. I also tried taking pictures but my camera auto adjusts to the brightness and it doesn't show up there either.
If you have a Note II try turning OFF the "auto adjust screen tone" and you should notice a significant increase in the brightness of whites ( such as the Google search page ) or any other website which has a lot of white.
There is of course one more option...
4. The T-Mobile variant of the Galaxy Note II really is only 50-60% as bright as the International version.
Thank you for your time.