It is no secret that Samsung took a big gamble when they announced the original Galaxy Note smartphone at IFA Berlin 2011, in fact, they were ridiculed by the attendees and later the reviewers, all complaining and proclaiming that NOBODY would want a smartphone that big and how ridiculous you would look holding it up to your ear to make a phone call. A 5.3-inch screen with an S-Pen, you gotta be kidding us. Samsung included onboard software to access the S-Pens’ functionality and large screen capabilities. Finally, some critics stopped laughing when it went on to sell more than 5 million devices and was only as an exclusive on AT&T, as Verizon choose not to carry the original Note – much to the dismay of many customers, me included.
A year later at IFA Berlin 2012, the Galaxy Note 2 was introduced as the original Note’s successor, but this time it was made available on all the major U.S. carriers. They increased the display size to 5.5-inches, but actually decreased the phone’s width slightly by making the bezels smaller. It came out of the box running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and was “smooth as butter” in its operations, even multitasking, and the RAM was also increased to 2GB. The applications software was upgraded as well, especially where the S-Pen and note taking capabilities were concerned. With more and more photo/sketching/painting applications developed for the Note 2, it was a hit among that niche group.
The dictionary defines “niche” as: Relating to or aimed at a small specialized group or market,” and I often wonder if the Galaxy Note series can still be called a “niched” product, especially after only two years in the market, Samsung head, JK Shin, just announced that over 38 million Notes have been sold since the original Note came out in 2011. He also predicted that over 10 million Note 3s will be sold, which is a rather conservative estimate, but will make the analysts happy at the end of the year if Samsung exceeds their original estimate. Samsung went from carving out a niche to creating an entirely new category of smartphone, dubbed the Phablet – half phone and half tablet.
As history so often repeats itself, Samsung announced the new and improved Galaxy Note 3 at IFA Berlin 2013 at the beginning of this month. The Note 3 builds on the Note 2 by bumping up the screen to 5.7-inches and Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution and jumps the camera from 8MP to 13MP with many new added features, and to top it all off, will come with the latest Android 4.3 Jelly Bean – the first device to do so.
I even did a little comparison between the Galaxy Note 2 and Note 3
Let us know if you are a Galaxy Note fan, what model you are using, and if you expect to buy the Note 3.