Whether or not you love the Galaxy Note line of phones, it’s hard to deny that they can be a little too big for a phone. Sure, the advantages of a larger screen are great but, in a device that you’re going to be taking everywhere at that size doesn’t ;eave you open for much flexibility. It’s all Note, all the time. With the launch of the Galaxy Note 10.1 Samsung provided customers with another choice, if they didn’t want such a large phone but wanted access to the productivity that the Note line can bring, you can purchase a 10-inch tablet. This is all fine and well but, what if a 10-inch tablet is too big and you still want access to the Note’s suite of apps? Well, this being Samsung, there’s word that they are in fact readying such a thing. There’s word that Samsung will be bringing a 7.7-inch version of the Note to market.
There’s been snippets of information here and there, ranging from DLNA certification for the device and a leaked model number of GT-N5100, a model number that’s similar to all the Note devices before it. There’s been a lot surfacing around this rumor and the word on the street is that the device is going to be packing the Exynos 4412 which is the same CPU at the heart of the new Galaxy Note II. This would make Samsung struggle to keep the cost down but, as we’ve seen with other Note devices, Samsung aren’t interested in playing the price game. The screen is said to be sized at 7 or 7.7 inches however, I’m more inclined to believe that it’s going to be a 7.7-inch Super AMOLED display. Last year Samsung hit the market with the Galaxy Tab 7.7 packing the same screen and it was mostly unsuccessful due to the cost of the device. It was a stunning screen however and at a resolution of 1280×800 – which has now been confirmed by Samsung over WAP – it was the best screen around, now I’m sure that Samsung have dealt with any bugs in manufacturing this panel and the cost has come down as well.
If the cost of the panel were to come down, it’d make it easier for Samsung to put their powerhouse chip in there, making a seriously powerful little tablet. This is isn’t the first of its kind however, as HTC tried the same last year with the HTC Flyer, a 7-inch device that featured pen input. Thew device was well made and a good option for 7-inch tablets however, HTC saw fit to lower the price with a single-core processor and it had some really poor marketing in the states even having the pen sold separately at Best Buy.
If anything, this wouldn’t surprise any of us, I don’t think. After all, Samsung are the company that can seemingly make a thousand screen sizes. There’s potential for the device to do well too, a 7-inch tablet that you can either take with you or leave at home makes more sense to some people than a massive phone you take everywhere. As the Nexus 7 has proved, there’s more than a market for the 7-inch tablet and with Apple’s poor attempt at joining the segment there could well be room for Samsung to make another big splash.