In terms of niche devices, the Samsung Galaxy Note is not actually the first smartphone slash tablet hybrid to make its way to the market. In fact, if my memory serves me right, it was the ill-fated Dell Streak 5 that has the distinction of being the first hybrid to hit the shelves several years back. Sad to say, the Dell hybrid wasn’t able to get much traction because of the lukewarm reception it got from our smartphone-crazed brethren. Critics lambasted it as having an identity crisis of not knowing whether it is an oversized smartphone or an undersized tablet.
Buy the Samsung Galaxy Note starting at $229.
The Samsung Galaxy Note however did not have such problems. In fact, the device has gotten so popular that word “phablet” – a combination of phone and tablet, has been coined to describe it. In addition to that, Samsung announced back in March that it was able to sell 2 million units of the phablet on a global scale thereby turning the phabet into the hugely popular niche device it is now. That may be the case but in as much as the Samsung Galaxy Note is very popular on a global scale, it is definitely more popular in the home turf of Samsung in South Korea.
This is because the Korean smartphone and tablet manufacturer has managed to sell 2 million units of the Samsung Galaxy Note in South Korea since it hit the shelves in October of last year. This means that in just five months, the number of Galaxy Note phablet sold in South Korea went from nil to 2 million, just like that. In fact, it looks like the delay of the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for the Samsung Galaxy Note did not deter users of the handset at all.
In US shores on the other hand, when the original version of the phablet was released last year, it was announced that there is that off chance that the Samsung Galaxy Note will not be released in our side of the world. It is actually a good thing that AT&T was able to work with Samsung to get the phablet released. Not only that, there are also rumors that the device is making its way to T-Mobile so our smartphone-crazed brethren will now have more choices in terms of wireless providers offering the Samsung Galaxy Note.
In terms of its specs sheet, the Samsung Galaxy Note comes with a QualComm MSM8660 SnapDragon chipset at the heart of its operation and the computing muscle it requires is provided by its dual-core 1.5 GHz Scorpion processor and 1GB of RAM. Its onboard storage is pegged at 16GB and this is still expandable to as much as 32GB should the need arise while its display, a massive 5.3-inch SuperAMOLED panel made from Gorilla Glass, has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. It also comes with a very capable camera department that includes an 8MP autofocus camera with LED flash capable of recording 1080p clips at its back panel while its front panel is home to the phablet’s 2MP webcam. Buy the Samsung Galaxy Note starting at $229.
