Samsung has launched its latest mobile device, the Galaxy Note…but journalists can’t decide what it is. Daniel Ashdown, analyst at Juniper research, takes a closer look…
Is it a Smartphone? Is it a Tablet? No, it’s a ‘Note’ – Samsung’s Galaxy Note, to be precise, and a new category of device according to Engadget. Or, it’s a ‘phone-tablet hybrid’, says TechRadar. And just one more: CNET call it a ‘tablet phone’. I am sure there are many other categorisations if you surf for longer than I did, but Samsung’s new device – as I shall refer to it for now – has a 5.3 inch display, and has left journalists scrambling for ways to categorise it.
As an analyst it also gives us something to think about: where do we forecast it? In our recent Smartphones report, we categorised a Smartphone – from a display perspective at least – as a device with a display size of up to 5 inches. We chose this benchmark because this was the largest display size available on a Smartphone, with the Dell Streak 5 marking the upper-end of the market. Until the Galaxy Note, there wasn’t much else from the Streak 5 up until one gets the beginning of the Tablet at 7 inches.
We’re willing to up the limit of a Smartphone though and include the Galaxy Note. For one reason, it runs Google’s Android OS version 2.3 (Gingerbread), and not 3.0 (Honeycomb) – a dedicated Tablet release. More importantly though it is a phone in the strictest sense, in that it can be held up to the ear – of course, it will be up to consumers to make the final decision on this as to whether this is a comfortable size.
One feature of note – if you’ll excuse the pun – is the built-in stylus, blurring the picture a little (given this is more a Tablet feature, than a Smartphone one). Nevertheless, we’ll let this slide for our definition, and it will be a welcome addition for business users, and app developers – with Samsung having launched an SDK for the stylus. While Dell’s Streak remained a niche device, Samsung’s wider brand presence in the Smartphone market could make this one a winner.
By Daniel Ashdown
Analyst
Juniper research
www.juniperesearch.com
