Samsung introduces Galaxy Note Pro tablet with 12.2 inch screen

28 Feb 2014

Apart from new smart watches and Galaxy S5 phone that Samsung announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, another product of interest is its new 12.2-inch tablet, Galaxy Note Pro, announced in Singapore last week.

The tablet with a big screen, possibly the biggest around, features some of the highest specifications for a tablet - quad-core A7 CPU, 1,600x2,560 screen resolution, 32GB memory, 9,500mAh battery, 8MP camera with 4X digital zoom plus 2MP front-facing camera. It has support for wi-fi and LTE and comes loaded with Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) OS.

The tablet is being pitched at individual and  business users, hence the large screen size as also the pre-loading of Cisco's WebEx Meetings platform for web conferencing, Samsung's eMeeting and Hancom Office for Android.

Among other differentiating features are Network Booster, that allows users to utilise both Wi-Fi and mobile network for faster downloads.

With the Smart Switch app, data transfer can happen from external devices to the Galaxy Pro, and with the installation of Side Sync app is installed, users are able to view a Note 3 screen on the Note Pro.

They are also able to drag and drop files between the two devices. The feature works both on Galaxy devices with KitKat OS and above.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics has beefed up the camera in its Galaxy S5 smartphone due for April release.

It has also added smarter camera software, much like Sony and Nokia with their handset cameras upgrades.

With the changes smartphone photos, ubiquitous nowadays thanks to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, would be closer in quality to images captured by digital single-lens reflex cameras, also known as DSLR.

A key challenge for the likes of Samsung, Sony, Nokia and LG as they tried differentiating their offerings in a highly competitive handset market was how to give a super-thin smartphone the power of a DSLR camera that could capture moving images with clarity.

Their efforts towards more powerful cameras had taken toll on the compact, point-and-shoot camera market, matching the pictures from DSLR might be far-fetched even as the gap keeps narrowing, thanks largely to improvements in camera software and other technologies.