A couple of weeks ago, I gathered up some information (how long I’ve been with Verizon Wireless, how much I spend per month, how I always pay my bill on time, and what other carriers are offering) and made a call to customer service.

“My current phone is DYING,” I pleaded. “I’ve taken it to the Verizon Store several times, and even performed two hard resets in the past month. I still need to restart it at least once a day to keep it running. I know I’m a few months away from my upgrade eligibility date, but is there any way you can move up that date for me?”

After some more begging (“My phone can’t even handle Candy Crush!”) and ass-kissing (“Verizon has the best network in the nation!”) and even a veiled threat (“So…how much will it be if I were to cancel my contract right now and switch to a different provider?”), a manager came on the line and voilà! I was granted an early upgrade!

(When I bragged to J about getting an early upgrade, he pouted, “What about me?” when he already has a kickass phone — an unlocked Galaxy Nexus — that is less than a year old. Still…CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 😎 After an hour on the phone with T-Mobile, I was able to get him an unlocked Nexus 4 for $50. BOOYAH!)

I had been eyeing the original Samsung Galaxy Note ever since it was released in early 2012 because I hate most soft keyboards. These days, physical keyboards only seem to accompany crappy phones; I figured a stylus would be a nice compromise. The HUGE size was attractive to my fat clumsy fingers as well.

(I’ve been noticing that the older I got, the larger I preferred my gadgets. 🙂 Has this happened to anyone else?)

So when Samsung announced the Galaxy Note II. AND that it would be available on Verizon…

It’s probably obvious by now which phone I ended up getting. (Also, the title of this post. Duh.) 

Oh, Galaxy Note II, shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and blah blah blah…

Who cares how the sonnet ends, because I FRICKIN LOVE THIS PHONE!!!

I will not be going on the specs nor analyzing the phone’s performance here. I trust that anyone with access to Google can easily obtain that information.

What I will be doing is to highlight my favorite features of the phone, talk about my favorite accessories, and address the biggest issue that concerns most consumers about the Note II.