Samsung outs 5in Galaxy Note as new smartphone concept

We now know what the Samsung Galaxy Note - the product name leaked last week alongside the Galaxy Tab 7.7 - actually is. It's a "new type of smartphone", apparently. Or rather it's a 5.3in, 1280 x 800 touchscreen tablet running Android 2.3 Gingerbread on a 1.4GHz dual-core CPU with on-board dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and 21Mb/s …

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick!

Release it before iPhone 5 comes out, then you can't be accused of copying it!

[andy gibson]

Looks nice

But need to see it in a hand to really visualise the size.

[RubberJohnny]

All things are relative

Maybe they could have photo using someone with really small hands, like they use in porn films.

[TeeCee]

Re: Looks nice.

1) Right-click on pic in article and save to disk.

2) Open pic in graphics program.

3) Hold ruler up to screen.

4) Resize pic until screen bit of device measures 5.3" diagonally.

It's that big.

5) Get coat........

[TuckerJJ]

Samsung Thinking Different

I like it, but they should have called the Notepad.

[Anonymous Coward]

photoshopped iphone?

I know there are only so many ways you can make a device like this 'look' but blimey - it really looks like a stretched iphone there :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawsuit bait?

That looks so much like a big iPhone 3GS it's not even funny. Are they trying to make St Steve's head asplode?

[AdamWill]

But wait...

...making the iPhone six times bigger and calling it the iPad was apparently magical and revolutionary, so surely making the iPhone two times bigger and calling it the Note is equally magical and revolutionary, what what?

[D@v3]

holy crap

and that looks nothing like an iPhone does it?

yeah, i know, its bigger, but from those photos, I thought i might have been looking at an iPhone5 (or whatever)

do they never learn.....

[Mage]

4" is the limit

5" is too big unless it's a 3:1 or maybe 2.5:1 form factor. Too wide.

The iPhone looks like older "tablet" devices. How distinctive can a rectangle that is as much display as possible on front going to be? You don't want a Lemon or Toblerone shaped handset?

[Anonymous Coward]

that's not what SHE said

fnarr

[shteou]

At last...

...they finally discovered the device that sits between the smartphone and the tablet. I was wondering how long that would take.

[dssf]

I call...

"SmartLet" (TM)

Damn... that's taken by an electric vehicle recharger company/consortium.

PhoneLet (TM)...

damn, taken, too.

http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=61

[RichyS]

Nice screen, but

No one bought the Dell Streak. What makes Samsung think people will buy this?

Do people now suddenly want something a little bit bigger than a smartphone, but a little bit smaller than a tablet? I doubt it.

This has fail written all over it in glorious high resolution.

[AdamWill]

I kinda do

actually. All my pants have big pockets and this seems like a really nice form factor if you don't want a tablet. big enough and high enough resolution to do web browsing, email quite comfortably, without being too big for *any* pocket.

I can carry a 6" ebook reader with me anywhere, but not a 7" tablet...so this thing is actually pretty close to my ideal form factor.

[Anonymous Coward]

if it's thin'n'light enough

that's the replacement for my Desire HD

[Ru]

Good to see the format isn't dead

My Streak 5 won't last forever. Maybe I can pick up one of these cheap when Samsung abandon them, or when Apple fire up the lawyers again.

Is the stylus internal? One of the things I didn't like about the HTC Flyer was that the pen had no storage space, thuogh it does look like the Samsung pen is nowhere near as sophisticated.

[Bunker_Monkey]

Call it...

The nPad!!!

[ZankerH]

Nothing like the dell streak

Wow, this has the same resolution as the 10 inch android tablets. What's the dpi? Does it beat the jesus phone?

[Sampler]

the S Pen… to introduce a new type of user-experience

Presumably introduced to those who haven't seem the one HTC released already...

[Mr Floppy]

or a resistive touchscreen?

Or maybe a combination resistive capacitive touchscreen?

It might be multi touch resistive though. Will know more when the S-Pen SDK comes out.

[Mr Floppy]

even better!

it's Wacoms electromagnetic resonance technology behind the pen.

I'm liking this thing even more.

[TeeCee]

Re: even better!

Cool!

I recently bought my little daughter one of their graphics tablet thingies to draw her Manga artwork with. I've been marvelling at it ever since it turned up. I was wondering if it was all done with enslaved imps, but I guess there had to be a simple scientific explanation.

Wavee penny, movee mousey. Look no touchee. Nothing up sleevies. Ooooooo......

[100113.1537]

Stylus!

Finally something that makes sense - instead of merely aping Apple, Samsung have gone back to what works.

Palm might have lost out when it came to smart phones (although I think that was when they started trying to copy Blackberry with the tiny keyboard), but their PDAs (and HP's) were very popular. You can do a heck of a lot on a small screen if you use a stylus and thank goodness now that one of the big guys have remembered this, I might be able to get a cheap Chinese copy which has a stylus again!

[Getting really frustrated with my HTC-copy 'cos I am constantly selecting when I want to scroll and vice-versa - my wife's real HTC has a stylus and I am jealous.]

[Callum]

just as...

just as Dell decided to drop the Dell Streak, a 5" too-small-tablet/too-big-phone!

[coppice]

On sale already?

This is presented as if its something in the pipeline, but it looks just like the 5" Galaxy tablet that is already in the shops. Its hard to tell with Samsung. They have a whole galaxy of things called Galaxy now.

[AdamWill]

er. what?

there isn't any 5" Samsung tablet in the shops. They've only released a 7" tablet (which isn't a phone, and is a lot thicker) and the two versions of the Tab 10.1.

[coppice]

@Adam Will

There has been a 5" Galaxy in our shops for the past month or so. It looks like an oversized Galaxy S II. Maybe it hasn't reached your locale yet.

[Peter 48]

outrageous copy

this is an outrageous copy of the Samsung F700 from Feb2007 with its rounded metal edges and all black frontage. And don't even get me started with how similar it is to the i900 Omnia or the F480 from 2008. Samsung should be ashamed of copying Samsung. I think Samsung should sue Samsung for this blatant ripoff.

[Dazed and Confused]

Prior Art

I wonder whether they have thought of showing that to a German Judge.

Would be kind of funny if he then decided to iPad was a copy and banned that instead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ho ho...

"this is an outrageous copy of the Samsung F700 from Feb2007 with its rounded metal edges and all black frontage."

Wikipedia:

"The first iPhone was unveiled by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007"

[Peter 48]

means nothing

1 Month between announcements means nothing. Both would have been in development for months before they were announced, and at the time there was no reason for Samsung to copy what was an entirely untested phone platform.

[Anonymous Coward]

if by iphone you mean a rectangular slab, yes

Apple don't own the exclusive design rights on black rectangles with a button at the bottom.

Does it look like a stretched iPhone? Nope, looks like a stretched Samsung Galaxy though...

[dssf]

2.3 GB and not 3.2 HC

Hmm... would there be some possible uses to do 3.2 Honeycomb?

[AdamWill]

doesn't do phone

HC doesn't do phone support.

[a_been]

Yawn

So, a colour Palm Pilot, good luck selling that.

[Francis Boyle]

Every Smartphone

is a colour Palm Pilot. We're just arguing about size.

[Raphael]

Hmmmm

I think this is actually a rather decent idea. I know a couple of people who want a PDA, with a slightly bigger screen than the smartphones, but they don't want a "phone" (yeah yeah, I know, work with me here people)

And the same people do want a stylus, because they don't do too well with using their fingers on a touch screen.

[Rattus Rattus]

I'd like one

It's the perfect size. Smartphones are just a little too small to use comfortably and tablets are too big to carry everywhere like a phone. Now if only it doesn't have Samsung's traditional shitty build quality I might have just found my next phone.

[James 63]

Join the Dots

It's been a while since I did any Join The Dots games, but I'm guessing it's the flag of the Isle of Man.

Do I win a prize?

[Hatless Pemberty]

Watch the Skies

"Join the Dots"

No, no, no. It's the Akimbo Constellation. Don't you people know anything?

Actually, this looks like an interesting device. I just hope that the inevitable "stylus replacement set" doesn't cost a fortune.

Icon, because it is Friday. (What?)

[Alan Brown]

Bugger

I just bought a Galaxy S2 but really wanted something around 5" (pocketsize and able to use SSH without squinting)

[Anonymous Coward]

interesting

I occasionally miss a stylus' pinpoint accuracy. Capacitative is better most of the time unless you need to draw something - something I did quite frequently on the Palms and WM devices I've owned over the years.

So this device looks intriguing. I never felt the need for a fondleslab, since I have most of the functionality on my phone, and while fun (and possibly cool), it would be another device to carry around and charge and take care of.

I still reserve judgement about this particular device though, until I can get to handle it in person. Since the stylus thing is specific to this device, I am wary of software support. But the resolution is way cool. The size of the thing is the question - more than the pocketability, I have doubts over usability (on screen keyboard etc). So a hands-on test is pretty much necessary.

But if it works - with a stylus and that resolution, I foresee a lot of strategy games on emulators :)

[E 2]

Oooohh, errr!

I wants one!