Verge's Galaxy Note 10.1 Review

Nilay Patel on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1:

You can also open a few special apps side-by-side in "multiscreen" mode — the built-in browser, Samsung’s mail client, the S Note notes app, the video player, the gallery, and the bundled Polaris Office document editor. Unfortunately, you can’t run just any app in multiscreen mode, which greatly lowers the utility of this feature. I was hoping multiscreen would effectively create a pair of seven-inch displays and turn Android’s lack of proper tablet apps into a strength; phone apps look fine on the Nexus 7’s similarly-sized screen, after all. Sadly that’s just not the case, and multiscreen will remain largely unused if you are a rational person who wants to use Chrome and Gmail instead of Samsung’s less-powerful alternatives.

Lipstick on a pig. Samsung can pseudo-add as many new features as they want, but if they don't work like customers expect it will just lead to disappointment and disillusionment. If Apple implemented a feature in this manner the tech punditry would have a heyday. I guess the Android bar is just lower.

Galaxy Note 10.1

Sean Buckley:

Negri Electronics, the apparent one stop shop for hard-to-find tablets, is now offering pre-orders for Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 10.1.

I can't wait to see someone hold this thing up to their ear.

When Is 5 Million Not Really 5 Million?

Matt Brian:

The Samsung Galaxy Note has many detractors, it’s a 5.3-inch smartphone-cum-tablet that has to be seen (or played with) to be believed.

However, the device has topped 1 million sales within two months from its launch and today, the Korean vendor has announced it has already passed 5 million units sold in five months.

Umm… sorta. Samsung is kind of lying to us again, though. They love to use units shipped as units sold. The sentiment seems to be, "Once our resellers have them we consider them sold". I wonder if your resellers carry the same confidence. Samsung's site, linked to above, actually says (via Google Translate):

The end of October last year released "Galaxy notes" released five months after the global cumulative sales 5,000,000 (supply base) has been exceeded.

So, for sure not end users, just retailers who then try to sell them to end users. Got it.

Galaxy Note 10.1 Superior to New iPad, Says Samsung

This image came from Samsung at the release of the new iPad:

Am I missing something here? Their big claims to fame are the stylus (3.5 separate bullet points) and the fact that two apps can be run side-by-side (3.4 separate bullet points), and don't forget that little (1) which denotes that for apps to take advantage of this great feature they must be specifically coded to use that API. Which is only available on Samsung's devices. Device that are selling so poorly that they are literally being given away everywhere I look (and then being turned over on Craigslist for 1/2-2/3 their MSRP). Oh, and you can use it as a remote control. Oh! And you can hook up a mouse!!

A stylus and a mouse? The tablet revolution is complete.

(Via Neowin)

More on Samsung's Super Bowl Ad

Devin Coldewey:

Samsung makes a lot of great things, but the Note is not one of those things. It’s an awkward experiment that they felt could only break even on if they promoted it so relentlessly that people would have to believe it was a big-deal device. It’s a troubling trend and marks another point on the trend of CE companies competing awkwardly on either personality or spec. Few CE companies have any personality, unfortunately, and spec-sells are at best misleading and at worst a pack of lies. Samsung has no personality, and the Galaxy Note’s specs aren’t really salable. So they’re in the awkward position of selling by sheer visibility.