SAMSUNG UNPACKED IFA BERLIN 2012, 29 AUGUST 2012

Oooh, the magic of Samsung... At the Berlin IFA, Samsung cast a wonderful spell on the mobile industry despite the evil of rotten Apple!

President of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics, JK Shin showed off the second generation Galaxy Note to a stunned audience – including myself! I am due for an upgrade later this year and the Galaxy Note II will be a stunning Christmas present to myself! Memo to self: You deserve the best!

You may have realized that the Galaxy Note was an unexpected success due to its size, 5.3” of screen! You can’t get much bigger than that, 5.5” with the Note II! Samsung has slimmed down the bezel to add more screen! It’s not that much bigger than the original which is: 146.85 mm, 5.3” WXGA (1280 x 800, 285ppi) HD Super AMOLED. However it seems that in order to make a bigger, brighter, more vibrant screen cost effectively the resolution has to come down just a peg! The Note II has a screen resolution of 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED. It’s slightly taller, 151 x 80.5 mm.

I would imagine that the media focal point will be, “How silly will I look making a call from this mutant hybrid of a phone and tablet = phablet?” The truth is that once you get used to it making a call is nothing out of the ordinary! Why, in fact I have been delightfully surprised that I’ve seen a few women with the Galaxy Note and they make calls without appearing self-conscious! It’ll be the same with Galaxy Note II! From what I have witnessed it’s the BlackBerry fanatics that have a hard time with such a big screen! They don’t know what to do with it! As a result disgruntled BlackBerry users will jump ship to an iPhone as it is baby steps for them. But once you go big you can’t go back! Honestly, the web is such a fantastic experience, as is watching video, social networking and even doing some light office work on the Galaxy Note. Note II will be twice – three times the enjoyment!

Design-wise, it’s no surprise that it looks like a bigger Galaxy SIII! I didn’t bother to entertain so called leaked pictures of the Galaxy Note II! I do like it very much! The Galaxy Note II could be featured in a Sci-Fi movie – that’s how wonderful the design is! 

Get the tissues out to mop up your saliva... The Galaxy Note II: 

5.5” Super AMOLED screen (1,280 x 720) with a 16:9 screen ratio for viewing HD video!
1.6 quad-core processor!
2 GB RAM!
3,100 mAh of battery power!
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
3G and 4G networks!
Camera: Main (Rear): 8 Megapixel Auto Focus Camera with LED Flash, BSI Sub
(Front): 1.9 Megapixel VT Camera, BSI. Best Photo, Best Faces, Low light shot!
Advanced S Pen experience that combines the best of digital technology with analogue.

The memory options are 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB with an expandable micro SD memory slot up to 64 GB! But where’s the HDMI socket?

My contract can’t end soon enough!

Samsung also announced that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is coming to the following devices:
Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note 10.1 and the SIII. Hmmmm, what about the SII? Anyway, the Galaxy Note II comes in two colours, Marble White and Titanium Grey. I have to say that the Marble White version looks the best! It would have been nice to have had a Pink Rose option for the ladies! Yes, it’s true that some women are attracted to colour than features! C’mon, ladies... read up on your tech right here, right now!

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE
Well, the magic element was just a tad cheesy but it was fun! If that were Apple they’d fill the auditorium with cow-poop! I prefer the Samsung way of presentation! But the Galaxy SIII was the best as it was blessed by the eloquent Gadget Guru Suzy Perry!

JK Shin also introduced the rebirth of the camera: the Galaxy Camera! I think “rebirth” is very apt! Here’s another item on my Christmas list! If features a whopping 16MP! It’s not something that you’ll see on a smartphone – at least I don’t think so! It’s an Android based camera with the latest Jelly Bean Android 4.1 operating system! It is Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G and 4G compatible! Oooh, so that’s the UK future taken care of.

Get the issues out again...

Image Sensor: 16.3 effective megapixel 1/2.3" BSI CMOS

Lens: F2.8, 23 mm, 21x super long zoom16.3 effective megapixel 1/2.3" BSI CMOS

Display: 121.2 mm (4.8"), 308 ppi, HD Super Clear Touch Display

ISO: Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200

Memory: 8GB ＋ memory slot: micro SDSC, micro SDHC, micro SDXC

Image: JPEG format 16M, 14M, 12M Wide, 10M, 5M, 3M, 2M Wide, 1M

Video: MP4 (Video: MPEG4, AVC/H.264, Audio: AAC); Full HD 1920x1080 30fps; 1.4Slow motion Movie 720x480 120fps

Video Output: HDMI

Battery: 1,650 mAh – now is that battery removable?

Unfortunately, there’s no support for the RAW format! Maybe that’ll come in the Galaxy Camera Pro!?

I thought that Samsung would have introduced an iPod-like device... Nothing! Maybe such a player isn’t so revolutionary at this time. But I do believe that a Galaxy SIII-looking player does exist somewhere... Then Samsung did a switch to remind people that it is not investing in Android products alone! Samsung managed even more gasps from the audience with Windows 8 products that includes a smartphone! Oooooh...

ATIV WINDOWS 8 DEVICES
These new Samsung devices has made me rethink my disdain for Windows! I have been put off by Microsoft’s inconsistencies i.e. Windows attempts at self-updating that constantly results in error messages, Internet Explorer updates that renders the PC unusable and so on! Microsoft gets on my nerves! I have been thinking about basing my operations around an Android device! But these ATIV computers look very promising indeed...

ATIV Smart PC and Smart PC Pro that looks like a notebook, but unlike the notebook the keyboard can be detached! Lovely!

Then there’s the ATIV Tab, yes, a tablet!

The ATIV S smartphone! Check out the phone spec:

1.5 GHz dual-core processor

HSPA＋ 42Mbps 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100MHz

EDGE/GPRS 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900MHz

4.8 inch (121.9mm ) HD Super AMOLED

Windows Phone 8

Camera Main (Rear): 8 Megapixel Auto Focus Camera with LED Flash

Sub (Front): 1.9 Megapixel VT Camera

Video: Codec: H.263, H.264, WMV, MP4, M4V, MOV

Full HD(1080p) Playback & Recording

Audio: Codec: MP3, WMA, MP4, M4A, AAC, 3.5mm Ear Jack

Memory: 16 / 32GB User memory ＋ 1GB RAM, microSD (SDXC support)

Battery: Standard battery, Li-ion 2,300mAh

And finally a Series 9 notebook that looks really amazing and super-thin!

Yes, more stuff on my Christmas list... I am going to be broke! Lol!