AP Reviews New Smartphones: Samsung Note and More New phones are continually coming out. Which should you buy? Here's a summary of The Associated Press' recent phone reviews, including Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 phone, which was announced Wednesday and is coming later this year. Samsung is giving its latest Galaxy Note smartphone a stylish makeover. The Note 3 has a soft, leather-like back. It feels like you're holding a fancy leather-bound journal. Grooves on the side of the big-screen phone make it easier to grip. But the new phone is complicated to use. There's too much going on. Between Scrapbook, My Magazine, Air Command and dozens of other functions, it might take even the most experienced smartphone user several hours to figure out. Once you get past that, though, you get new features such as the ability to quickly access the calculator, clock and other apps simply by drawing a box on the screen with the included stylus. The display measures 5.7 inches diagonally. That's larger than the Note 2, yet the new phone is lighter and thinner. Joseph Pisani, AP Business Writer You can read small print on websites without zooming in, and you make fewer mistakes when trying to click on buttons and links. That doesn't make the Mega practical, though, for many people. It's huge and difficult to grip tightly. It could appeal to those who are willing to carry along a tablet computer but don't want to carry a second device - the phone. For everyone else, small is the way to go. Anick Jesdanun, AP Technology Writer The S4 is an excellent device from a hardware standpoint. Its 5-inch screen is larger than its predecessor, yet it's a tad lighter and smaller. The display is sharp, at 441 pixels per inch. Samsung packed the Android device with a slew of custom features, including new camera tools and the ability to perform tasks by waving a finger over a sensor. Many of the features, however, make the phone more complicated to use. In some cases, custom features work only some of the time. In other cases, you're confronted with too many ways to do similar things. The S4 might be for you if you don't mind spending time customizing it. Otherwise, you must bypass all the gimmicks to get to what otherwise is a good phone.