Samsung stole the show at the IFA Consumer Electronics expo in Berlin last week with a new 7.7 inch Galaxy Tab (which was consequently pulled) and the quite fantastic-looking Galaxy Note large smartphone/mini tablet.
With a 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED Plus screen, Android 2.3, an 8-megapixel camera with Full HD video recording and a Dual-Core 1.4GHz processor, we had a feeling the Galaxy Note might be fairly pricey, but likely about the same as the Galaxy S II.
Unfortunately we were slightly out with our estimations, as UK retailer Clove Technology has revealed the price of the Galaxy Note to be £600 including VAT. The Galaxy S II, a fully fledged smartphone, costs around £499 for the 16GB model, so the Note is a fair wedge more.
The Galaxy Note features 16GB of storage built-in plus a specially designed stylus called the ‘S Pen’, which allows you to draw and make annotations on screen within certain apps that Samsung have loaded specifically.
At 5.3-inches in size, the Galaxy Note fills a gap between the 4.3-inch screen of the Galaxy S II smartphone and the 7.7-inch screen of the new Galaxy Tab 7.7 by Samsung. With the largest smartphone screens being around 4.7-inches nowadays, we’re not sure if the 5.3-inch screen of the Galaxy Note causes it to fall into the ‘smartphone’ or the ‘tablet’ category.
High price aside, we still think that the Galaxy Note is fantastic device and one that differs from other products available. We’d like Samsung to clarify if it’s a smartphone, tablet or MP4 player, though, as the facility to use a 3G SIM card in it makes us think it could be a smartphone.
What do you think of the Samsung Galaxy Note? Large smartphone or Tablet? Let us know.