Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile

Samsung Galaxy Note: Giant phone or tiny tablet?

By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Here’s an interesting, albeit unsurprising development: Samsung’s announced the newest member of its Galaxy lineup of smartphones and tablets. It’s a giant phone. It’s a tiny tablet. Either way, Samsung hopes it will cater to consumers who don’t want to carry around a pair of devices but still have extra-large pockets.

The Galaxy Note is nominally a smartphone, albeit with a massive 5.3 inch HD Super AMOLED display. With a host of tablet-like features, Samsung’s taken to rather breathlessly calling the Note “the next chapter of the mobile industry.” While that may be a particularly egregious bit of PR fluff, the phone’s giant size and the inclusion of Samsung’s digital S pen for on-screen scribing do add to the smartphone/tablet conversation.

Recommended Videos

It’s also 4G: The Note will have variants for both HSPA+ and LTE.

Related

The Galaxy Note’s biggest drawing point is its display. It’s simply the biggest screen anyone’s ever put in a smartphone, and while it truly is a massive thing to hold against your head, it does offer real advantages. Samsung promises a 180 degree viewing angle, which should make for more relaxed and less-squinty video sharing. The 1280×800 resolution also means less zooming and scrolling when surfing the web and dealing with any business-related tasks like going over PowerPoints. It’s also slimmer than you might expect at 9.65mm thick.

On the hardware side of things, the Note runs a 1.4GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of built in storage. It’s slated to ship with Android 2.3, although that may change given the current state of the Apple-Samsung lawsuit battle. The Note has a pair of cameras, one with 8MP on the rear and a 2MP device on the front.

In a throwback to the PDA days (and hinting at its intended professional demographic), the Note has a host of productivity software as well as a built-in stylus that slides right into the phone’s body. The S Pen allows users to scribble to their heart’s content without using their clumsy fingertips. The included S Memo software offers a platform to combine pictures, audio and handwritten notes and drawings that can be packaged and sent via text or email.

So what we’ve got is a giant phone with a high-resolution screen that offers some of the productivity features that made PDAs popular way back when. Is that a successful combination? We think so. With tablets having solidified their place in the market long ago, there certainly users who would like the functionality of a tablet without carrying (or paying for) a second device. For those who can get past the enormity of the device, the Galaxy Note takes the best things about a smartphone and makes them bigger.

Editors' Recommendations

Derek Mead
Derek Mead
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Best Samsung tablet Memorial Day deals: Get an iPad Mini rival for $99
Target app displaying in a small window on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra.

If you've been looking for a quality iPad alternative to save some money, these deals are what you're looking for. They're a part of Samsung Memorial Day deals and the good news is that they've popped early. You can also check out our listing of iPad Memorial Day deals to put the two lines' deals head to head. In any event, if you want to save several hundred off of a convenient, portable screen or even get one for under $100, this is a great time to do so.
Best Samsung tablet Memorial Day deals
The Target app on the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra Joe Maring / Digital Trends

While early Memorial Day tablet deals cover a lot of ground, if you're interest in Galaxy Tab products, these are the best Memorial Day sales that we're seeing at this time. Many of these deals come straight from the pages of the best Samsung tablets, in case you want to make a comparison shop. Note that the S9 FE is less costly that the S8's in the list, as it is a paired down machine in terms of power. Of all of the Galaxy Tab products available in the early Memorial Day deals that we've uncovered so far, the most powerful is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, which is a fantastic screen but a bit expensive to buy at regular price. In other words, now is the time to grab it if you ever will. Also, while this isn't true for all of the models listed below, if you aren't happy with the initial configuration of the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra (maybe you want more RAM or storage) you can feel free to poke around the options quite a bit. Most of the other configurations are, at least at this time ahead of Memorial Day, on sale too.

Read more
Get this Samsung tablet for under $100 for Memorial Day
Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite in the hands.

While some of the best tablets can compete with budget laptops in terms of what they can do, that performance comes at a cost that some folks might not need. If you just want something simple for streaming or reading, you don't need to grab the best of the best, and something like the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite is perfect for that. Not only is it budget-friendly, but it also has a great early Memorial Day deal on it from Walmart that brings the price down even further. While it usually goes for $159, Walmart is discounting it down to just $99, saving you a whopping $60 in the process.

Why you should buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite
While the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite may not be the best of devices, there's a lot to love about it, such as the fact that you get a pretty solid 8.7-inch for less than $100. It does run a lower 1340 x 800 resolution, but that's not too bad on a smaller screen where you likely won't notice it; plus, it does mean you use less bandwidth to stream content. Interestingly, it also has a fingerprint reader, which is pretty rare on more budget-friendly devices but makes opening and closing the tablet pretty easy.

Read more
Save 25% on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 for Memorial Day
A person holding the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, showing the top of the hinge.

While the foldable phone market has been booming in the last couple of years with entries like the OnePlus Open and the Motorola Razr, Samsung still remains the top dog when it comes to foldable phones. That means if you want the best of the best, you're going to want to go for a Galaxy Z Fold 5, which easily outperforms pretty much any other foldable phone. Of course, being a high-end phone, it does get pretty expensive, which is why this early Memorial Day deal from Amazon that brings it down to $1,350 from $1,800 is worth snatching up quickly.

Why you should buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5
What's interesting about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is that it's not actually a massive upgrade from the previous Galaxy Z Fold 4, at least not in the way that most flagship phones tend to be when the new generation comes in. As such, its new features may not look as great to those who have the Fold 4, but for those who are coming in fresh into the foldable world, it really knocks everything out of the park. For example, it has become a lot thinner than previous iterations, making it a lot easier to carry in your pocket without feeling like you're carrying a literal brick, and on top of that, the hinges have been improved to be even more quiet and long-lasting.

Read more