Samsung’s Galaxy range of devices have over the last few years come in many shapes and sizes. Today we’re taking a look at the 6.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Mega.
Design
The 6.3-inch Galaxy Mega, while a beast in size, falls within the same ‘phablet’ bracket as the 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 3, but lacks the Note’s stylus support. Its 6.3-inch LCD screen gives it an overall size of 88mm wide by 167.6mm deep by 8mm thick and it weighs 199g. It’s not a device you’ll easily be able to slip into your pocket, unless your pockets are voluminous — the only pockets we found that could accommodate the Galaxy Mega are those of old school baggy jeans.
The front face of the Galaxy Mega shows a distinctive Samsung Galaxy taste with its front physical home button squeezed between a pair of touch-enabled buttons. Removing the thin backplate reveals the MicroSD (expandable to 64GB) and MicroSIM card slots layered above the other. While insertion of the MicroSIM will require pulling the battery to access the card slot, the MicroSD card slot is readily accessible for hot swapping your MicroSD card at any time.
The plastic build is not what you’d expect from a premium device brought to market by Samsung, but with the sheer size of the device it is undoubtedly one of the sacrificial omissions that Samsung needed to make to keep product costs low. The location of ports and buttons seems to be a “perfect” fit for a device of this size: Headset jack on the top, Power button on the right side edge and volume rocker on the left side edge, and MicroUSB port on the bottom.
Behind the screen, the rest of the internal specifications leave us a bit disappointed, because they aren’t as impressive at the first look. The 1.7GHz dual-core processor, 1.5GB RAM,1.9MP front and 8MP rear camera sensors are all drawn from lower priced, smaller Galaxy S4 Mini. We were able to get an average of 12-14 hours of moderate use with the included 3200 mAh battery, although we’ve heard of several users getting closer to 15-17 hours with their device.
Features
The Glaxy Mega comes with several standard features you’d expect from a mid to high-range smartphone, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, 4G (LTE) and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean to keep things running smoothly. Parallel to Android 4.2, the Galaxy Mega includes Samsung’s TouchWiz, which drops the user-available memory to just 11.5GB from the original 16GB included.
If this is your first waltz with Android, Samsung has included an ‘Easy mode’ that offers a less cluttered experience for newcomers to its smartphones, or just those who enjoy simplicity.
If you’re more keen to your full Android experience from Samsung, DLNA, screen mirroring and Samsung’s Wi-Fi-based Kies file exchange system are all present in the Galaxy Mega.
The Korean tech giant has given the Galaxy Mega just about every media element that you could possibly think of. A feature packed music player? Yes. A feature packed video player? Yes. An FM Radio? No, but this isn’t surprising as the Galaxy S4 omitted this feature too. The included music player comes with a built in equalizer, that will choose the right setting, whether it’s Bass Boost, Pop, Rock and the more interesting Tube amp effect and Virtual 7.1 ch. If you like to keep your audio listening experience simple, we recommend making the Auto mode within the music player your new best friend.
It is clear that the Galaxy Mega was designed to be a media consumption device with it’s massive screen, and I found myself enjoying Netflix more often on the Galaxy Mega instead of my beloved tablet.
The Samsung Galaxy Mega is available from several North American carriers, including Rogers, Telus, AT&T and Sprint.
