Samsung Galaxy Note was one device that showed the balls of Samsung for venturing into new fields, amid criticism, oohs and aahs. It was the first 5 inch phone/tablet in the market. Samsung wanted to achieve the middle ground for those confused as to whether they really need a tablet or not. The Galaxy Note has marched on as a loner for some time, not long though, it already has two disciples from LG and Panasonic. I will take you through what I have found exciting and negative of the Galaxy Note after a month of playing with this big toy.
Quick walk-through of the phone specifications:
Samsung Galaxy Note is a 3G phone with region specific 4G capacity. It features a 5.3 inch , 800 x 1280pixels display with a superAMOLED capacitive touch screen, multi-touch and Corning Gorilla glass to protect all that juice from scratching. Comes bundled with Android 2.3.5 Android Gingerbread with an immediate notification to upgrade to 2.3.6 immediately you get it online. Stock Android is skinned with the trademark TouchWiz UI version 4.0, and the same skin will stick when the Note gets Android 4.0 Ice cream Sandwich which should not be far off. It weighs 178 grams and is amazingly slim at 9.7 mm(other dimensions are 146.9×83). Notable is the 1.4GHz ARM Cortex-A9 and Exynos Chipset. It has an accelerometer and Mali-400MP GPU. Storage is an option of 16/32GB internal with expantion capability of 32GB vis microSD, and a 1GB RAM. This is one of the fast devices with 21Mbps HSDPA, with some devices supporting LTE. Bluetooth is version 3.0, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi hotspotand USB on the go. The device has an 8mp rear camera with autofocus and LED flash, and a front 2mp camera. NFC support is also optional among devices, the trademark S-pen, supports Flash(there was a risk of missing out on flash for all ICS devices but surprisingly Adobe updated flash to support ICS). The Battery is a 2500mAh Li-ion which promises 960hrs standby on 2G and 820 on 3G, 26hours talktime on 2G, 13H on 3G.
Performance question;
Samsung Galaxy Note gives what it promises in the books and some. With the 5.3 inch screen you get awesomely clear images and visual. if you like reading, this is your device, get either your RSS readers, download the kindle app, load documents, pdfs, powerpoint presentations or excel sheets on the device and you can spend time staring at the screen. Add the multi-touch feature which gives touch focus and you have a winner. Galaxy Note has of late got apps specifically designed for it, the S-memo, How to draw, pimp your screen, crayon physics are among the apps that you would spend time on. You dont get this elsewhere. They give the Stylus(s-pen) meaning as you can achieve alot.
Browse through the Samsung Apps store and you will sure get a list of many more available exclusively for the Galaxy Note. Or just click on the S choice icon and it will do the filtering for you. Apps like Zen Brush, Comic book which allows you to design your own comics from scratch or from images in your device. Think about it, you can even sign a document directly in soft via the S-pen and email it to someone without breaking a sweat. get rid of printing, signing and scanning part for on-line signatures. You do it right there, and can undo if you feel your signature is not sexy enough. Photo editing got a new meaning with Galaxy Note, the S-pen gives you better editing capabilities, you get to write on the images, draw extra things on the images like adding moustaches on your female friends’ images. See below for images I added extras on. You can even do your own e-card and send it to friends. I would call this the graphic designer’s or graphic design wannabe device. The things you can do on it are unlimitless.
The battery says its a 2500mAh, well this does not mean ultimate battery life as most of this capacity is consumed by the extended screen real estate, but its a performer than many. I found it out-performing the Galaxy S II. The Galaxy Note camera delivers just like the Galaxy S II in my opinion, images are by default outputted on 3264×2448 resolution, with amazing shots, this you can edit downwards if you are not keen on large images, also would save you much needed space.
The calendar on the Galaxy Note is called the S planner, this looks more snazzy than your usual Google calendar, the themes and the press and hold feature to reveal a drawing pad where you can write notes draw the cartoon of the guy who will be presenting during a future event, nice reminder there, right?
The bad:
Samsung Galaxy Note gets dismissed for that one feature that makes it unique. The 5.3 inch screen. Holding this device feels awkward especially if you are typing and feels large and un-manouverable to some extent. This also makes it so visible when dialling on it, it feels like you are holding a thin hard-cover to your ear. For the moments I have had it, many friends criticized this feature saying its ridiculous, and they had their light moments over this.
Bottom line:
I would buy this device over and over again. The fact that it gives me the ability to read when I am idle is a winner right there. The screen size makes reading awesome. I read a lot by the way. Okay I read a lot of blogs. Compensates for the fact that you would spend money buying a smartphone, a tablet and most probably a kindle. You have all this together. Oh! And I forgot the role of the notebook. You can scribble quick notes on the device while on the go, draw some quick images, animations or charts when having a discussion or presentation. In fact I remember during the launch of this device at the Sankara hotel, they didn’t use a laptop to do presentations, they were handled wirelessly from the Note.
Once you get used to the Galaxy Note you wonder how you actually used the other devices, they all look tiny and insufficient. The guys with big thumbs will love this definately. See below, the first two images, an idea of how creative you can get with the Note.
