It feels too long since Samsung has announced another large Note tablet. The first Galaxy Note 10.1 wasn’t very successful because Samsugn failed big time with it. Whatever they did to the software, made the tablet very sluggish, and it received very poor reviews because of that.
The screen also wasn’t great, as they opted for a 1280×800 resolution, and on a 10″ screen that wasn’t very impressive. The iPad 3 was already released with a “retina display” a few months earlier, and the improved iPad 4 came a couple of months after it, too. So it definitely wasn’t a good year for the Galaxy Note 10.1, especially when it arrived with pretty obsolete specs to begin with.
Samsung is fixing all of that this year with the new Galaxy Note 10.1, which they’re calling “2014 Edition”, probably because it will be released too late this year to be called “2013 Edition”, and in not enough countries.
The new Galaxy Note 10.1 will be receiving a quad core 1.9 Ghz Exynos 5 Octa (probably the one with the new Mali T628 GPU, and with the fixed driver issues) internationally, 2560 x 1600 display (perfect for drawing), 3 GB of RAM (a first in a tablet right, but seemingly a trend for most high-end devices launching this fall), and a choice between 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB of internal storage, along with microSD support (will probably support only up to 64GB, even though I wish it was up to 128 GB, just to be future proofed).
They haven’t said if the Wi-Fi is 802.11ac, but I’m afraid it’s not if they haven’t mentioned it. That would be a shame, as all devices launching right now should have it, especially higher end ones. Even the Moto X has it.
The company hasn’t announced a fixed date launch except Q3 (their Q3 is in fall), nor a price. I want to say it will be $400, because it would certainly be doable considering last year’s Nexus 10 was that much, and it had the same screen, so it’s not like this year’s screen and resolution would add to the price.
The S-pen does add to the price, but considering that hardware wise it hasn’t improved much from a year ago, the decline in component cost should off-set the increase in price from the S-pen. But seeing how Samsung wants to be just as profitable as Apple, my guess is they will price it at $500, just like the original Note 10.1.
I was surprised there was no news about the Galaxy Note 12.2″, as I think people who want to draw on it, would much prefer the 12.2″ size over the 10.1″ one, especially if they intend to use it with a keyboard or a dock, too, and use it as a laptop, too. A 10″ screen is too small to be used as a laptop for work, but hopefully we’ll still see that version soon, and it wasn’t just a prototype that will never see the light of day.