Smartphones may be all about touch these days, but that doesn’t mean Samsung is ready to bury the stylus just yet. After launching in Europe last Fall, AT&T is bringing the Galaxy Note and its gigantic pressure-sensitive 5.3-inch screen stateside, much to the delight of mobile Pictionary fans everywhere. Americans have one advantage however, with the addition of LTE hardware for next-generation 4G speeds.
But oversized phones weren’t the only mobile surprises Samsung had in store, however. A revamped Series 9 ultrabook was pictured on-stage too, but a 13-inch model was just the start.
The Galaxy Note is no mere pen-capable device. The included stylus is capable of 256 levels of pressure sensitivity—like a portable Wacom tablet—all on a 1200x800 pixel Super AMOLED display. Otherwise, you have dual-core 1.5GHz device with the addition of LTE. In fact, this was the second LTE device to be unveiled by AT&T and Samsung today, alongside the new Galaxy Tab 7.7.
As for its larger mobile products, Samsung has revamped its line of Series 9 notebooks. The 13-inch model remains, weighing just 2.1lbs at a thickness of half-an-inch. At a base cost of $1,399, you’re getting a 1.6GHz Core i5, 4GB of RAM and an Intel HD 3000 GPU. This time, however, Samsung has also seen fit to offer a 15-inch model—which, by minimizing the size of the bezel, they’ve managed to fit in a 14-inch chassis. The device is a bit thicker, and weighs an extra pound, but is otherwise the same as the 13-inch model in terms of specs. That Samsung decided not to consider the Series 9 as an ultrabook is surprising, as it definitely fits the mold.
Instead, that honour goes to Samsung’s new Series 5 ULTRA line, which, at around 0.75-inches, are actually a little thicker. Available in 13 and 14-inch configurations starting $899, you get the same model of Core i5 processor as the Series 9 models, but with an AMD Radeon GPU—not to mention an optical drive, and a bevy of HDMI, VGA and USB 3.0 ports.