<div>Samsung’s Galaxy Note was such a hit that people have, for quite a while, been asking when its successor, the Note II, will arrive. Well, it has. Right on cue at the IFA show in Berlin, Samsung has unleashed a whole lot of products including a Galaxy Camera running Android, tablets running Windows and one of them also with a stylus, a huge Windows phone, and the Note II.<br /><br />After a show full of magic tricks and other theatricals which you can catch on the Web if you’re interested, the Note II was unveiled by JK Shin, President of IT and Mobile Communications at Samsung. The pitch of the Note II and any other device with an S-Pen seems to be creativity. Being that handy, the Note II is supposed to help creative people quickly capture their ideas and the S-Pen is supposed to help them build on these ideas. The digitiser layer comes from Wacom, the people who long ago made mouse-pad-like tablets used by designers who could draw and illustrate and do other things designers do very accurately. So, to get really creative, they had a bunch of creative types like architects and filmmakers “re-create Berlin” using just that one device, the Note II.<br /><br />But all that aside, the 5.5-inch superphone or mini-tablet, going by photos and videos online, looks like the Galaxy S3 on steroids. It’s a shade larger than the older Note, but lighter and thinner. The Super AMOLED screen is said to be brilliant. On the hardware front, the Note II runs on a 1.6GHz Quad-Core processor – that should be powerful enough for anyone. It’s also wearing Jelly Bean, Android 4.1, effectively silencing anyone who was about to criticise it for being a version behind, as has been the case with many Samsung devices including the Galaxy Note 800 which just launched a few days ago. There are 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions and a micro-SD slot can add yet more storage. The battery is a 3,100mAh. There’s an 8 megapixel primary camera and a 1.9 front-facing one. But nothing is known yet about which models will launch in India and at what price points. I think we can safely assume they’ll be expensive.<br /><br />Seeing how the Galaxy S3 does, there’s little doubt that the Note II will be a powerful performer. To support all they expect users to do on the gadget, Samsung has also put in more applications and features for use with the now bigger S-Pen, really making much of the stylus and the capabilities it can bring. One will need a good long time with the Note II to explore its performance and new enhancements – coming October.<br /><br />This time round, the Galaxy Note II launches in an environment that is very different from the one that greeted its predecessor, the Note. A year ago, there was a huge amount of scepticism about the in-between size of the Note and the very existence of a stylus, which many thought was a throwback to older times in technology. But I think you might say the Note thumbed its pen at those who didn’t quite believe in it and went on to become a much-loved gadget, no matter what category you want to place it in. Let’s see how it does this time.<br /><br /> </div>
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.
