Samsung has lifted the curtain on the third generation of its popular Galaxy Note phablet range, revealing an improved design, heftier specs, but ultimately an incremental update over previous versions.
Like a plant with sun and water, the Galaxy Note 3 has grown. It is bigger than it was last year, with it's screen now up to 5.7-inches diagonally, and now sporting an impressive full HD (1080p) resolution SuperAMOLED screen.
More impressive is that the Note 3 is also slimmer and lighter, down to a mere 8.3mm thick -- just a hair thicker than the Galaxy S4. It's 168-gram weight splits the difference between last year's hefty Note 2 and the S4.
Hour of power
Under the hood, the Note 3 is the more powerful phone Samsung has put together yet, with a quad-core 2.3Ghz Qualcomm processor (for 4G LTE models), a new Adreno 330 GPU and 3GB Ram.
The camera in the phone is also worth checking out, with a 13-megapixel sensor, 1080p video recording at 60-frames a second, and 4K video recording too, apparently.
But what Samsung really needed was a new way of looking at how we use the Note range. Less specs, more features, so to speak. The Note's S-Pen has received an upgrade and a new 'quick launcher' application for using the pen to jump into a few pen-driven tools, but Samsung could really have taken this concept a lot further.
The launcher, known as Air Command, is a small fan-shaped UI element that is initiated with a the S-Pen. It lets you create memos, launch apps, like a calculator, and sketch out ideas. For some, this will be a helpful enhancement on the old S-Pen system, but we think there is a lot of untapped potential in the stylus accessory.
In the US, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular have all committed to bringing the Galaxy Note 3 to market later in the year.
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