Briefly played with the Note 3 demo unit at the Samsung Store today. It's about SG$10xx for the 32 GB model off-contract.
It's very very fast; even with the Samsung demo bloatware loaded and running, it's smooth and there is no lag. Once the S-bloat is disabled, it should be
even faster 
The screen is awesome. The 1920x1080 resolution matches the screen size very well: text, photos and graphics are super sharp and in 'Professional Photo' screen mode the colors look great (in default mode, it looks like oversaturated cartoonish crap). On the S4, the 1080p resolution was very good, but not a stark difference from the 720p S3 screen at first glance. The Note 3's screen is clearly sharper than the Note 2's even on first sight (I compared them side by side). 1080p videos look awesome on the large screen; there were some 1080p movie trailers and demo videos loaded on to the device and it was a joy to watch these on the sharp large screen
.
Before seeing the actual device, I thought I would hate the plastic fake leather back, but I was pleasantly surprised. Atleast on the black model, it looks decent enough and more importantly provides a good texture for better grip. The weight and shape of the device is properly balanced and one-handed use should not be an issue. I was a bit taken aback by how light the phone was. On the whole, the phone looks and feels perfectly fine to me. Disclaimer: I am not one who obsesses about lovingly stroking the 'premium feeling materials'
on my devices..as soon as I get a phone I put a $10 rubbery plastic cover and a good screen protector on it and that's that. It's the internals, screen, battery life, connectivity etc that are of importance to me. So take my opinon FWIW.
Lastly, the S-pen is much more responsive than on the Note 2. I spent a few minutes writing with it in the S-memo app (or it it called S-note? I forget. Anyway it's the default note taking Samsung app) and the whole experience was fluid and effortless. No lag at all. Same with drawing. I did not have time to try the handwriting recognition.
IMO, unless some hitherto unidentified issues crop up suddenly, the Note 3 takes the Android Superphone crown at the moment. It's that good. I have not been this impressed by a phone on a first brief encounter since the iphone 4. My recontract is long due for renewal, I am getting one without a doubt, as soon as the prices and supplies stabilize and the inevitable hardware bugs in the first batch are ironed out.
