The commercial slogan of this smartphone is "It’s Galaxy Noteâ€, before the slogan there is a question "Is it a phone?†or "Is it a tablet?†These questions appear since this device owns a supermassive screen size that is fairly not beautiful when it is functioned as a phone. There are some debates and considerations occur when Galaxy Note was launched, whether is it a gigantic phone or a mini PC tablet. On top of that, let us take a look at the detailed specifications of this device.
Three D’s (Design, Dimension and Display)
At the first glance, the overall design of Galaxy Note is typically similar with other Galaxy family but only with a larger screen. It is certainly not a pocket-friendly device since it measures 146.9 millimeters in height, 83 millimeters in width and 9.7 millimeters in depth. It is also larger, wider and heavier as compared to its older brother, Samsung Galaxy S2. The screen is remarkably huge as it measures 5.3 inches diagonally and it has been equipped with the latest technology of Super AMOLED display technology. The company claimed that this is the first device to have the HD Super AMOLED technology that will bring the immersive viewing experience thanks to the high-resolution screen (1280x800 pixels).
In terms of text input methods, there are two methods available namely through the on-screen QWERTY keyboard (portrait or landscape mode) and through the handwriting recognition that can be possible to perform by using the "S Penâ€. For those who do not recognized yet, S Pen has the similar look of an actual pen but it is the most advanced pen input technology that features the pressure sensitivity, preciseness, speed and many others. By using the S Pen, users are now able to easily draw or write notes with a great accuracy.
Performance and Power
What is the point of great design and display without the support of great performance? Fortunately, Galaxy Note has been loaded with the powerful dual-core processor (1.4GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, Mali-400MP GPU, Exynos chipset). The TouchWiz UI and the OS Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) are also added to bring about the great and eye-catching appearance. As the power supplier, the battery of 2500 mAh has been pre-loaded that should be able to provide 13 hours of talk-time and approximately 24 days of standby time.
Multimedia and Entertainment
For the photography needs, Galaxy Note boasts an advanced 8 megapixels camera with the maximum image resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. To obtain a great result, the camera has been added with the functionality of auto-focus, LED flash, check quality, geo-tagging, touch-focus, face and smile detection, and image stabilization. The camera can also be utilized as a video recorder to capture your great moments. It supports for HD video with the quality of 1080p at 30 frames per second. Additionally, there is a front-facing camera of 2 MP that can be used for video calling as well as video conferencing.
The video player is able to play many formats/codecs including MP4, DivX, XviD, WMV, H.264 and H.263. The audio player supports for MP3, WAV, eAAC+, AC3, and FLAC file formats. For business needs, the device has been packed with the Document editor that can handle Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files.
Connectivity
Relating to the connectivity, Galaxy Note is compatible with GPRS Class 12, EDGE Class 12, 3G (HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps). For wireless connection, it supports for Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, and Wi-Fi hotspot. For local connectivity, Bluetooth v3.0, USB v2.0 (microUSB), and USB On-the-Go are available.
Conclusion
The benefits of Galaxy Note are the large screen (though it is fairly inconvenient for making or receiving phone calls), excellent and rich multimedia features and the highly stable performance. The disadvantages of this device are probably the lacks of HDMI connector and it unfortunately owns the bulky size. [IS]
