Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 review: A giant smartphone that will not fit in your pants

New Delhi: The Samsung Galaxy Mega surprisingly bills itself as a smartphone, despite its 6.3-inch screen. The size and price point of the device suggest it is good for those who want a large smartphone that can also satisfy a tabletlike viewing experience. One can easily makeout from the specifications that it is a somewhat larger Galaxy S 4 with a less capable chipset, less storage, and a much larger but lower-res display.Let us do a detailed review to find out what it has to offer to consumers:HardwareThe New Galaxy 6.3 measures 167.6 x 88 x 8 mm (6.60 x 3.46 x 0.31 inches) and weighs an outlandish 7.02 ounces (199g); it's much wider and taller than the Galaxy Note 2. Due to its large size, many would find it somewhat uncomfortable to hold it near the ear for a longer duration. If you have small fingers, you'll find yourself constantly cradling the Mega with both hands so that it doesn't slip out. However, it is its large size that makes it good for reading, browsing or other similar activities.Just like the Note II and the Note, the Mega is built from solid but slippery plastic. The handsome and removable Nova Black rear panel consists of an intricate pattern of black and silver dots. The sides of the Mega are wraped in a thick silver strip. Just like other Galaxy smartphones, there are power button and volume rocker at the right and left of the phone. In addition, 3.5mm headphone jack, IR blaster and noise-canceling mic can be found at the top of the device. The microUSB port sits at the bottom. While it is fairly easy to reach the left and right-end buttons, it is nearly impossible to reach the home, menu and back buttons below the screen.On the back there is an 8-MP rear camera located at top of the panel above the LED flash, and tiny twin speakers which are located along the lower left corner. Up front, the 6.3-inch display dominates the design. DisplayThe Galaxy Mega 6.3 has just 720 x 1280 pixels spread across 6.3-inches of display – that's 233 pixels per inch. The Mega has an HD PLS TFT display – which isn't the Super AMOLED that the Galaxy S 4 has, but it isn't half bad either. The Mega's 6.3-inch LCD display is quite decent for watching movies, reading websites (articles) and TV shows. If you are used to the Samsung Galaxy S 4′s display, then you may find the lack of sharpness in the Galaxy Mega 6.3.Measuring 427 lux, the Galaxy Mega is plenty bright, easily topping the 390 lux smartphone average. This display is brighter than the GS4 (424 lux), but fell a little short of the HTC One (433 lux) and the Moto X (458 lux).SoftwareLike its Galaxy brethren, the Mega runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Samsung's newest custom Touch Wiz layer on top. With this you get Android's multiple home screens, and an expanded quick settings menu when you pull down the notifications tray. Samsung's customized interface offers additional features like S Beam, Samsung's take on NFC sharing, and lots of tools to share data with other devices like your TV, laptop, and tablet.The basic interface of Mega is same as the Galaxy S4. There are up to seven home screens for widgets and app shortcuts, toggles for commonly used features in the notifications panel, including a brightness slider, and the ability to hide apps in the app drawer or choose to display them in a grid or list format.The Mega lets you open two apps on the screen simultaneously. It only works with a selected range of apps but the likes of Google Chrome, Facebook, Gmail and Twitter are compatible. Given the huge screen size, you will also like the "one-handed operation" features, which position the dialer, the calculator and the unlock pattern towards the left or right of the screen.The Mega's software allows you to personalize the lock screen and its short cuts, wallpaper, even LED indicator lights. There's also a call-blocking mode that can turn off a range of notifications and ignore most contacts for certain stretches of time. You'll also find Smart Stay, which uses the phone's front facing camera to determine when you are looking at the screen, refusing to timeout in that case, and Air View, which allows you to hover over the screen with your finger to display extra information.The Galaxy Mega 6.3 doesn't come with the S4's other software features like Smart Rotation, Smart Pause and Smart Scroll.There's also an S Translator app that can translate nine different languages using both text to speech and speech to text, and 'Group Play', which can send music photos and documents to multiple devices.Camera Camera performance of the Mega's 8-megapixel rear sensor and 1.9-megapixel front-facing sensor is acceptable. Photos captured in the daylight are much more detailed with colors mostly accurate. However, there was some slight oversaturation. You may also find less clarity in pictures taken indoor, but the Mega's camera is a solid performer given its price.For video, the phablet's 1080p HD clips (shot at a 30fps frame rate) are smooth, focused, and captured color well. Samsung also packs the phone with settings for low-light situations and making Cinemagram-style animated images. Call qualityOverall, the call quality of Mega is good on land lines and cell phones, though clarity can and will vary from phone to phone. The receiving voice will certainly sounds better with Samsung's default noise cancellation turned on. Speakerphone also put in a strong performance on both sides of the call.PerformanceDespite the fact that the Mega 6.3 is running what many would assume "mid-range" specifications, it doesn't feel like a mid-range device. With its 1.7GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 16GB of built-in storage, 1.5GB of RAM, you can do just about anything you want to do. On the Quadrant benchmark, the Mega scored 8,203, easily topping the 5,607 smartphone average. The Samsung Galaxy Note II and its 1.6-GHz quad-core Exynos CPU managed a score of 6,036 while the Moto X's 1.7-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU achieved 8,864. For graphics performance, the Mega scored 5,300 on 3DMark, far below the 8,502 average.Its scores in synthetic benchmarks weren't groundbreaking but were mediocre, at best. It tied the Galaxy Note II in many benchmarks, but was blown away by devices carrying Snapdragon 600 chips in practically every category.The Mega is fairly smooth and quick for day to day use, switching between apps, and returning home. But certain elements of TouchWiz manage to bog the Snapdragon 400 down quite often, like scrolling through pages in the app drawer or switching to the Widgets tab.Battery LifeThe Mega has 3,200mAh battery – only 100mAh more that the Galaxy Note II. On most days, you'd be able to hold a charge until the late evening with light usage. For heavy usage – emailing, watching videos, downloading applications, playing games, etc. – the phone still perform well. But keeping the display on for extended periods of time will seriously impact the battery. Availability and pricingSamsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 is available on Flipkart for Rs. 29954.The VerdictPros+ Giant display for media consumption+ Decent battery life+ Latest version of Android and TouchWiz+ Expandable storage and removable battery+ Great call quality and moderate data speedsCons- Phone is too large to be used by single hand- It yearns to have its own S Pen- Missing many of the Galaxy S 4′s features- The camera has issues with auto-focus and auto-exposure- Sub-par display qualityShould you buy it?A smartphone as large as the Mega isn't intended for everyone. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 is certainly not the go-to device for the general consumer. It is certainly good for those who are looking to combine the size of a tablet with the functionality of a phone. As a multimedia device, the Mega is great for watching video and playing games. The 8-MP camera is also decent for picture taking, and the Mega delivers loud audio. Mega's lower-resolution screen and slightly slower processor, are some of the losing points, but the latest Android version, the 8-megapixel camera, and Samsung's software extras, makes things equal. If you're aching to get you hands on a big phone, then you can go for the Galaxy Note II, which is plenty big and actually is a good phone. But if budget is your issue, then you can stick with the Mega for your phablet needs.