Samsung, as expected, released the next incarnation of its flagship phablet, Galaxy Note at the IFA on Wednesday (Aug. 29). Dubbed the Galaxy Note 2, the 5.5-inch phablet is a follow-up to the hugely successful original Note, which sold over 10 million units worldwide within the first nine months of its launch.
The galaxy Note's success not only paved the path for bigger sized smartphones, but also encouraged Samsung to come up with a next-generation Note.
The Note 2 smartphone comes with plethora of new features that include a redesigned S-Pen stylus, new software features brought by Android Jelly Bean, and a more powerful and smoother 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor along with 2 GB of RAM.
Check out the changes that Samsung has infused in the latest Galaxy Note 2 smartphone.
Display
While the original Samsung Galaxy Note features a 5.3-inch Super AMOLED display, the new Note 2 features a slightly larger Super AMOLED display of 5.5-inches. However, the new display offers a resolution of 1280x720 pixels, compared to that of the original Note's 1280x800 pixels. Samsung has also decreased the pixel density of the New Note from 285 ppi of the original phablet to 267 ppi since it increased the surface of the phone.
Processor and RAM
Samsung packed in a 4210 System on a Chip (SoC), a 1.4GHz dual-core Exynos processor and a Mali 400 GPU in the international version of the first-generation Note. The U.S. version, however, received a lesser Qualcomm Snapdragon 8255T SoC, that came with a 1.5GHz single-core Qualcomm Scorpion processor and an Adreno 205 GPU. Galaxy Note 2, on the other hand, features a quad-core Exynos 4412 processor, which clocks in at 1.6GHz.
Samsung has also worked on the RAM size of the Note 2. The phablet comes with 2GB of RAM, which is double 1GB of RAM found on the original Note.
Internal Storage
Samsung has introduced a new 64GB Note 2 variant, besides the 16GB and 32GB variants which are similar to the original Note. Moreover, Samsung has boosted the original Note's storage capability up to 32GB courtesy a microSD slot, while the Galaxy Note 2 has expandable memory of up to 64GB.
Operating System
When released, the original Note smartphone came pre-loaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Later the phablet was upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in July 2012.
Samsung, this time, has changed its strategy of not releasing its flagship devices without the latest version of Android available and the Note 2 will come with Android's latest 4.1 Jelly Bean OS out of the box.
Smarter Stylus
Samsung's re-designed S-Pen is a little wider and longer than its predecessor. The new stylus has a rubber tip to better simulate a pen and paper experience. It also offers a better and more ergonomic grip.
The improved and smarter S-Pen introduces many new features. The most intriguing being the Air View, which brings up previews of e-mails, albums, and videos by simply hovering the stylus approximately 10mm above the phone surface.
It also brings a new app called 'Easy Clip' to make outlining and cropping easier and a handy S Note app that opens up on the screen when a user pulls out the S-Pen during a phone call. The Galaxy Note 2 also recognizes when the S-Pen is removed from the device and, thanks to its accelerometer, alerts the user of the removal.
Battery
Samsung has provided a more powerful battery of 3,100mAh with the Galaxy Note 2. By contrast, the original Note has a 2,500mAh battery.
Additionally, Samsung has made the NFC capability universal in Note 2 phablet. This capability was available in selected variants of the original Note.
Samsung announced that the Galaxy Note 2 will be available in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East by October, and the US by the end of the year. The company, however, has not revealed any details on the phablet's pricing.
