2011 was the year of Smartphone and Tablets. If you take a look back in to the year, you will figure out how many Smartphones and Tablets came in to the market with lots of interesting features. Out of those devices, when it comes to sales, Apple’s iPhone and iPad took the lead. However HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson were also giving a good competition. If you take a look in to the cool features in those Smartphones and Tablets, the main thing you will notice is the Multi touch screen and interfaces. Other than that those devices comes with dual core processor, 1GB RAM, Gyroscope and many more advance hardware.
The main difference between a Smartphone and Tablet is the screen size. If you make the screen size bigger, it will become less portable but more usable for many applications like Business and Multimedia. That’s where the “Tablet Trend” started. Smartphone always fits in to your pants pocket, does things almost the same as Tablet, yet limit you with a smaller screen. Normally Tablets devices comes with 8 or 10 inch screen while Smartphone comes with approximately 4 inch screen.
In the last quarter of 2011, a brand new device came in to the mobile device market with a brand new concept which is going beyond Smartphone and Tablet. This device which took my attention is Samsung Galaxy Note. It is almost same as Samsung Galaxy S 2, yet having bigger, 5.3 inch screen, yet smaller and portable than Samsung Galaxy Tab. This would be a new beginning of Tablet-Smartphone “Hybrid approach”.
Interesting Features
Screen and Interface
The major noticeable thing in Samsung Galaxy Note is its 5.3 inch Super AMOLED screen which supports HD resolution 1280 x 800 pixels. And it’s having 285 ppi density which gives ultra sharp images, only second to iPhone 4S. This device comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Samsung TouchWiz UI which was also a standard features in Galaxy S2 as well. The touch surface is protected by Gorilla glass which is scratch proof.
Other than the bigger screen, the next interesting thing that comes with Samsung Galaxy Note is its Smart Pen. This gives you more accurate control over the screen’s touch sensitivity than finger tips. The phone is having a compartment to keep the smart pen which reminds me of older version of Palm-top computer’s stylus.
Processing Power and Storage
The Samsung Galaxy Note comes with 1.4 GHz Dual Core processor which is the fastest processer ever built in to a Smartphone. Same as in Galaxy S 2 it comes with 1GB RAM and microSD card slot which supports up to 32GB. When you purchase the device it will come with a 2GB microSD card. Additionally it is having internal 16GB storage space as well.
Connectivity
Other than the traditional connectivity, Samsung Galaxy Note comes with 4G support. The underlying technology used is LTE 700. This is another significant improvement from previous Samsung Galaxy S 2. Other than that this device also support quad band GSM, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and micro USB.
Sensors
Sensors were one of the most interesting things in any Smartphone or Tablet. Most of the devices come with Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor and Digital compass. Samsung Galaxy Note is also having all of these standard sensors and additionally a Barometer which is new to Smartphone world. It let you measure the atmospheric pressure which opens lots of possibilities for application developers.
Potential Usage
Notebook or Idea Book
The new features of Galaxy Note open new possibilities to use it as a Notebook, if you think more creatively as an’ Idea Book’. It’s having a bigger screen than conventional Smartphone, yet portable than Tablet. Therefore it gives you good space to replace your paper based notebook, further turn it in to an idea book with the extended multimedia capabilities. Since you have the Smart pen you can even use the device as drawing canvas. The faster processor, 1 GB RAMS and improved GPU will make this experience even better. The inbuilt camera could be use to make photo and video notes wherever necessary.
This opens new opportunities for multimedia professionals. They can develop concepts in any environment where they are comfortable. They don’t like to type, but to draw. In here they can do that as well with the smart pen. Once they come up with something, they can easily connect to the main office through high speed 4G connectivity and deliver the concept or the artwork.
The same system could be use for e Journalism as well. Journalist can travel to any location and create multimedia rich article which conclude, images, videos and even sketches, then upload it to a web site using high speed internet, without using a PC at all.
Business Applications
The main limitation in Smartphones to use them as business organizers was their inadequate screen size and resolution. If you try to replace it with a tablet, it solves the screen resolution problem while introducing a new problem which is portability. Samsung Galaxy Note, the Tablet-Smartphone Hybrid approach, solves both the above problems giving bigger screen to run business applications while giving the maximum portability with smaller design which fits in to your pant’s pocket.
This would be an ideal device for business organizing applications as well as Stock trading applications. The bigger screen will accommodate visual representation of business status such as charts. The faster processor will let all the operations run smoothly while advanced 4G connectivity reduce the information delay drastically.
In near future we will be able to see most of the business people will be using this kind of hybrid devices replacing Smartphones and tablets. Laptop and Palmtop computers are already replaced by Tablets and Smartphones.
Navigation Device
Most of the people were using Smartphones as navigation devices and they worked just fine. But when dealing with different altitudes GPS error is significant. This will affect especially when you are using Google Maps Indoor Application with automatic level changes in a building. In most of the cases you have to manually enter the level that you are currently in. When you are in a complex motorway system the right place you are at should be pointed out using correct altitude as well since there could be many over head ramps in there.
Other than driving, when you are going on a Hike, knowing the exact altitude that you are in is very important. In that case horizontal location only won’t help. If you are in a Hot air Balloon, again it’s going to be very important to know the altitude accurately. In such cases GPS altitude accuracy is way not accurate enough.
To solve all the above problems Samsung Galaxy Notes comes with a Built in Barometer which use to measure atmospheric pressure, could be used to calculate the altitude accurately. With the aid of Barometer and Digital compass, GPS unit can pin point your location, especially the vertical location very accurately, which turns the device in to a dependable sophisticated Navigation device. You can use this with any GPS application not only to drive, but for hikes, hot air balloon travels, air travels and to find your way in multi stores buildings.
Drawbacks
Everything comes with a price, so is Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s an exceptional device yet having few drawbacks. The major one would be its battery life. Normally Samsung devices are having good battery life, yet this one will be having lesser due to the high speed processor and bigger bright screen.
When you increase the size of display, you must increase the size of device as well. Galaxy Note is having 5.3 inch screen so the device is also bigger than Galaxy S 2 which makes it relatively less portable. However it could still fit in to your pants pocket. Other than that it’s much heavier than galaxy S2.
Trends
Mobile Movies
Even with the previous versions of Smartphones there was “Mobile Movie” trend. There are some movie producers that specially produce movies for those devices. However there was no Smartphone capable of displaying standard HD videos. In that case you must use a tablet, which is again less portable.
With the arrival of Samsung Galaxy Note, it opens new opportunities for mobile movies with its standard HD 1280 x 800 pixels screen. Therefore users can enjoy HD videos in a much portable device and of course it will be a huge leap for Mobile Movie industry.
Stylus, Welcome Back!
I was always thinking that stylus is out dated since we have multi point touch screen which can be easily controlled by my finger tips. But if you want to do fine work, the stylus or a similar device would be the perfect choice. Samsung Galaxy Note is bringing the Stylus back to the show as a Smart Pen which convert the device in to a Drawing canvas. With this you will never miss your paper notebook. With the smart pen you can use your own handwriting to make notes digitally.
The device came in to the market just two months ago and it’s already attracted many people around the globe. Application developers will use the capabilities of this device to come up with creative applications. Especially I’m looking forward to see an application using the Barometer.
Finally, this is another giant step by Samsung, the famous South Korean electronic device manufacturer to dominate Smartphone and Tablet device market. They have already made their mark in most of other electronic devices categories and seems like nothing is going to stop them here as well.
Tags: #Samsung #Smartphone #Tablet