Samsung has officially unveiled Galaxy Gear smartwatch, the Galaxy Note 3 smartphone and the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet during an event technology trade show, IFA in Berlin, Germany on Wednesday.
| The Galaxy Gear is not a phone. Instead, it links up with Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets to let users know when they receive a call, text message or e-mail. It relies on a Bluetooth connection to your Samsung Galaxy device in order to do most of its connected work. When it goes on sale later this month, the Gear will be compatible with the freshly announced Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition, while software updates for the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S III, and Galaxy Note II are in the works to introduce compatibility there as well. That new software should begin rolling out from October, depending on local carriers. |
For specs, the Samsung Galaxy Gear has a 1.63-inch Super AMOLED display with a thrifty 320 x 320 resolution, a single-core 800MHz Exynos processor, 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of internal storage, a metal face and buckle, and a selection of six different shades of adjustable wrist band. It has a 1.9-megapixel camera and speaker built into the wrist strap, and there’s a microphone on board for making calls over a Bluetooth smartphone connection.
Samsung set the price of its Galaxy Gear at $299 and it will begin shipping to 140 countries on Sept. 25. The U.S. and Japan won't get the Gear until October.
Returning to the star of the show, Samsung also unveiled its Galaxy Note 3, a combination smartphone and tablet computer with a 5.7-inch screen — larger than the current model’s 5.5-inch screen — as well as a 2.3 GHz processor, 3 GB of RAM and an eight-core Exynos Octa chipset, making it a very powerful phone indeed. The phone is expected to run Android 4.3, Jelly Bean. The large-screened Note phones have come with a stylus or pen for taking notes.
Going on sale this fall, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is encased in a textured, leather-effect rear with stitching around the edge. Like the Note 3 it's decked out in the style of an expensive wallet, and coupled with the classy metal rim, it doesn't look half bad. At just 7.9mm thick and weighing 535g, the heavy-duty specs feel light in the hands. A 10-inch tablet gives you a bigger screen to enjoy movies and games. For quick and dirty tasks without leaving the app you're in, some apps can be called up in a corner then sent packing until needed again. The Note's Multi Window feature divides the screen in half between two apps of your choice -- although not all apps currently support multitasking -- allowing you to drag and drop text, images links, and more from one app to another without having to constantly leave one and switch to the other. You can even have the same app open in two windows, such as browsing two different Web sites or IM chatting to two different people. Set into the strokable leather-effect case is an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash, complemented by a 2-megapixel camera in the front for video chat. The 3G and Wi-Fi versions of the Galaxy Note 10.1 promises a 1.9GHz octa-core chip and 3GB of RAM, but once again the choice of chip will vary depending on where you are. Samsung has yet to confirm full details.
Soure: C-Net | Washington Post
