The original Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone has proved exceptionally popular despite analysts and “industry experts” claiming it would be too large to be well received by the general public. That handset offers a large 5.3 inch display, and debuted Samsung’s S Pen which allows you to write, doodle and draw on the screen. Native handwriting recognition technology was integrated into the smartphone/tablet, and those features have been passed on to the second generation Galaxy Note II.
Samsung improved screen size slightly to 5.55 inches and kept all the same popular features of the S Pen smart stylus. They added a few neat tricks, and made the stylist thicker and longer. The result is an S Pen that feels more natural in your hand, and the new Hover feature allows you to interact with the display without touching it. Simply hover the tip of the stylus just above the screen, and you receive contextual information, preview links and a small website magnification.
The new S Pen on the Galaxy Note II allows you to touch, hover, scribble and create original artwork, and is more intuitive to use. The pen proximity in relationship to the screen also provides a handy alert feature, letting you know visually and audibly when the smart stylus has strayed too far from home. With the Galaxy Note II, as soon as you remove the S Pen from its cradle, you receive a pop-up menu with S Pen related applications, providing you with instant access to your favorite and most used apps.
The Galaxy Note II handset also comes loaded with other features, and is the first smartphone from Samsung to launch with Android’s 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system out-of-the-box. The large display mentioned earlier runs 5.55 inches, with that Super AMOLED screen protected against everyday abuse by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 2. The screen is laid out in a 16 to 9 aspect ratio, widely regarded as the optimal viewing experience for True HD. The handset delivers a 720 x 1,280 pixel resolution and 16 million color representation.
The oversized 3,100 mA battery provides 12.0 days of power in standby mode, and a generous 15.0 hours of talk time from a full battery charge. The handset is powered by a quad core Exynos CPU which has been clocked at 1.6 GHz. A quad core ARM Mali 400 MP4 graphics processor is also on board, as is 2.0 GB of RAM system memory. Built-in storage runs 16 GB, but the built-in microSD slot allows for storage expansion. The Galaxy Note II also offers a rear facing camcorder of 8.0 megapixels, capturing video in 1,080P HD resolution. A front facing chat cam has been built-in as well, and a Stereo FM radio with RDS display capabilities is present.
