Many people will understandably be hesitant to purchase the Galaxy Note 2 due to its larger size. Considering this, Simon from best-mobile-contracts.co.uk highlights the five top reasons you should consider buying the Galaxy Note 2.

Large Screen

The larger size of the Note 2 is actually its greatest strength. Admittedly, large phone screens are not to everybody’s taste, but they are growing in popularity as consumers become more familiar with them. For a device like the Note 2 a large screen is essential, as it provides greater room for writing, drawing and all the other tasks that the Note 2 excels at.

S Pen Stylus

When Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone in 2007 he boasted about how it did not need a stylus, and the feature became unfashionable for touchscreen phones for many years after. The Note 2 is set the change all that. The S Pen is ergonomic and feels like using a real pen, and like the latter is ideal for writing and drawing – two things the Note 2 is particularly well suited for.

Custom Apps

There are many apps for taking notes and drawing included with the Note 2; handy features that you won’t find on other devices, such as the ability to copy irregular shaped screenshots. On top of this, many apps in Google Play have been specifically designed for Samsung’s phablet and its S Pen. You could try using them on another Android phone, but it just wouldn’t be the same.

LTE Downloads

Although the Galaxy Note 2 was originally released in the UK without LTE support, a new LTE enabled version will make the Galaxy Note 2 one of the first handsets available in the UK with 4G. A new 4G network called EE will be operational by the end of this month, and at present the Note 2 is one of the small selection of devices that will be available.

Fast Interface

The Note 2 will not only offer some of the fastest download speeds of any phone in the UK but it is also one of the fastest phones, full stop. A quad core 1.6GHz processor and 2GB RAM provide the Note 2 with a level of power rarely found on a smartphone device. Irrespective of its other benefits, the Note 2 is simply the most seamless smartphone currently on sale.

During the Olympic Games, millions of people will be heading to London with their smartphones in hand ready to share photos and videos, as well as make calls and text. This will surely place strain upon the UK mobile networks, as well as transport operators and emergency services. It has been estimated by analysts that the Olympics this year will be very data heavy, with around 60GB data being used every second. If you think of that amount of data as 3,000 photographs you can imagine how much data will be being shared every minute!

To prepare for this, BT have been trying to look at ways to ready the networks to take their marks. For example, to meet high demand they have carried out some capacity planning work and built a capacity model for their core brand networks. BT has partnered with Telefonica in the UK inside the Olympic Park to create the network Joog (Joint Operators Olympic Group). As a test to see how much data capacity it can take, the Joog held a trial at Twickenham Stadium with a rugby crowd of around 80,000 people. BT has also been adding more wi-fi hotspots around London to help cope with the number of extra visitors to the city. It’s great to see how much effort is going into making sure customers are happy with the service they receive during this time, so hopefully it will be a golden experience for all smartphone users!

Apple have been rumoured to be releasing an iPad mini later in the year! However this new tablet comes with a twist – it’s rumoured to compete with the ever increasing budget tablet market. We are looking forward to seeing the grand launch event for this new tablet, as Apple are well known for their product launches. In line with the rumours about the new tablet competing in the budget tablet market, the iPad mini is suggested to compete with the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is popular in the USA.

If this new iPad mini is set to be low in cost, then how will it differ from Apple’s usual premium priced products? I’m sure it will still be of high quality, but perhaps the internal memory won’t be as large as previous iPads. As you can guess by the name of the new tablet, the iPad mini has a smaller display size than previous iPads, which means it will be more portable and you should be able to carry it around with you.

As we are very much in the rumours stage with the iPad mini, there is the chance it could never be developed. Steve Jobs once said in 2010 that tablets with small screens were not sufficient to create good apps for tablets. He also said that such tablets would be “dead on arrival”. As Jobs had such strong views on small tablets, there a possibility that the tablet could not be created. However this could also mean that in the post-Jobs era, Apple are trying new and different things.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the potential iPad mini …

It has been rumoured that Facebook will be releasing its own smartphone next year. There are some Apple software and hardware engineers who did some work on the iPhone that will be working with Facebook on this new device. This is exciting times for the social network, as they would be moving into the ever-changing mobile industry.

Facebook has been quite discreet about this new project by saying that “we’re working across the entire mobile industry, with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers and application developers”. This shows that the company are very keen to enter this industry, but at the same time they want to keep their plans a secret. Is this so that we will be wowed when the phone does come out?

Other aspects of the project have also been kept secret such as people who will be working on it, as even jobs for it are not being advertised on the site. Instead Facebook are going to specific people that they want to work with to ask them if they would like to be involved.

How successful will this Facebook phone be? Other big names such as HP and Dell have tried projects like this in the past and it hasn’t worked, so it will be a challenge for Facebook to overcome this and get successfully into the smartphone market.

Many people use Facebook on their smartphones on a regular basis, so I’m sure that a Facebook phone will prove to be popular by the many Facebook fans out there!

New to UK shores for the summer are Sony Mobiles’ series of flagship handsets for 2012. Though the Sony Xperia S was released in March, we’re yet to have the Sony Xperia P and U available in the UK. In terms of entertainment, what features can we expect across the three handsets.

Google Play

All three devices are available on Android. Though the Xperia S came pre-loaded with Android Gingerbread OS, Sony is currently in the process of rolling out the tasty Android Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade. The Xperia P and U are expected to arrive with Android ICS straight out the box. All this talk of Android means access to Google Play. Originally named the Android Market, Google Play currently has over 450,000 apps, 3 million books, thousands of movies and millions of songs. That should keep you busy!

Music and Video Unlimited

The Sony Xperia range goes one step further and offers an unlimited service to the Sony Entertainment Network. Sony state their handsets come with a 6 month free trial of Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited. This gives you access to a healthy 15 million audio tracks and 80,000 movies to gorge upon.

PlayStation Certified Gaming

Being Sony, the mobile manufacturers have a great collection of retro games in their back catalogue. The Sony Xperia S is the only handset that is PlayStation Certified, giving access to one of the greatest games console franchises of all time. With a surplus of PS1 games to choose from, you really get the opportunity to thrash out some top notch gaming against the muscle of the 1.5 GHz dual core processor of the Sony Xperia S.

The Sony Xperia P and U are expected to reach the UK this summer. Once confirmed you will be able to get your hands on them from One Stop Phone Shop. For the meantime, check out our Sony Xperia S deals.