The Samsung Galaxy Note is quite a unique hybrid Android device to use and it is the second one in this genre; the first being the Dell Streak, which quite frankly was an epic fail but we are not here to talk about that.

The Galaxy Note bridges the gap between the modern, ubiquitous smartphone and the neoteric tablet. This device is something which every geek dreams of at night and “wets” his bed in excitement. As soon as you pick up the device, you can see that this device has been drenched with details. Every nook and cranny of the device is extremely well-designed and feels quite solid, even though it’s bloody huge. This semi-phone-semi-tablet (Smartblet as we like to call it) filled with amazing features, has tech specifications which will make Steve Jobs turn in his grave.

Display

Yes, the display is so awesome that I dedicated a whole frickin’ category to it. The Note has a 5.3 inch High Definition Super AMOLED screen. The display is drop-dead gorgeous. The beautiful screen is the star of the device. The crispness and the smoothness are so prominent throughout the device that you’ll never want to rest your eyes upon anything else. GALAXY Note has a 1280X800 pixel resolution, which is as much as the Galaxy Tab 10.1″! It has 285 pixels per inch, which isn’t quite as high as Apple’s Retina Display but, it gets the job done. Trying to view each pixel exclusively is extremely difficult. The display isn’t brusque and is smoothened till the very edge.

Reading e-books and newspapers and viewing HD pictures & movies on this device is an absolute delight! The colors are extremely vibrant, bright and so detailed that you can read the headlines of the ‘News & Weather’ icon in the app drawer. The exuberance falters slightly as the viewing angle increases.

The Galaxy Note has all the furnishing that a modern smartphone has. And, so much more!
The Galaxy Note comes equipped with a special stylus made by Samsung called the S-Pen and is quite brilliant! Till date, this is the most advanced pen-input technology ever invented. The S-Pen has a variety of functions which include pressure sensitivity, precision and most of all, speed. The S-Pen can be used to make doodles during boring meetings/lectures. The doodle can be saved and shared via email/Bluetooth/Whatsapp etc.

The hardware of the GALAXY Note is mind-numbingly awesome. It features a 1.4 Ghz dual-core processor, which is a tad bit faster than the Samsung Galaxy S2 (1.2 Ghz dual-core processor). It also features a hefty 1 GB of RAM. The Note weighs in at 178 grams.

The Note will be available in 16 GB & 32 GB variants. Its memory can also be expanded by 32 GB via a micro-SD card.

It has an 8-megapixel camera bundled with an LED flash and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Video recording done in an effulgent 1080p HD, which just makes the video come alive. A plethora of options are available for getting the best shot possible. I sorely missed the lack of a dedicated camera button. But, I guess, they did that to keep the device thin and sexy. Another fault I noticed was the failure of autofocus in macro shots. The camera cannot focus on objects close to it and the phone has to be moved away so that the image can be captured. Nothing so complicated that’ll hinder you from taking an image, though.

The Note is HSPA+ compatible & can reach browsing speeds of up to 21 Mbps. The US variants will also be 4G LTE compatible. The Galaxy Note houses a 2500 mAh battery which lasts a bit more than a day (over 12 hours).

Software

The Galaxy Note runs on Google’s crown jewel- Android. The Note is pre-installed with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and is expected to receive an upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich by early 2012. Samsung has also added TouchWiz user interface on top of Android operating system. Unlike the previous iterations of TouchWiz, this one is simply awesome. Touchwiz 4 adds a lot of functionality to the device. And, it looks and feels quite acceptable. It’s nowhere near the HTC Sense experience, though!

Drawing made with GALAXY Note

Vanilla Android would have been better, though, but there’s nothing like a little rooting and custom-ROMing that won’t solve it. ;)

The Galaxy Note is a device which will garner a lot of mixed review from everyone. The humongous screen, people think, is absolutely ridiculous while placing calls. The size of the device just might be a barrier for people who like to have their devices small, sexy and svelte (like the Galaxy S2). Can this be the next generation of devices? In one word – Absolutely.