Even though the phone was officially announced on September 19, we have known for some time that the Galaxy Note II second-generation iteration of the popular Galaxy Note 4G smartphone/tablet was on its way. The wait is now over, as that handset arrived on October 24 on the T-Mobile HSPA+ network in the United States, with that wireless service provider claiming speeds up to a very impressive 42 MB per second. The handset is the first Samsung smartphone to deliver the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system out-of-the-box.
Jelly Bean is most noted for being a much smoother and quicker OS than Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0 operating system, and also for delivering the upgraded Google Now virtual assistant and contextual search engine. Delivered in your choice of either titanium gray or marble white, you can jot down directions or messages in your own handwriting while surfing the web or even in the middle of a voice call, thanks to the smart stylus S Pen with native handwriting recognition technology that debuted on the original Galaxy Note 4G.
Slim at 0.37 inches (9.0 mm), the 5.55 inch Super AMOLED screen meshes Android 4.1 with the Samsung TouchWiz UI. The screen is the largest found on any smartphone, and is protected by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 2. A true HD video viewing experience is delivered with a 16:9 aspect ratio, and display resolution runs 720 x 1,280 pixels. That resolution is delivered at 265 pixels per inch, and the screen employs more than 16 million separate colors to display visuals.
Up to 15.0 hours of talk time is possible from a single charge of the oversized 3,100 mA battery on board, and this is roughly double the 4G industry average. Standby time runs 12.0 days, and a Samsung Exynos 4 chip set is the cornerstone of the hardware package. The Samsung Galaxy Note II 4G has at its core a quad core ARM Cortex A9 central processor which has been clocked at 1.6 GHz, and a separate ARM Mali-400 MP4 GPU focuses exclusively on processing all graphics requests.
The 2.0 GB of RAM system memory is twice what the average 4G smartphone offers, and 16 GB of user accessible data storage are built-in. Storage can be expanded by connecting a microSD, microSDHC or microSDXC memory chip up to 64 GB in size. The handset contains a built-in YouTube video player and Stereo FM radio with RDS display, and popular online destinations Facebook, Twitter and Picasa have also been installed. The rear facing 8.0 megapixel camcorder records video in 1,080P HD resolution, with the front facing chat cam offering video call support.
You can save $120 and buy the Samsung Galaxy Note II for T-Mobile now starting at 299.99.
