Samsung Galaxy Note 4G Review – Retail Price Reduction

Released earlier this year and still exclusive to the AT&T 4G LTE wireless network, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4G Android smartphone delivers the largest screen ever to grace a mobile handset. Samsung has long been an innovator in the consumer-electronics industry, and the Galaxy Note 4G Android device is no exception. Many smartphone manufacturers have for years claimed that anything over a 4.0 to 4.5 inch display size makes a handset too bulky, but the estimates of 7 to 10 million units of the Galaxy Note sold globally so far in its short lifespan argue the opposite opinion.

The Galaxy Note handset arrived in February, and recently benefited from a retail price reduction to $199 with a standard new two-year activation and data plan at select retailers. The Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system is present out-of-the-box, and comes with Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface Android overlay. Measuring 0.38 inches (10 mm) thick and weighing 6.28 ounces (178 g), the device is slim and light considering its size and the presence of a large, oversized 2,500 mA battery.

That battery delivers 10.0 hours of talk time from a single charge, a performance which is approximately 25% better than what is offered by the average 4G handset. Smartphone shoppers have their choice of either Ceramic White or Carbon Blue colors for their Galaxy Note, and the 5.30 inch Super AMOLED screen renders visuals in 285 pixels per inch, and more than 16 million unique colors. That gives that display an overall screen resolution of 800 x 1,280 pixels, and the multitouch, capacitive touchscreen can be operated by hand gestures, or the integrated S Pen smart stylus. Standard light and proximity sensors are on board to offer auto brightness adjustment and battery conservation, and a layer of scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass overlays the screen.

The hardware package on board the Samsung Galaxy Note 4G includes a Qualcomm MSM8660 Snapdragon microchip suite, complete with a dual core Scorpion central processor that has been clocked at 1.5 GHz. An Adreno 220 processor is also on board to handle all graphics duties, 1.0 GB of RAM memory is built-in, as is 16 GB of storage. A microSD slot is on board for storage expansion, and a rear facing 8.0 megapixel camcorder provides video capture in high definition 1,080P. A front facing chat cam of 2.0 megapixels also offers video call functionality, and Near Field Communications (NFC) support is offered out-of-the-box, with popular online destinations Facebook, Twitter, Picasa and YouTube preloaded.  You can purchase the Samsung Galaxy Note starting at $199 at select retailers.