Samsung had a third product to announce at its IFA press conference last night: the 2014 edition of the Galaxy Note 10.1. And all things considered, it’s a big upgrade over the previous edition of the tablet.
First and foremost, Samsung has vastly improved the display. The old Note 10.1 featured a PVA panel with a low 1280×800 resolution, but the 2014 edition includes a much more vibrant and pixel dense 2560×1600 screen. And it’s better than the screen used on the Nexus 10 too, which we found to be somewhat on the dull side.
The design has been tweaked too. The corners aren’t quite as rounded as they use to be. Instead, Samsung has gone with a look that’s very similar to the Galaxy Note 3, including the same soft touch leather back. Still, we can’t help but feel that the physical Home button and capacitive navigation keys look silly in landscape.
As for specs, Samsung hasn’t held back. The LTE version of the tablet includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC clocked at 2.3Ghz, 3GB of RAM, 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, and an improved S Pen. That definitely makes it the most capable 10-inch Android tablet out there right now, assuming you’re comfortable with the large size.
The software has seen some nice improvments too. Samsung’s Multi Window feature can now run multiple instances of the same app side by side, and drawing a window with the S Pen will let you run apps over each other for a more traditional multitasking approach.
Samsung says that the Note 10.1 2014 Edition will be available in white and black in Q3. The company didn’t give up pricing information, though.
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