It’s the middle of November, and Samsung is getting everyone excited over two new devices, with Australia’s biggest smartphone and an internet-friendly camera making their way to store shelves in the next couple of weeks.
Launched to a packed house last night in Sydney, Samsung has finally made its 5.5 inch Galaxy Note II handset available in Australia, with the big screened smartphone scheduled to hit stores next week on all three of the majors: Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone.
The newest in the Samsung Galaxy line-up of phones echoes the design made famous with the Samsung Galaxy S3, but increases the size substantially, jumping from a 4.8 inch screen to a 5.5. In fact, it’s even bigger than the last model, which was released earlier this year and came with a 5.3 inch display.
Tech-wise, Samsung has thrown in many of the features made famous on its S3, with Near-Field Communication, an 8 megapixel rear camera, 1.9 megapixel front camera, the pop-up video playback software, and a quad-core processor, though this one is 200MHz faster.
With the Galaxy Note 2’s big screen, however, you also get the digital S-Pen that Samsung equipped with the first Note, now upgraded for the second-generation and featuring some nifty interaction, such as better handwriting recognition, an extra home screen made for the pen that opens up when you pull the pen out from under the phone, band the ability to take notes anywhere on the screen regardless of what you’re doing.
More than that, the new Note will feel in some ways more like a computer than a phone, managing proper multi-tasking with split-screen window action, allowing you to do things at once, such as surfing the web and tweeting, or watching a video and reading an email.
Oh, and there’s one thing else that we’ve not yet commented on: 4G.
Yes, the second generation of Samsung’s Galaxy Note will arrive in Australia with compatibility for the 4G LTE networks currently operated by Telstra and Optus, with a 3100mAh battery, hopefully keeping it alive for over a day.
“With the Galaxy Note, Samsung created a different category and we continue to define it with the launch of the Galaxy Note II,” said Samsung Australia’s Tyler McGee. “We have slightly reconfigured the size and we have combined all the intelligent features of the original Note with an additional series of specifications that make the Galaxy Note II one of the most impressive and powerful smartphones in the marketplace.”
We’ll let you know how it goes shortly, but for now, you’ll be able to find the Galaxy Note II at mobile stores and the Samsung Experience Store from next week in two colours – marble white and titanium grey – from $899.
A new phone wasn’t all Samsung talked about, however, with Samsung Australia’s Craig Gillespie taking to the stage to launch the first camera with 3G and Android.
