Last night I spent some time using the Note 3. Luckily, one of my neighbours picked one up and knew I would be interested in having a play.

First up this is Samsung’s best phone regardless of size. It is well designed and full of kitchen sink tech. You can read all the spec goodness on Samsung’s own website.

Picking the phone up it looked gorgeous. Black is much better than white. The rear fake black leather cover looks more realistic. The Note 3 looks slim and professional. Turning on the screen powers on and it is a total wow moment. It really has a phenomenal real estate. Using the new s-pen was excellent. Very responsive and was recognising my dodgy handwriting with ease. I tried all the various s-pen tricks and they all worked as advertised. I messed around with the camera and I must say Samsung really have a great camera app.

Available internal storage was 25.62gb. That’s a decent amount for apps and games with media going on a micro sd card.

Having had the Note 2, the Note 3 felt different and far more polished. However, the Note 3 is not a one handed device. You can either cope with its large screen and dimensions or you can’t.

In my mind if you want a top flight phone it is a decisions between the iPhone 5S and Note 3 depending on your preference to screen size and one handed use.

So one question you may be thinking. Does a 3gb ram phone have lag? At the moment it does at times. I would imagine software updates will improve this situation.

Would I want one. Actually not at the moment since using iOS 7 provides a much better feeling and function on the new iPhones.

Clove Technology (www.clove.co.uk) started dispatching stock to its customers. It noticed the following sticker on the box.

In a nutshell, the Note 3 European SIM model, SM-N9005 has restricted functionality limitations regarding SIM cards on the Note 3.

As a consequence, this is the advisory message from Clove Technology.

“If you travel internationally (outside Europe) and usually insert a local SIM card when in those countries, the Note 3 will NOT be able to use the local network. It will lose all mobile connectivity with the exception of emergency calls.

For example, if you travel to the USA and insert a SIM card issued in the USA, you will not be able to use the Note 3 for any voice calls, text messages and mobile data connection. It will work via a WiFi connectivity only.

We are accepting and shipping all orders from Europe, with the exception of those countries mentioned.

As a result any orders received outside of Europe will not be shipped”

Just why Samsung has done this is unknown at present.

The same applies to phones sold in other regions. It only works with sims sold in that region. The Note 3 is a business phone and I cannot believe Samsung have been so underhand imposing this restriction without pre warning its commercial customers and its end users.

After the S4 internal memory saga, you would have thought Samsung would have learnt about being open with information that impacts its devices. Clearly not.