In a bid to outsmart its rival Apple, Samsung Electronics on Friday launched Galaxy Note 800 priced at Rs 39,990, a new tablet personal computer for consumers in the Indian market.
This is Samsung’s first product in this category with one model. Apple with its mass appeal has been selling its tablets with a wider range. Apple has eight different models of its iPad 2 and new iPad priced between Rs 24,500 and Rs 50,900.
However, all Apple’s iPads have same screen size of 9.7 inch, while Galaxy Note comes with a 10.1 inch screen size. The Apple products are also extendable to 64GB from 16GB memory, while Samsung’s can go up to 32GB.
The Galaxy Note built on the success of last year’s worldwide-hit smartphone (5.3-inch screen), delivering the functionality of a pen and paper by combining the S Pen with the new device that has larger display.
The new device is pre-loaded with Adobe’s Photoshop Touch and multi-screen feature, which allows users to operate two different apps side-by-side, simultaneously, on the same screen.
It comes with a 1.4GHz quad-core processor and 2 GB RAM. Apple does not reveal the RAM capacity, but it runs on dual core processor with quad core graphics. Both Apple and Samsung’s batteries perform for around 10 hours depending on the usage.
“India is one of the first 10 markets in the world where the Galaxy Note 800 is being launched. I expect this device to in many ways fuel the growth of the tablet market in India and help us further strengthen our market leadership in the tablet market here in India,’’ Ranjit Yadav, Country Head - Mobile and IT, said.
Market share
The company expects a market share of 65 per cent for the tablet PC market by this year-end. There is no specific numbers on tablet PC market in India, but 100 million units of the device are expected to sell worldwide this year, according to independent research firm ABI Research.
But, some analysts say that the Galaxy Note (or anything else) cannot beat iPad at the moment, plus it is expensive. It will appeal to those who intend to use a lot of drawing, sketching and making notes.
Most commonly used apps such as Facebook and Twitter are available on all platforms. This is true for almost all popular apps but at the end of the day, it's other things such as build quality, battery life and app ecosystem that matter more than just specifications.
“For example, if you try and find a case for an iPad, you will literally get thousands of options with different types - from local pavement to expensive branded stuff,” said one of the Delhi based analysts. Cases for Galaxy Note will be there, but not too many options, he said.