The Galaxy Note 10.1 – 2014 Edition is Samsung next-generation Note 10.1 tablet, that comes with an octa-core Exynos 5420, 3 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage, and of course a very high resolution 2560×1600 display. On October 10th, you will be able to buy yourself one for $549.99 for the Wifi-only version with 16 GB of storage, and $599.99 if you want 32 GB version.
You’ll also get 50 GB of Dropbox storage free for two years, a one-year subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek, and a 12-week subscription to The New York Times. Retailers will include Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile, BestBuy.com, Amazon, PC Richard’s, Fry’s, Tiger Direct, Walmart and Samsung.com.
I’m not sure why exactly it’s more expensive than last year’s Note 10.1, considering component cost has dropped since last year and their Nexus 10 was $400, and it had the same screen. It shouldn’t be more than $500 as a starting point, and even that should come with 32 GB of storage. Surely it’s not because of the faux-leather.
This along with the recent news about an even more expensive Galaxy F series rumors, are starting to worry me that Samsung wants to artificially increase its profits in order to have “profit growth”, without doing much for it.
There’s also been a rumor about a Galaxy Note 12.2″, but seeing this trend of price increases for Samsung’s devices, that one is probably going to be even more expensive, and start at $600 for the 16GB version. That’s also something I’d like to see much less of. It’s the end of 2013, and it’s long over due that both high-end tablets and flagship smartphones start arriving with 32 GB of storage.
The software is becoming larger and larger, which is true about the OS, first party apps, and 3rd party apps, too. Photo and video resolutions are also becoming bigger, which means users are becoming ever more restricted by the same 16 GB that used to be plenty 3 years ago when companies first started using that amount of storage as their default.
At the very least, companies need to stop using 16GB as the default storage for next year, and move to 32 GB. Something like a Galaxy Note 10.1 needs even more storage than other tablets, because it’s meant to be used for productivity and for drawing, and the storage will fill up faster. Hopefully, Samsung will realize this soon.