Samsung’s generally successful attempt to blur the line between a smartphone and a tablet just got a US price and release date. We already knew that the 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Nexus was coming to AT&T, but the announcement at CES was scarce of any pricing and availability details.
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Take this with a grain of salt: an LA industry analyst is claiming that Samsung’s oversized smartphone will be heading to Verizon and Sprint, probably under the name Galaxy Journal. The 5.3-inch stylus-friendly Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone/tablet finally made it to North American shores last week with a big appearance at CES. The device is now confirmed to be released soon on AT&T, though no information was given on availability on other carriers.

The Galaxy Note is currently GSM only, so an initial AT&T release makes sense, but a CDMA/LTE version could be in the works so that the device can be launched on both Verizon and Sprint. Despite being the largest smartphone to date, Samsung had shipped over one million Galaxy Note units last year.

The Galaxy Note has 5.3-inch Super AMOLED 720p HD screen with a dual-core 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos processor powered by a decently sized 2,500mAh battery. The device does indeed challenge anyone’s perception of a phone, it is a really big device weighing 178g (6.3 oz). To convert people to believers, Samsung has included a Wacom-designed pressure sensitive S Pen stylus, an 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front and other nice features like GLONASS support.
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There have been a lot of rumors surrounding a potential release of the 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note tablet/phone in the US. Rumors culminated with a reportedly AT&T branded Galaxy Note press shot. Well, we can now say that Samsung’s behemoth is definitely coming to the US, judging from the large Galaxy Note advertisement taking up the entire entrance of the South Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center where CES 2012 is taking place.

Despite being the largest smartphone to date, the Galaxy Note has been a win for Samsung, which has managed to ship over 1 million units since its release. A success that can be accounted to its 5.3-inch Super AMOLED HD screen (though Pentile Matrix), super-speedy dual-core 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos processor and Wacom-designed pressure sensitive S Pen stylus. The Note has a respectable 2,500mAh battery, weighs 178g (6.3 oz) and measures 9.65mm (0.38 inches) thick. You’ll also find an 8-megapixel rear camera, capable of 1080p video, a 2-megapixel front shooter and even GLONASS support.
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Samsung has had a lot of success shipping its Android devices en masse. The Samsung Galaxy S II has broken all kinds of sales records and we are pretty sure the Galaxy Nexus is flying off the shelves now too. An unlikely win for the company, however, is the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note which falls somewhere between the being a smartphone and tablet.

It seems that the mantra ‘bigger is better’ is working out for Samsung, which has shipped over one million Galaxy Notes since its release in late October. Sales have been going well and are on the rise in Europe and Asia. US consumers have been importing the Galaxy Note from other markets but the announcement mentions that the device will launch officially on the other side of the Atlantic in 2012. No mention yet if it bring support for LTE however.
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The 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note tablet-phone (or is it phone-tablet) has only been out for a week now. Well, it took less than that for the device to get rooted and ClockworkMod (CWM) recovery to be installed. This means that you can run all sorts of applications requiring root and potentially install custom ROMs for the device or even overclock it. Rooting was performed by the never-tiring Android community and it has certainly helped that Samsung doesn’t go out of its way to lock-out its phones. The rooting methods are very similar to that of the established Galaxy S II, which explains why it was achieved so fast.

There are several ways to achieve root and install CWM recovery on the Galaxy Note. One method, involves downloading and running the zengRush Revolutionary tool, for one-click root — step-by-step instructions after the break.

A second method, proposed in the video also after the break, involves flashing CWM using a Windows PC and then installing the SuperUser zip through recovery. Be aware that, as always, taking the rooting and custom ROM route, involves the risk of ending up with a dead device.

Another, bigger disclaimer here is that, flashing a custom ROM could invalidate your warranty with Samsung. Similarly to the SGS II, the Galaxy Note has a flash counter, i.e. every time you flash a custom ROM or kernel to the Note the counter goes up by one. If something happens to your device and you send it in to Samsung, they might refuse to service it under warranty if you counter is not zero. Currently there is no way to reset the flash counter (though a method might be devised), so be careful with flashing any custom ROM before a method is confirmed.

So, with all that out of the way, if you are really sure you want to take the risk, fully charge your Galaxy Note, grab your USB cable and sit in front of your Windows PC (unfortunately no Mac instructions yet), and head over after the break for the full how-to.
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You can now watch the full 52 minutes and 55 seconds of Samsung’s London event showing off their Super AMOLED HD duo, the Galaxy Note and Galaxy Nexus. The Note was the star of the show, with Samsung representatives going over every detail of the 5.3-inch tablet-phone and embellishing over the S Pen stylus. However the last fifteen minutes were devoted to the upcoming Galaxy Nexus — if you missed it, you can watch the Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 event here.

You can find the video after the break. We should let you know that you can get the Galaxy Note right now in Europe (U.S. availability still under speculation), while the Galaxy Nexus will roll-out first in Europe on November 17th and a U.S. release will follow shortly after.
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Hot on the heels of availability news for Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note ‘tablet-phone’ is now shipping in Europe.

Amazon.de (Germany) now has the Samsung Galaxy Note in-stock, and you can order it from anywhere in Europe for EUR 561 ($797) including VAT, of course without a contract.

The Galaxy Note runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread on a dual-core 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos processor. The 5.3-inch Super AMOLED HD screen has a 1280×800 resolution (yes it’s Pentile Matrix, of course) and the phone comes together with a Wacom designed pressure sensitive stylus, named S Pen.

We love the fact that it’s sporting a relatively large 2,500mAh battery, so you can at least enjoy the big screen without much worry of running the battery down too fast. The Galaxy Note weighs 178g (6.3 oz) and measures 9.65mm (0.38 inches) thick.

You can check out our initial coverage here, while a lovely video demonstration of the Note’s drawing capabilities can be found here.
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So, here is something we missed when we initially looked at the new Galaxy Note; when we had another look at the official mini-site we noticed that Samsung has included support for GLONASS in addition to GPS.

GLONASS is a radio-based satellite navigation system, the Russian equivalent to the U.S.’s GPS. GLONASS was initiated during Soviet Union times but had then fallen into disrepair, it has since then been upgraded in various stages and can now begin to rival GPS — GLONASS is actually more accurate than GPS in northern latitudes.

The biggest benefits, however, come when you combine both systems together, GLONASS and GPS; this allows a device to get more accurate positioning and/or faster fix particularly in deep urban environments.

Now, the specifications for the Galaxy Note mention “A-GPS, Glonass”, so there is good possibility that Samsung can enable the device to use both, for better positioning. Well, we shall see soon, when the Note finally lands later this year.
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There are two things that make the Samsung Galaxy Note stand out, first is its incredible 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, and second, the stowable S Pen stylus. The S Pen is a pressure sensitive stylus which paired with a host of Samsung applications allows you to perform certain tasks, such as taking handwritten notes, but also to unleash your creativity by drawing directly on your phone’s screen.

Head over after the break to see a demo video of what someone with artistic inclinations can do on the Note.
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We’ve already expressed our excitement for Samsung’s mammoth new phone, the 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED Galaxy Note, in our previous coverage. Well the good folks over at Techblog.gr got the chance to run the Quadrant benchmark on the device at the IFA show floor and got some unsurprisingly impressive results.

The Note runs on a dual-core Samsung 1.4GHz processor and managed to score 3,624 on Quadrant, ever so slightly better than even then 1.2GHz Samsung Galaxy S II score, putting it ahead of every other Android smartphone in terms of processing performance.

It’s important to note, however, that the Galaxy Note features a screen resolution of 1280×800 pixels, meaning that it pushes 2.7-times for pixels than the Samsung Galaxy S II (with resolution 800×480). That alone makes the benchmark result even more impressive. You can see the benchmark for yourselves at around the 4.5-minute mark on the video after the break

Of course, performance doesn’t come cheap, the Samsung Galaxy Note is expected to hit Scandinavian shores — Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark — first, in November, with a price tag of around 670-750 euros ($1,000). The phone is then expected to arrive in the UK a the start of 2012 but no US availability in the horizon yet.
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Samsung has just announced a new Android device, the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note, which challenges our perceptions of what is a phone. This is the first smart phone to go past the 5-inch barrier, the Dell Steak featured a 5-inch screen but it has now been discontinued. The Galaxy Note however doesn’t feature just any type of screen but a surely gorgeous 1280×800 (that’s 285ppi) Super AMOLED (not Plus) screen together with a stowaway pressure sensitive stylus, named S Pen, which can be used for drawing and note taking. In fact Samsung will include a number of applications which will take advantage of the S Pen while also releasing an SDK for third-party developers.

The phone will need a lot of power to drive that kind of resolution, and that will be brought by an unidentified Samsung dual-core 1.4GHz processor powered by a large 2,500mAh battery. Despite the size, the phone will weigh 178g (6.3 oz) and measure 9.65mm (0.38 inches) thick.

The Galaxy Note will run Android 2.3 together with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI. Front and back cameras of-course with 2 and 8-megapixels resolution each, with the rear camera able to shoot 1080p video. The Note will support HSPA+ but we are hearing it will also be LTE-capable. We know that everyone will say its too big for a phone, but we like, no, we really like big screened phones, and we’d love to get this baby into our hands; hopefully we won’t look too silly talking to a big piece of slab.

Video after the break.
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