Just last week, a report from MK Business News indicated that the Galaxy Note II would be unveiled at the end of August during IFA 2012. The publication also hinted at some of the specifications, including a 5.5-inch screen that would occupy the same space as the current Galaxy Note. Now DDaily reports that that Samsung will hold a Mobile Unpacked event at IFA that will show off the successor to the Galaxy Note.
DDaily believes that Samsung will hold an event on August 30th at 7pm in Berlin that will show off the Galaxy Note II. That’s quite a specific time and date, and it lines up with previous reports that Samsung were planning an IFA 2012 reveal. Past rumors have suggested that the device would come with a 5.5-inch screen, quad-core Exynos processor, and improved camera that would fall between 8- and 12-megapixels.
The device will not, however, feature an unbreakable plane display as was alluded to in previous reports. The software is said to be the latest version of Android, Jelly Bean, and the handset will reportedly be launched in time for September to get a head start on the next iPhone. The original Galaxy Note was released in Europe in November 2011 before making its way to AT&T in February.
Here it is, just as you’d expected: Android 4.0 and Samsung’s Premium Suite of apps is now available for the Galaxy Note on AT&T. While the update won’t be made available over-the-air, both PC and Mac users may download and install the latest OS from within Samsung Kies. As for the S Pen-enhanced apps within the Premium Suite, you’ll find a new version of S-Note that sports integration with Wolphram Alpha, along with an S-Memo widget that syncs to both Evernote and Google Drive. Finally, the My Story app is available as an add-on download within Samsung Apps, which allows users to write letters, create cards and multimedia albums. For full installation instructions, just hit up the source link below.
If there’s one thing we can be certain of, it’s this: T-Mobile’s been anything but cautious about keeping its own Galaxy Note variant under secretive wraps. In a matter of weeks, we’ve spotted it while paying Mr. Blurrycam a visit, making a short stop at the FCC offices and, most recently, showing its phablet self in some purported T-Mo press shots. And although this time it isn’t being as revealing as it has in previous occasions, it’s yet another sign that its eventual entrance into T-Mobile’s smartphone lineup is right around the corner. As a curious TmoNews reader found out, a quick, simple search for Galaxy Note within the Magenta site brings up a plethora of support documents for the device, including bits like software overview, call functionality, media, customization and specs. In case you were planning on snagging one of these once it launches, this might be a good way to become acquainted with the Samsung’s jumbo slab.
How much better will that Samsung Galaxy Note be when you have Ice Cream Sandwich on it? AT&T users are about to find out, as Samsung confirmed to us that the long-awaited upgrade will be knocking on their doors beginning tomorrow (with a few lucky testers getting it later today). As for the new features, the Galaxy Note’s latest refresh won’t offer anything we weren’t already expecting: in addition to the standard suite of ICS features, it’ll also come with the same Premium Suite we saw show up on the international Note a couple months ago. The new Suite offers some huge improvements in S-Memo and S-Note, as the latter is now integrated with Wolphram Alpha. Sadly, the software features we’ve seen highlighted in the Galaxy S III series (S-Beam, S-Voice, Smart Stay and so on) are nowhere to be found, but at least you’ll have plenty of other new items to keep you occupied for a while.
This week AT&T will be pushing the Samsung Galaxy Note Premium Suite upgrade with Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, and we’ve got our hands on it right this minute. This upgrade in software brings you several features in S-Note and S-Memo and also brings on Android Beam with NFC as well as facial unlock – the strangest screen unlock of them all! You’ll also gain access to a strange application that’s also out now for the Galaxy S III: Samsung’s My Story app.
First have a peek at some of the behind-the-scenes changes, starting with NFC. This device is now able to use Android Beam to send photos, videos, and more to other devices just so long as they also have NFC and Android Beam activated. At the moment it does not appear that this feature works between the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy S III – each time we’ve tried it out, S-Beam interferes and says that it is incompatible with the Galaxy Note. A similar situation happens with our Galaxy Nexus with Jelly Bean – the beam option appears on the Nexus side, but trying to send a photo results in a message that informs us that the other device (the Note) does not accept large file transfers. The Note itself does not appear to have any response other than the “boooh” sound effect and a haptic shake, no beaming out anywhere. We expect that this situation will be fixed rather rapidly.
Recent Apps can now be pulled up by holding down your Home button. This ability works perfectly well, and closely resembles the vanilla version of the feature.
Face unlock has been activated for your lockscreen. This ability also works just as well as it does with the most updated version of Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy Nexus (the only Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Nexus device on the market. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean updates this feature to be able to work with more than one photo of your face for added security, and this one does as well, but here you’ve only got to hold up a still photo of yourself to make the unlock work. In Jelly Bean, the unlock screen requires that you move your face and head to get in – this being called a Liveness Check – the Note doesn’t quite have that yet.
This updated Galaxy Note also comes with better data usage monitoring, now allowing you to add warnings and shutoff for data caps.
S-Note
Starting with the app S-Note’s new Productivity Tools, Samsung’s suite of note and memo-taking apps has just gotten a bit sweeter. In the Productivity Tools you’ve now got, you can work with Formula Match, Shape Match, Handwriting-to-text, and Knowledge Search. You’ll be using Wolfram Alpha for both formula and knowledge.
With Formula Match, you’ve got handwriting recognition that works undeniably well to turn a scribbled down equation into something perfectly legible, first of all. Then once you’ve got that equation – however complicated or simple it may be – sent to Wolfram Alpha to either give you the answer or graph out the system’s findings.
In Shape Match you can now draw simple shapes and they’ll be corrected for you. This means that if you draw a wobbly circle, it’ll be turned into a perfect circle. If you draw a three-sided shape that looks kind of like a triangle, it’ll be a perfect straight-edged triangle. You can also make lines.
You’ll have Handwriting-to-text working for you, but it’ll take a bit more getting used to than the other features when you use it straight up. Write one word, it’ll be translated into whatever the system thinks it is essentially instantly. After one word, you’ve got to tap the space bar or the next word will be entered right after the first, and so on. It’s a good start, and it’s extremely smart!
Then there’s Knowledge Search for when you just don’t want to speak your questions out loud. Here you’ll also be working with handwriting to text (if you want to) or you can straight up type into the app, but in the end you’ve got a sentence and you’ll be entering it into Wolfram Alpha again.
Have a peek at each of these four in the hands-on video here:
You may now also add a collection of items to a new note in S-Note, including:
• Photos from your gallery or a brand new photo • Objects you’ve clipped using your S-Pen • S-Memos • A map of your current location or a map of a location of your choosing
You’ll find that PDF Annotations are also now activated inside S-Note. Here you’ll be able to insert and annotate PDF documents to your heart’s delight, share or save a PDF, or print straight from the app. You’ll have to import a PDF before you begin to annotate, and you’ll find your annotated files in the Galaxy Note file directory if you need to access them later from outside the app.
There’s an S-Memo Widget that’s brand new as well, here allowing you instant access to the S-Memo app in general as well as shooting you straight to Type, Write/Draw, Add Picture, Voice Recording, or Search.
As a bit of a bonus it seems, both the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note have gotten access to a Samsung-promoted app that only works thus far on the two devices themselves. This app is called Samsung’s My Story and it allows you to make greeting cards that can be shared to and from the app to other users also using the app. Inside the app you’re able to add photos, change titles, and generally have an entertaining time fiddling around until you’re ready to send it off to a friend whose also got a Galaxy S III or Galaxy Note. Samsung continues to build a vertically integrated system, piece by piece.
Benchmarks
As a bit of a bonus, here are a few benchmarks run on the Galaxy Note with this software upgrade installed. Compare these to the original benchmarks we’ve got in the full review of the AT&T Galaxy Note and/or your own AT&T Galaxy Note as it stands here and now. Note that these benchmarks are taken without the device being rooted, it being in its stock state.
Software Update Timeframe
This Premium Suite software upgrade will be dropping this week – starting on the 10th of July, 2012, and pushing to users throughout the USA across the whole week. You’ll need to use your Samsung Kies desktop software to make this update happen, just as you’ve had to for each other software update for the device.
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!
We’ve heard rumblings that the Galaxy Note will be launching on T-Mobile USA sometime in July, but new information from TmoNews indicates that the handset is currently planned for release in August. The site previously had information that showed customers would be able to pick up a Note on July 11th, but new dates from internal T-Mobile documents show the Note as landing on August 8th.
That’s a considerable gap between the launch of international handset back in November, and even the AT&T version of the Note, launched on February 19th. Rumors have indicated that the sequel will be with us either in September or October, so if T-Mobile goes ahead with an August launch customers probably won’t be too happy if the Note II does launch in that time frame. The AT&T version of the Galaxy Note features a Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 processor clocked at 1.5Ghz, 1GB of RAM, and LTE connectivity. It’s unclear if the T-Mobile Galaxy Note will see different specs.
The Note II, meanwhile, is said to feature a slightly larger 5.5-inch screen with a Super AMOLED HD display plus a quad-core Exynos processor. The device will reportedly undergo a new design bringing it closer to the aesthetics of the Galaxy S III, and the width of the phone will be reduced compared to the current Note.
Previous details of the Samsung Galaxy Note II have indicated that the device would feature a larger screen and quad-core Exynos processor. The current Note is already a hefty device with a 5.3-inch Super AMOLED HD display, so it’s hard to imagine something even larger without crossing over into tablet territory. GSMArena has heard from a trusted source that the Note II will feature a 5.5-inch display.
That doesn’t sound like a drastic increase in size, and GSMArena says that the width of the phone will be reduced compared to the original Note. That could mean that Samsung is planning to a move to a 16:9 screen instead of the 16:10 ratio currently featured on the Note. GSMArena’s source also detailed how the Note II will feature a design reminiscent of the Galaxy S III, so we might be seeing an even curvier exterior.
Finally, Samsung will reportedly move the Note II’s launch up to September in order to get a head start on the next iPhone, which is expected to be released sometime in October. The original Galaxy Note was released in November, so it makes sense that Samsung would want some room to breathe and accumulate as many sales as possible before the next iPhone hits.
MK Business News previously reported that the Note II will feature a quad-core Exynos processor and an unbreakable plane display that would allow the device to be thinner. Other specs are said to include a 12-megapixel camera and improved build quality.
With the Samsung Galaxy Note coming up relatively quickly for T-Mobile and the Samsung Galaxy S III already in stores across the nation, it should be clear that any Samsung fan has a choice to make between the two. Which one will bring you greater fortune, and which will be the ideal Samsung device for you? This journey begins with a simple question of screen size, of course.
The Samsung Galaxy Note has a massive 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED display while the Galaxy S III has a lovely 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display. The Galaxy Note has a pixel density of 285ppi while the Galaxy S III has 306ppi, this meaning that they’re pretty darn close when it comes to sharpness. The big difference between the two, then, is just that .5-inch difference diagonally. Consider your pocket size and your need for massiveness.
The Galaxy Note is made specifically to work with its build-in S-Pen while the Galaxy S III is more focused on being a device for everyone in the smartphone market. Both devices are made of premium quality materials that are, in the end, hard and powerful plastics with metal insides. The Galaxy S III works with its AllShare sharing abilities just as well as the Galaxy Note does, as both are working with Qualcomm processors, but the Note has an Snapdragon S3 chip while the Galaxy S III has the S4.
Expect the latter to go faster and work harder for you in the end – not in any giant way since they’ve both got next-level power throughout their builds in many ways, but the S4 will bring on a new level of excellence when you get nit-picky. Have a peek at the hands-on comparison we’ve got from this year’s CTIA from before the release of the USA versions of the GSIII:
Both of these devices are going to bring you a full high-level smart device experience, and Samsung is wholly dedicated to both devices for the future of their company. The Galaxy S III is clearly the hero of the day, but the Galaxy Note remains a relatively unique device, so you can count of Samsung to keep pushing it for the future.
Have a peek at our reviews of the versions of these devices that are on the market now for more comparisons:
There’s been demo units, FCC filings and the obligatory blurry photos, so it was only a matter of time before leaked press imagery completed our picture of a Galaxy Note for T-Mobile USA. As long as they’re not cosmetic makeovers by wishful T-Mobile fans, the CellPhoneSignal images portray… well, a Galaxy Note. No exotic colors, no obvious clues supporting talk that it ships with a preloaded Android 4.0 upgrade. Most of the hardware changes, then, should be all about adapting the HSPA+ 3G to support T-Mobile’s airwaves. Unconfirmed talk has the Galaxy Note reaching Magenta on July 11th; that’s nine months after the original version popped up, but we’re sure some will be thankful just to have more choices than AT&T for that phablet fix.
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