Live from Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 Launch

Live from Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 Launch

We just sat down at Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 US launch event. First announced at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, the Galaxy Note 10.1 brings Samsung's Note brand to a 10.1-inch tablet. The final version uses Samsung's 32nm Exynos 4 quad-core A9 SoC, combined with 2GB of RAM and all driving a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 display.

Samsung got Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann on stage to talk about his experience with the Galaxy Note 10.1. Ultimately Samsung is touching on a major issue with tablets today: the inability to enjoy the same level of productive multitasking we have on traditional PCs and notebooks.

The Note 10.1 brings multi-window support to Android courtesy of Samsung's own software customizations. The bundled S Pen helps on the creation side as well.

I do feel that Windows 8/RT based tablets will ultimately address a lot of what Samsung has been trying to do with Android over the past couple of years. The real question is whether or not Samsung will bring a lot of its Android experiments to Windows RT  later this year.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 will be available for purchase starting tomorrow, priced at $499 for the 16GB WiFi model and $549 for the 32GB WiFi model (white and dark gray colors available). The tablet comes preloaded with Adobe's Photoshop Touch software that's optimized for use with the bundled S Pen.

Android Tablet Specification Comparison
	ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime	ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity	Google Nexus 7	Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
Dimensions	263 x 180.8 x 8.3mm	263 x 180.6 x 8.4mm	198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm	262 x 180 x 8.9mm
Chassis	Aluminum	Aluminum + Plastic RF Strip	Plastic	Plastic
Display	10.1-inch 1280 x 800 Super IPS+	10.1-inch 1920 x 1200 Super IPS+	7-inch 1280 x 800 IPS	10.1-inch 1280 x 800
Weight	586g	594g	340g	597g
Processor	1.3GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 (T30 - 4 x Cortex A9)	1.6GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 (T33 - 4 x Cortex A9)	1.3GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 (T30L - 4 x Cortex A9)	1.4GHz Exynos 4 (4 x Cortex A9)
Memory	1GB	1GB DDR3-1600	1GB	2GB
Storage	32GB/64GB + microSD slot	32/64GB + microSD slot	8/16GB	16/32GB + microSD slot
Battery	25Whr	25Whr	16Whr	26Whr
OS	Android 4.0	Android 4.0	Android 4.1	Android 4.0
Pricing	$499/$599	$499/$599	$199/$249	$499/$549

The Galaxy Note 10.1 ships with Ice Cream Sandwich, but a Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) upgrade is coming later this year.