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Let's lay this out from the start. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is a seriously fast Android device.
It comnes running on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, just as the original Samsung Galaxy Note is being bumped up to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The latest version, Android 4.2, is now out in the wild and we're sure it will be only a matter of time before it makes its way onto the Galaxy Note 2.
Of course, Jelly Bean has Project Butter, which really ramps up the speed of the operating system - and that sits on top of 2GB RAM and a quad-core 1.6GHz processor. It's almost enough to make our brains melt.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is practically powerful enough to start a nuclear war.
In fact, we could see Matthew Brodderick using one of these, if they ever remade War Games.
The first thing you'll see once you're signed in and set up is TouchWiz. That's Samsung's proprietary skin, which sits atop Android and has done for many iterations.
Some love it, some hate it, but it has come on in leaps and bounds over the last year or so.
Yes, it's a little colourful and cartoony in some places, but it's pretty functional.
And although you can replace it with third-party launchers, if you want to use the S-Pen for the majority of functions, you'll have to stick to it.
TouchWiz gives you seven home screens to whiz between (which you can do with no delay) but that's your lot.
Seven seems to be the magic number on most OEM launchers, and provides you with enough space for the most part.
They can be populated with widgets, as can all Android handsets.
Samsung provides several out of the box, and you'll delete some straight away.
Things such as S-Suggest, for example, didn't float our boat.
But it's all subjective, and you can remove, replace and add to your heart's content.
Some of those that ship with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 are Samsung's and some are Google's.
And some, such as Gmail preview and the music control, really do make life easier.
The Google Play Store is your friend here, and delving through it is always part of the fun.
Apps are accessed via the app drawer, which you find at the bottom-right of each screen, alongside four other customisable shortcuts.
They're displayed in a 5x5 grid format, due to the increased screen real estate, with a live image of your wallpaper beneath that looks great.
You can also preview widgets from a tab within this, rather than having to install each widget to see what it looks like, which is how things used to be done.
If you've ever used a Samsung Galaxy S3, you'll feel right at home here.
The S-Pen is different. We'll go into that more in our Maps, apps and S-Pen section later.
But just a quick mention as to how it's implemented in Android Jelly Bean: it's quite smart.
As soon as you pull it out of its slot, it semi-launches a special suite of apps for you to pick from.
We saw something similar on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.
The notification bar has been jazzed up a little too, and it's now more functional.
Being able to pinch to view new emails is one new addition.
Android Jelly Bean also gives you the fantastic Google Now. It's a great assistant app that learns from you as you use it.
The idea is that it accesses all parts of your life (let's say Shami Chakrabarti won't be a fan) but then helps you out.
So, for example, it tells you what the traffic is like when you're about to head to work, home or somewhere else.
It displays the information as 'cards' and even pops bits of important info (such as the weather) in your notification bar.
There are some flaws in it, too. For example, Google Search is excellent.
Ask it who the PM of Japan is and it will immediately answer you with a photo and his name and details about him spoken back to you.
Results come back within a millisecond, and really put Siri to shame.
Then again, Siri trumps Google Now when it comes to voice actions. Sending a text or an email via Google Now is possible, but it's not as intuitive, fun or easy as it is with Siri.
Nor is the banter and humour you get back anywhere near as good.
They both have their strengths and weakness here - but we'd say Google Now complements, rather than rules the platform, and falls below Siri in a lot of ways.
Which is the comparison many will instantly make.
