SM-N900 – Samsung Galaxy Note III 3G
– CPU: Samsung Exynos 5420 (Octa-Core)
– GPU: ARM Mali-T628 MP6
– RAM: 3 GB LPDDR3 (Channel A+B – 12.8Gbit+12.8Gbit)
SM-N9005 – Samsung Galaxy Note III LTE
– CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974)
– GPU: Adreno 330
– RAM: 3 GB LPDDR3 (Channel A+B – 12.8Gbit+12.8Gbit)
(as of 13 Aug 2013)
Display: 5.68-inch Full HD SuperAMOLED
Chipset: Exynos 5 Octa 5420 CPU at 1.8GHz with Mali-T628 MP6 GPU (3G version only, chipset for 4G version unknown)
RAM: 3GB (4G version)
Camera: 13-megapixel with Optical Image Stabilization
Storage: 16/32/64GB + microSD
OS: Android 4.3 Jelly Bean
Battery: 3,200mAh
For the Note series, the main differentiator is the S-Pen using a Wacom active digitizer, and Samsung’s nicely packaged software to take advantage of it across the OS. I personally like the workflow enhancement you get when your device can actually replace the paper notebook, so I am very keen for active digitizer devices, of which currently only the Note series has it in the smartphone/phablet form factor. Larger devices with active digitizers (Wacom or N-Trig) tend to be very expensive (RM5k++) tablets/convertibles from notebook manufacturers.
First off, I want to put things in perspective. I must state that we can no longer think of our devices as “phones” but COMPUTERS. Therefore, since computers have been around for the last 60 years or so, there is nothing “new” or “innovative” to expect from our devices, except for “faster, better, cheaper”. Maybe not cheaper but we have seen ASP (Average Selling Price) falling across the board.
And because it is a computer, you have to treat it as such, ie regular backups, some periodic cleansing/factory reset and practice safe computing habits.
Note that of course it is not to be compared with the CISC type computers of the Intel x86 desktop/notebook genre, but it is still a computer nonetheless of the RISC variety, specifically the ARM family, with a huge number of variations across manufacturers. The focus of ARM is for performance per watt, which allows low power computing on the go which has been the dream of computing since its dawn.
