At the IFA 2012 in Berlin, Samsung the South Korean tech giant unwrapped its highly rumored second generation phablet – Galaxy Note 2 on Wednesday. The Galaxy Note successor designed on the lines of Samsung’s flagship smartphone – S3 stirred the interest of the tech world with its constant rumors and image leaks.
Samsung has unveiled its second generation phablet – Galaxy Note 2 with the advent of the IFA 2012 in Berlin on August 29. Samsung has not yet announced the retail price of the handset, however it has confirmed the global launch of the massive device sometime in October. The Galaxy Note successor designed on the lines of Samsung’s flagship smartphone – S3 and has been unboxed by the Korean giant with extraordinary software features accompanied with heavy duty specs.
The most hyped phablet is now expected to rival the iPhone with its gigantic touchscreen and faster processor. On the other hand, the predecessor of the device, Galaxy Note has turned out to be an amazing device, thanks to its faster processor, outstanding UI and the unique S-Pen feature. Released in October 2011, now the Samsung Galaxy Note has also received an ICS update.
However, with the official launch of Note 2, the big question arises is: How is the successor better than the original Note phablet? Hence, check out how both smartphones stack up against each other:
Display & Dimension: The original Note carries a dimension of 146.9 x 83 x 9.7 mm and weighs around 178 grams, while the Galaxy Note 2 carries a larger dimension of 151.1 x 80.5 x 9.4 mm and weighs around 180 grams.
Coming to the display, both the phablets sport the same Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display with PenTile technology. Although, Note has a 5.3 inch screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels while, Galaxy Note 2 has a bigger 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.
S-Pen: Note 2 has an improved S-Pen as compared to its predecessor with a revamped look, rubber tip and better touch response. Moreover, the S-Pen in Note 2 will have third party apps from Autodesk who make Moleskin and Sketchbook.
Processor: While the predecessor of Samsung Galaxy Note is equipped with a dual core 1.4GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, as an improvement, Galaxy Note 2 is equipped with a quad core 1.6GHz Cortex A9 processor. However, both the phablets will come packed with the same Mali-400MP GPU.
Operating System: In this segment, the Note 2 deserves all the laurels as the fresh phablet by Samsung runs on the latest incarnation of the Android OS – 4.1 Jelly Bean, while the original Galaxy Note has recently got updated to Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich from Gingerbread.
Camera: The camera optics of both the phablets are similar, as they have the same 8MP rear camera with features like geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and image stabilization. Rather, the orignial Note has a 2MP front camera while the successor – Galaxy Note 2 has a lower 1.9MP front camera for video calling.
Storage: Samsung Galaxy Note comes in two variants – 16GB and 32GB with a 1GB RAM, whereas the new Note 2 will come in three variants – 16GB, 32GB and 64GB with a 2GB RAM.
But at the same time, both the phablets have a micro SD card slot which supports up to 32GB expandable memory.
Connectivity: On the connectivity front, the two Samsung phablets have HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps, LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth with A2DP and EDR, micro USB 2.0 and USB on the go. While the now the added NFC feature on the new Galaxy Note 2.
Battery: The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 will come loaded with a mammoth3,100 mAh Li-ion battery, however the Korean manufacturer has yet not revealed its battery life hours figures. When it comes to the original Samsung Galaxy Note, it comes powered by 2,500 mAh Li-ion battery which offers 820 hours standby and 13.5 hours talk time.
Software Features: Further, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 will have a new features called Air View, allowing the users to hover the S-Pen stylus over gallery, video, and email to preview the content. Note 2 will also have the exclusive S features like Pop-Up Play – the multi-tasking video feature and Pop-Up Note, allowing users to make notes while an app is open.
The new phablet will also have software features like Screen Recorder, Quick Command and more.
