Samsung Galaxy Note

[webfact]

Take Note of the stylus with style

Paisal Chuenprasaeng

The Nation

Samsung's Galaxy Note has lots of great features, topped by the multi-talented S Pen

The Samsung Galaxy Note is a sleek smart phone with an impressively large high-definition screen and fast performance, as well as the fun feature of a stylus pen input.

Also called the GT-N7000, it packs a 5.3-inch HD Super Amoled screen with 1,280x800-pixel resolution in 16 million colours.

It's powered by a 1.4GHz Dual Core Processor and runs on Google's Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) operating system.

You get an eight-megapixel rear camera and a two-megapixel front camera, and 16 gigabytes of storage expandable with a microSD card up to 32GB.

Despite the large screen, the Galaxy Note is really light. It weighs 178 grams. And it's only 9.65mm thick. The design is quite sleek, with a large Gorilla Glass display in a metallic dark-grey rim. It looks great with the black plastic battery cover in nice patterns.

The Note is ideal if you want a smart phone with a bigger screen than most conventional phones but still smaller than a tablet.

You can tote it around without a special bag. You might read e-books and do a lot of online browsing on your tablet, but it's no fun getting portable with a screen of at least seven inches. I just popped the Note in my shirt pocket.

The Super Amoled screen is impressively bright. I could comfortably read text outdoors in the sunlight. It's HD too, so it's great for viewing photos and watching videos.

The impressive performance is thanks to that fast dual-core 1.4GHz. Preloaded applications move fast and videos and multimedia files play smoothly and without hesitation.

The screen and navigation controls are quite responsive and the menus and screens scroll very smoothly.

I tested it on TrueMove H's 3G network and could easily manage my contact lists on Gmail, Facebook and Twitter. Updating and reading feeds is fast and smooth. I checked my e-mail and watched YouTube clips without a hiccup.

The rear camera captures decent-quality photos, offering several settings just a compact camera, such as the Scene modes Portrait, Landscape, Night, Party/Indoor, Sunset, Dawn, Candlelight and Backlight. You can adjust the exposure and render the images negative, grey or sepia.

The Galaxy Note also functions as the ultimate portable MP3 player. There are several sound effects and equaliser settings - Concert Hall, Music Clarity, Bass Enhancement, Pop, Rock and Live. I especially love the 5.1-channel sound setting.

You get a headset that sounds great, with ample bass, but you can do better with your own premium headphones.

The Note has good voice quality, callers coming across very clearly.

You can connect to your PC via your home wireless network using the Samsung Kies Air application. With this you can download and upload photos and other files.

The battery is 2,500mAh, which on a single charge will run several applications in the background simultaneously for a whole day and only lose half its juice. I made no voice calls during this test, however.

Among the best of the Note's impressive features is the S Pen stylus, which deploys advanced pen-input technology with an array of functions, like pressure sensitivity, preciseness and speed. With the S Pen, you can easily sketch or write notes.

I input text in applications conveniently and accurately, including a Microsoft Word document using the pre-installed Polaris Office. The S Pen technology converted my handwriting into text, letter by letter, and no block lettering required.

The Galaxy Note comes with native applications that make most of the S Pen. S Planner keeps your schedule and tasks on a monthly calendar. S Memo is for taking notes as if you were actually writing on a piece of paper. These notes can then be saved as Jpeg files to be shared via e-mail or a social network.

S Memo offers several choices in line thickness and colours for drawing, and you can import photos or clip art. You can even record your voice - a reminder to check your notes later - although the voice can't be attached to the Jpeg file you share with others. Instead, send it via MMS.

With the S Pen and the pre-installed Photo Editor, you can also decorate snapshots with a doodle and a frame.

The S Pen will do screen captures conveniently, without the usual key combination that smart phones require. Just press the capture button on the pen and touch the pen tip to the screen.

Then you can edit the screen capture - crop it or jot notes on it. Imagine how handy this is when you want to send a map to your friends, for example. Pop open Google Maps, zoom into your location, capture the screen and write on it, "I'm right here!"

Your artistic talent is just getting started. Use Samsung Apps to download more free S-Choice drawing applications, such as OmniSketch and Zen Brush.

The Samsung Galaxy Note retails for Bt22,900.

Key specs

_ Network: HSPA+ 21Mbps: 850/900/1900/2100; EDGE/GPRS: 850/900/1800/1900

_ Processor: 1.4GHz Dual Core Processor

_ Display: 5.3-inch WXGA(1280x800) HD Super Amoled

_ OS: Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

_ Cameras: Main: 8MP with LED Flash; Front: 2MP

_ Video: Recording 1080p@24~30fps, playing 1080p@30fps; MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV, DivX, Xvid, VC-1

_ Audio codec: MP3, AAC, AMR, WMA, WAV, FLAC, OGG

_ Memory: 16GB Internal Memory + microSD up to 32GB

_ Battery: Li-ion 2,500mAh

_ Size: 146.85x82.95x9.65mm

_ Weight: 178g

-- The Nation 2011-12-10