When Samsung announced the Galaxy S III in London in early May, they dubbed the event “Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012“. According to the South Korean publication Digital Daily, Samsung is going to host “Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012: Episode 2” on August 30th in Berlin, Germany at 19:00 local time. What are they going to show off? We’re confident in saying that it’s likely going to be the Galaxy Note II. According to the rumors that we’ve been collecting over the past few months, here’s what we know about the second generation Note.
First, the screen will measure 5.5 inches diagonal. That’s 0.2 inches larger than the first Note, which is insane. The rumors say that Samsung has somehow managed to make the bezel on the Note II small enough that even with a 5.5 inch screen it’s roughly the same size as the Note I. Considering that Pantech’s recently announced flagship device, the Vega S5, has a 5 inch screen, yet the phone itself is actually smaller than the 4.8 inch Samsung Galaxy S III, it’s completely plausible that Samsung has figured out how to apply the same manufacturing technique to their product portfolio.
Anyway, as for the guts, no surprise here: The Galaxy Note II will use the same components as the Galaxy S III. There were some rumors that suggested the Note II would have a 10 megapixel or 12 megapixel camera, but we don’t buy that. The Digital Daily also says that some markets will have a Note II with a Qualcomm chip inside instead of the Samsung Exynos Quad. Again, that’s not a surprise. Just look at how the GSIII launched in North America.
What’s really sad about all this is that T-Mobile is rumored to be launching the first Galaxy Note on August 8th. To put it another way, three weeks after the Note lands on T-Mobile USA, it’s going to be “old and busted”.