The Samsung Galaxy Note is either an enormous smartphone or a tiny tablet, depending on how you look at it and how large your hands are. Either way, it goes on sale Thursday, November 3rd in the UK. The launch was originally set for November 17th, but Samsung recently pushed up the date by a few weeks.
The device features a 5.3 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display, a 1.4 GHz dual core processor, and Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system with Samsung TouchWiz customizations.
Like most top-tier Android phones and tablets, the Galaxy Note has a capacitive touchscreen for finger-friendly input. But it also comes with a stylus for writing or drawing on the screen. It also features Samsung’s new S Pen software framework for interacting with Android using a stylus.
Google has announced that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will add stylus support, but earlier versions of the operating system are really designed for fingers rather than pens.
Early product listings for the Galaxy Note show that it will around £600 in the UK. That’s well over $900 US, but that price includes the Value Added Tax and gets you an unlocked, contract-free device. It’s likely that the price tag will be much lower if and when the Galaxy Note goes on sale in the US — at least until you factor in the cost of a 2-year service contract.
Pen input has been way under rated the last few years. You can write much easier than type on these things. We have the software to convert to text why not use it. The idea of a phone tablet is great. One device many functions. Love my old pda Pocket PC phone with pen input and drawing options. It is all there in a small package when on the go. If it comes in at around 600-500 Im sold and will not buy that 7″ tablet for road work.
Less than a 1/2″ wider and just over around an 1″ taller than iPhone 4s. Is that really so much harder to handle? I don’t think so. That whacky aspect ratio on iPhones compared to 16:9 on Android phones is the killer. Plus Note has much less bezel and area around the phone’s screen. I’ll take more screen real estate over any phone with a screen of less 4″ any day! …..so yeah I’d love to have one of these phones!
I actually really like the size of these. I’ve yet to actually hold one, but judging from some of the pictures I’ve seen with the thing being demo-ed in people’s hands, I’m feeling the 5 – 6 inch screen is sorta a “sweet-spot” for a tablet-smartphone-crossover. Portable enough if your okay with a larger phone, yet not too small and should be more comfortable doing stuff like browsing. Obviously, it’s just my assumption as of right now, since I’ve yet to actually handle the device.
Not really a fan of Samsung products, though.