Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2

Introduction

Samsung's pole position in smartphones doesn't necessarily mean a win in tablets but it sure is an advantage and the Koreans won't give up on it easily. The Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 is standing at the very top of a lineup, whose fourth generation has hit the fast lane again after a less than impressive showing last season. This here Note Pro has unique size and all the S Features the company has developed so far.

The tablet's business aspirations are made clear by the KNOX enterprise security feature and rich app package that includes a full-blown office document editor, collaboration tools and even subscriptions to business publications.

There's an artistic side to it too, enabled by the S Pen and an advanced drawing app, while the Multi-window split-screen multitasking has grown to support up to four apps at a time (made possible by the larger screen). And that's before the floating apps come in.

Key features

• 12.2" 16M-color Super Clear PLS capacitive touchscreen of 2560 x 1600 px resolution
• Wi-Fi only model: quad-core 1.9 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7, Mali-T628MP6 GPU; Exynos 5420 chipset
• LTE model: quad-core Krait 400 processor at 2.3GHz, Adreno 330 GPU; Snapdragon 800 chipset
• 3GB of RAM
• Android OS v4.4 KitKat with TouchWiz UI
• S Pen input and great software backend
• One of a kind split-screen multitasking and pop-up mini apps
• Quad-band GPRS/EDGE/HSPA and hexa-band LTE connectivity Cat.4
• 32/64 GB of built-in memory
• 8 MP autofocus camera, 3264x2448 pixels, geo-tagging
• 1080p video recording @60fps (LTE model) / 1080p video recording @30fps (Wi-Fi model)
• 2MP front-facing camera; 1080p videos
• Side-mounted stereo speakers
• Wi-Fi 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Direct, dual-band, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Stereo Bluetooth v4.0
• HDMI TV-out (adapter required), USB host (adapter required), Ethernet (adapter required)
• microSD card slot
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Infrared port
• GPS with A-GPS support; GLONASS, digital compass
• 1080p XviD/MKV video support with subtitles
• Accelerometer, three-axis Gyroscope sensor
• Office document editor preinstalled
• 9,500mAh Li-Po battery

Main disadvantages

• Sky-high starting price
• Size will put some people off
• Relatively poor audio and video codec support
• Air view works with S-Pen only, no thumb support
• Notification area not optimized for the large screen

The size of the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 is controversial, but Samsung already has the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014). It's also the feature that sets it apart in a good way - some people prefer larger laptops to tiny ultrabooks and that carries over to tablets as well. The work you did on the office PC just looks different when shown on a small 10" screen.

   
Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 in our office

We've seen Android tablets try to wedge into the ultrabook market by adding a detachable QWERTY keyboard. Those efforts brought mixed results, but will a bigger screen do better?

This is a gamble for Samsung, but the company can afford it - the Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) are there to catch the users the Note Pro 12.2 will miss. The Galaxy Note phablet was a gamble too and look how that turned out.

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The 10 best apps for your Samsung GALAXY Note 3

1. Magisto Video Editor

Free – Get it here

It is easy to capture video using the GALAXY Note 3 – you can even do it in full 4K Ultra HD – but making a watchable video can take a fair bit of skill. This is, after all, why they pay Steven Spielberg the big bucks.

Magisto is an almost magical app that will actually edit your videos for you, automatically choosing the best shots and combining them to make a great-looking whole. The app adds stabilisation to wobbly camera work, adds in photos (including Instagrams) and uses facial recognition to pick out important people in your movies and match them across several clips.

Magisto uses colourful filter effects as well as soundtracks (using your own music or a library of free tracks) and has almost a sixth sense for what will look good. You can export the finished clips to YouTube, social media or your email app.

2. Real Racing 3

Free – Get it here

Real Racing 3 is one of the most graphically taxing games available for Android devices. Most phones and tablets struggle when trying to display this game on its highest detail settings but the Note 3's combination of Quad-Core processor and 3 GB of RAM means that this free racing game plays as smoothly as butter.

3. SketchBook Pro

£3.13 – Buy it here

Drawing apps for smartphones are fairly commonplace, but SketchBook Pro is a professional-quality drawing program designed by industry leaders Autodesk.

The app offers you over 100 customisable brushes, a full colour palette and the ability to draw on huge, multi-megapixel canvasses. The brush handling can take advantage of the S Pen's support for pressure sensitivity and each drawing can be split into layers that may be edited separately and then combined.

4. MyScript Calculator

Free – Get it here

What we wouldn't have given for this app when we did our Maths A-Level. MyScript Calculator makes brilliant use of the S Pen and handwriting capture, using them to create a unique 'calculator' that lets you simply write out a formula for the Note 3 to solve.

The app understands trigonometry, logarithms and mathematical constants like pi. You can even scratch out corrections and the app will re-evaluate the formula.

5. PlayCall

Free – Get it here

Whether you're an armchair sports fan, an under-12's soccer coach or a Premiership manager, PlayCall offers a simple way to sketch out tactics and set plays on a diagram of the pitch, using the S Pen or your fingertip. The app covers football (UK and US), basketball, tennis and baseball.

Bring an element of professionalism to your post-match pub arguments by using PlayCall to illustrate exactly why that goal was offside.

6. Flipaclip

Free – Get it here

Have you ever made a flipbook animation using the corner of a notepad? With Flipaclip you can do the same thing on your Note 3, only better!

Draw each frame of your animation using the S Pen, with the same 'onion skin' outlines of previous frames that professional animators use. You can select or draw a background, edit individual frames and watch your creation on the Note 3's expansive screen before sharing via YouTube or other social platforms.

7. SIGNificant Signature Capture

Free – Get it here

You can of course use the S Pen to sign your name in S Note or even Action Memo, but SIGNificant actually treats your scribble as a proper signature, capturing additional biometric data such as acceleration, speed, and rhythm to confirm that your signature is indeed your own.

You can use the app to sign documents, and it will even insert your scrawl into a PDF if you need to fill out a form that you've downloaded.

8. S-PEN Voice PRO

£2 – Get it here

This useful app won first prize in the S Pen category of Samsung's 2012 Smart App Challenge. Designed for students or anyone that ever has to sit through a lecture or interview, S-PEN Voice PRO lets you write using the S Pen while recording audio via the Note 3's microphone.

Notes and their accompanying audio clips can be labelled or shared. A simple but effective idea, S-PEN Voice PRO is a must-have if you have ever scribbled down a note, only to forget about the context.

9. MX Player

Free – Get it here

(or £3.70 for the Pro version – here)

Samsung ships the GALAXY Note 3 with an excellent video player, but if you download a lot of unusual video formats – or just want to try an alternative – then MX Player is one of the best around.

MX Player can take advantage of the Note 3's Quad-Core processor to boost performance, ensuring smooth playback of even highly-compressed formats like Matroska (.MKV) files. It has an intuitive gesture-based interface that makes it easy for you to zoom in and out, skip forward and back and adjust volume and brightness levels.

10. Evernote

Free – Get it here

For the first time, Samsung has tightly integrated its S Note app with the pre-installed and popular notebook app, Evernote. Notes and clippings made with the S Pen can be instantly synced with your Evernote account. GALAXY Note 3 owners will also get a boost in the amount of data they are allowed to sync every month to allow them to get the most from the service.

The Evernote app on the Note 3 can be used to further manipulate and file your notes and makes it easy to share your ideas with other devices or across the web.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 concept packs flexible screen and aluminium unibody

The next flagship Galaxy S smartphone will be a radical break with form. Or at least it will be if the Samsung-fixated sorts at galaxys5info.com have anything to do with it.

A designer at the site has worked up a concept phone packing the flexible screen technology that’s been earmarked for Samsung phones for what feels like ages. But which has been omitted so far, presumably because it’s not market-ready yet.

The 5.3-inch flexible OLED YOUM screen wraps around the edges of the phone, with touch-sensitive controls where you’d normally expect to find a physical volume rocker. The standard physical home button has gone the way of all flesh too and is replaced by a touch sensor.

Interestingly given the rash of criticism Samsung copped for the Galaxy S3 and S4's 'cheap-feeling' plastic construction, the creator of the concept imagines the S5 packing a lavish unibody aluminium build, which is waterproof and dustproof.

That’s something that’s not totally out of the question in the light of Samsung’s attempt to give the recently launched Note 3 a more premium feel by incorporating a leather back panel. It's also consistent with rumours that metal casings were considered for the S4, before being rejected due to manufacturing issues.

And of course because this is strictly in the realms of fantasy, this handset's spec sheet is wonderfully lavish. Think: 16-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, a 2GHz Exynos 5 OctaCore processor and Android 4.4 Kit Kat out of the box.

Not enough for you? It's also home to quad-surround speakers, wireless charging and a 3,200mAh Li-ion battery that delivers “50% more battery life than the current Galaxy S4”. With smartphones’ disappointing longevity remaining the industry’s dirty little secret, the latter is something that we'd welcome.

For what it's worth, we really like the design. Not least because it deviates from the big-black-slab school of phone design that's all-too dominant right now. But we want to know what you think. Tell us in the comments section below.

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Samsung Galaxy Round to be first flexible phone?

The name of the first-ever flexible screen-toting smartphone might just have leaked online, ahead of its debut later this month.

According to sources cited by South Korean site Asiae, Samsung will opt for the name 'Galaxy Round', which we’re guessing alludes to the curved effect of the display.

The report, which puts the phone's asking price at $900, also claims that it's spec sheet will closely resemble the Galaxy Note 3 and that it will be made in very limited quantities.

This chimes with earlier leaks that claimed this was down to low production yields for the screen tech, as well as Samsung's wariness of overcommitting to technology that has yet to be properly tested with the public.

JK Shin, co-CEO at Samsung Electronics, is reputed to have told Korean press sorts to expect the tech giant’s first flexible smartphone this week.

The company, which was joined by LG in making a firm announcement about flexi-screen tech earlier today, has been touting bendy phones as concept devices at trade shows for years.

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Six-way camera shootout: Smartphone roulette

Six-way camera shootout: Smartphone roulette

Introduction

Camera shootouts are a proud GSMArena tradition and the latest edition features by far the most technologically advanced cameraphones yet. We have large sensors, sky-high resolution, optical image stabilization, clever image processing and a selection of cool tricks all in pocketable packages with flagship-grade hardware and software.

Six top notch phones, three smart platforms, and a total just shy of a hundred million pixels, prepare to meet the contenders.

Obviously, this shootout just has to include the Nokia Lumia 1020 - it took over from the 808 PureView as the most advanced cameraphone with a camera, inheriting all the benefits of the other PureView phones so far (the PureView 808 and the Lumia 920). The 1/1.5" optically stabilized sensor with the whopping 41MP of resolution is one of its kind and the xenon flash is equally rare these days.

Sony is also aiming high without crossing any lines in terms of practicality. The Japanese went ahead and put the largest sensor that would fit in an 8.5mm slim phone, and the result is quite impressive: a 1/2.3" 20.7MP imager, which may not have optical image stabilization, but it sure doesn't have a bulge on the back either. We had to get a second Z1 unit for this shootout as the first one had some issues with its lens but now the promising cameraphone can show its full potential.

Then there are the other Android hopefuls, which stick to the well proven Sony-made 13MP sensors. The LG G2 spices things up with optical stabilization plus 1080p video capture @ 60fps. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 trumps that with 2160p video capture as well as 1080p @ 60fps, but it skips the OIS.

The updated Apple iPhone 5s camera is in the ring too - it has a larger sensor and brighter optics compared to the last generation, but the droids seem leaps and bounds ahead on paper. But that's not what we are after here - it's the real life performance that matters and the iPhones have managed to deliver more than their specs sheets suggest.

Finally, the HTC One is the oldest phone we're putting to the test but it's the first Android to include OIS and its different approach is certainly interesting to compare. Using fewer but large pixels (dubbed UltraPixels) goes against the grain, and we are interested to see how it works out.

Obviously we'll be testing the still photo and video recording prowess of all six phones, in both good and bad lighting scenarios. We're also including some of the commonly used features like HDR and panorama, and even pitting Nokia's video zoom against Samsung's take on the feature. This one is shaping as a one intense competition.

Still camera hardware and features

Camera features fall into two categories - hardware and software features. The hardware obviously creates the base of what can be achieved (e.g. great low-light shooting thanks to brighter optics or shake-free photos with optical image stabilization), with the software building on that by allowing better control of the camera or using the robust chipset to create fun effects.

	Galaxy Note 3	LG G2	Xperia Z1	Lumia 1020	iPhone 5s	HTC One
Resolution	13MP	13MP	20.7MP	5MP / 38MP	8MP	4MP
Aperture	f/2.2	f/2.4	f/2.0	f/2.2	f/2.2	f/2.0
Sensor size	1/3"	1/3"	1/2.3"	1/1.5"	1/3"	1/3"
Flash	LED	LED	LED	LED, xenon	"True Tone" dual-LED	LED
Stabilization	Digital	Optical	Digital	Optical	Digital, video only	Optical
Shutter key	Volume rocker + voice	Voice	Yes	Yes	Volume rocker	Volume rocker
Controls	-	-	-	Manual	AE/AF lock	AE/AF lock
HDR	Yes	Yes	Yes (8MP only)	No	Yes	Yes
Panorama	Yes + spherical	Yes + spherical	Yes	Yes	Yes, HDR	Yes
Other	Dual shot, Animated photo, Sound & shot, Drama shot, object removal	Dual shot, Time catch, object removal	AR effect, Info eye, Timeshift burst	4x lossless digital zoom, mechanical shutter, EV bracketing, Cinemagraph, object removal, Action shot	Unlimited Burst mode	Zoe, Action shot, object removal, Sequence shot

Let's go over the hardware first, as that's the most important part by some distance. The Nokia Lumia 1020 obviously leads the charge here - it's the one area where this phone is miles ahead of the competition.

It has a massive sensor to begin with - a little over 50% bigger in terms of surface area compared to the closest competitor (Xperia Z1) and has double the resolution. The Xperia is almost an exception like the Lumia 1020 itself, the norm is 1/3" sensors - a quarter the surface area of the 1020 sensor - and anywhere between 3x and 10x fewer pixels.

It also has a fairly wide aperture - f/2.2 - which is impressive considering the sensor size. The Xperia Z1 and HTC One have f/2.0 lenses, though that is in part thanks to the smaller sensors. The only camera here that has a slower than f/2.2 aperture is on the LG G2 with f/2.4.

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