Samsung's Note 'phablet' follows its flagship phone by a few months. This time, the Note is being launched a little sooner than usual, on August 2, if rumours are to be believed, and it's skipping a number. It should have been the Note 6 but will go straight to Note 7 to match the Galaxy S7 smartphone.
Each year, the Note comes with innovative features which aren't available on the flagship. In fact, it's a sort of super-flagship. The Note 5 enhanced the use of the stylus or S-Pen to make it finely pressure sensitive and even capable of writing on a sleeping screen.
The rumour mill has been churning for some time over the upcoming Note 7. Here's a short list of some of what is expected on the 5.8-inch super smartphone:
7GB RAM: Regular smartphones are just about shifting into the 6GB RAM slot. Many are asking what anyone is going to do with that much RAM on a little device when PCs don't have as much. As one is seeing with the recently launched OnePlus 3 with its 6GB RAM, the RAM management becomes an issue when you need to keep performance to a level that the battery can handle without draining out fast. But there are also rumours in parallel that peg the amount of RAM on the Note 7 as being 6GB.
Iris Scanner: More certain than some of the other rumoured specs, an iris scanner may be part of the Note 7's security arsenal. Thought to be safer and stronger than fingerprints and certainly more than pins, passwords and patterns, the iris scanner would move security to the next level when things like payments are rapidly making their way to phones.
More Storage: Despite their being much more cloud storage available, users feel safer with plenty on their devices. It's being reported that the Note 7 will come in storage versions of 256 GB,128 GB and 64 GB. There is some speculation that there will also be a memory card slot that doubles up as a second SIM slot.
Faster Processor: The Note 7 will come with the Snapdragon 823 processor. The current top-tier standard is 820. In India though, Samsung often brings out devices with its own equivalent, the Exynos.
12MP Camera: The Galaxy Note 7 may feature the same rear camera that is on the Galaxy S7with an f/1.7 aperture lens. It is consideredthe best smartphone camera available, with the iPhone 6s.
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
