Looking forward to the Samsung Galaxy Note? Then consider this your official Note notice: it’s hitting UK shops on 17 November.
The dual-core Note is Samsung’s oversized Android smart phone — or, depending on your perspective, it’s Samsung’s undersized Android tablet.
The screen measures 5.3 inches across, making the Note about the size of a sachet of cup-a-soup. Seriously, that was the first thing that came to hand when we were trying to work it out. It’s smaller than a paperback book, so it should fit into pockets easily, but you might still look a bit daft holding it up to your face for calls. Better invest in some hands-free headphones.
The advantage of that screen is that video, maps and Web pages will look glorious — no poking about on a cramped phone screen for you, Note-taker!
Dell had a crack at the mid-sized, not-a-phone-not-yet-a-tablet idea with the Dell Streak. We liked the Streak itself but the software was lacking — a creaky old version of Android that didn’t take a advantage of the capacious screen — so it’ll be interesting to see if the Note takes off.
Samsung offers you any size screen you like: there’s the 10-inch Galaxy Tab 10.1, almost 9-inch Tab 8.9, over 7-inch Tab 7.7, the 5-inch Note, and the pocketable phone-sized Galaxy S2. The Note is the only one to use a stylus, though.
The Note has 3G built-in so you’ll be able to get it from phone networks as part of a contract, or buy it on its own. Samsung is yet to confirm the price — how many notes would you part with for the Note? Leave us a note in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.