Samsung Galaxy Note (2011 smartphone)

Size comparison of various smartphones and tablets. Order from top to bottom: Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC Titan, the Samsung Galaxy Note itself, LG Optimus Pad, and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The Galaxy Note's hardware design is similar to the Samsung Galaxy S II, with a plastic-based construction, a hardware home button and capacitive menu and back keys. It was made available in "Carbon Blue", "Ceramic White",[7] and pink colour finishes.[8] [9][10] The device is 9.7 mm thick with a weight of 178 g.[10] Power and volume keys are located on the horizontal sides of the device, the headphone jack is located on the top, and a compartment for the stylus is located on the bottom corner.[10] The rear cover can be exposed to access the battery compartment, as well as SIM and microSD card slots.[10] The device includes a removable 2500 mAh Li-On battery.[10]

The Galaxy Note features a 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED Wide XGA display, with a display resolution of 800 x 1280 (285 pixels per inch), as well as Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL).[3][10] It is sized between smartphones such as the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Tab 7.0 tablet; this form factor was nicknamed a "phablet" by the press.[11] The Galaxy Note uses a dual-core Exynos system-on-chip, with two ARM Cortex-A9 CPU cores clocked at 1.4 GHz, a Mali-400 MP graphics core, and 1 GB of RAM.[10] It includes either 16 or 32 GB of internal storage expandable via a microSD card.[10] The Galaxy Note includes an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.[10]

The Galaxy Note includes a stylus branded as the S Pen, which is stored in a compartment on the lower panel of the phone. The Galaxy Note's display includes an active digitizer by Wacom, with 128 levels of pressure sensitivity.[9][10][12] The pen can replace the use of a finger in situations where precision is needed, but the device is also bundled with apps designed for use with the stylus. A button on the side of the pen can be used to activate special pen-oriented features and gestures in the system software.[10]

The Galaxy Note originally shipped with Android 2.3.5 "Gingerbread" and Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz software suite. The home screen was tweaked to take advantage of the larger screen size, using a five-column grid for app shortcuts and widgets rather than four.[10] The software includes features designed for use with the stylus, including handwriting input, and "Quick Memo" (accessed by double-tapping the screen when holding the stylus button down), which opens a virtual sticky note in a window on top of the current app. Quick Memo notes are saved in the S Memo app, which allows users to type, write, or draw notes and drawings, attach voice messages, and annotate screenshots.[10][13] The device is also bundled with Polaris Office, and the game Crayon Physics Deluxe—which can leverage the pressure sensitivity of the stylus.[10][13]

In May 2012, Samsung began to distribute an update to Android 4.0.4 "Ice Cream Sandwich" (which itself added system-level support for pen input)[14] to the Galaxy Note. It upgrades the TouchWiz software to match the version introduced by the Galaxy S III.[15][16]

In October 2012, Samsung began to distribute Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" for the Galaxy Note in South Korea[17] and some other parts of the world.

The Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" update (Android 4.1.2) became the last shipping official OTA update for the Galaxy Note, retrofitting functionality such as pop-up play, the ability to play video in a movable and resizeable floating picture-in-picture pop-up window.[18]

Some unofficial Android OS (Custom ROM) development for the Galaxy Note such as third-party fork Lineage OS is available on XDA Forums.

Another variant of the Galaxy Note capable of LTE connectivity was released exclusively in the United States and Canada. The variant was first released on AT&T on 19 February 2012 in the US,[19] while being simultaneously released on Telus, Bell, and Rogers on 14 February 2012 in Canada.[20] Although commonly referred to as the Galaxy Note LTE, the official model number is SGH-I717, differentiating it from the original N7000 and the Korea-exclusive LTE variant.[21] In addition to LTE connectivity, Samsung made several modifications to the phone. Externally, the physical "home" button and the two touch-sensitive buttons on the front of the phone were replaced by four touch-sensitive buttons. Internally, the chipset was changed to the Qualcomm MSM8660 Snapdragon, which is significantly slower than the original Exynos 4 Dual 45 nm (4210) chipset.[22] The Snapdragon 3 SoC features a dual-core 1.5 GHz Scorpion CPU and an Adreno 220 GPU.[21] FM radio was removed.[22] All other phone specifications remained identical to the original N7000.

In December 2011, Samsung announced that one million Galaxy Notes were shipped in less than two months, and that a North American variant would be available in February 2012.[23] In January 2012, the US model of the Galaxy Note was featured at the 2012 CES in Las Vegas, allowing press to get an early look at the new device.[24]

As of the first quarter of 2012 from January to March, 5 million had been sold.[25] As of 1 June 2012, Samsung announced that 7 million had been shipped.[26] As of 15 August 2012, Samsung announced that 10 million devices had been sold.[1]