Samsung stretches 5in Galaxy Note phonetab to 10in
Tablet with a stylus, anyone?
MWC 2012
In a spirit, surely, of 'we don't know what the punters want so we'll give 'em everything', Samsung has announced version of its Galaxy Note 5in smartphone-cum-tablet that's almost twice the size of the current model.
As its name suggests, the Galaxy Note 10.1 sports a 10.1in screen, which is built around a 1280 x 800 IPS LCD panel. There's a 1.4GHz dual-core CPU in there too, running Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Like the 5in Note, the 10in version is a phone, of sorts, too, packing 21Mb/s HSPA+ 3G connectivity. It has dual-band 2.4/5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi on board too.
How is all that different from Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1? Beyond some small variations in spec, it really just boils down to the presence of a stylus.

Yes, the input aid we once thought capacitive touchscreens had done away with once and for all is back, here to tap into the S Note and S Planner apps Samsung installed into the 5in Note.
The 583g Galaxy Note 10.1 will be out later this year. ®
COMMENTS
great!
Bringing back a stylus for a tablet is one of the best things samsung have done. If you want to do anything more than consume content you would have to be a fool to choose anything else over this :)
Re: Stylus?
Had Palm PDAs for over 10 years now and never lost a stylus. Had a Compaq Concerto before that and never lost the stylus. Just what are you doing with them?
A stylus expands the things you can do on a small screen so not sure if I am more enamoured of a 10.1 over the 5 inch Note, but - as always - it depends what you are using it for. As someone mentioned above, to simply consume entertainment, finger is enough, but for real input you need more.
I notice that the Lenovo Thinkpad comes with an optional stylus for business use - abyone know how many are being sold without one?
Might work
.. as long as there are decent drawing apps supporting it, AND it can disregard palm touches when using the stylus.
This is also useful when remotely accessing a PC, in lieu of the mouse on the other end.
Re: Re: great!
To our anonymous friend.
It's not easy typing with an onscreen keyboard either. Especially one-handed, as tablets tend to be used. So handwriting recognition is a pretty good option.
From experience of my old Windows tablet and an iPad, I'd say that frustration sets in after 1-2 paragraphs with an onscreen keyboard. But with a stylus you can get 4 or 5 in, before it starts to get annoying. That was with Vista's handwriting recognition, which was pretty good (once trained).
So if Samsung have got it to work, then hooray for them! I barely missed Flash, when I dumped my tablet PC for an iPad, and not even the physical keyboard that often. But I miss the stylus most days.
Re: Re: Stylus?
Some of that software has existed for sometime for use on Windows tablets.
Most of the really interesting stuff I do on computers is to do with editing photos, creating images and diagrams and writing/editing music. None of them are terribly easy without a stylus. I also have no trouble writing for hours with a tablet pen/stylus. There's no reason you have to use a toothpick-sized one - there are plenty which are the same shape/weight as a regular pen or pencil.

