Two months ago, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, LG announced a 5 inch smartphone called the Vu. It’s a direct competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Note, except for a few crucial things. First, the Vu’s screen has an aspect ratio of 4:3, whereas the Galaxy Note does 16:10. What does this mean in practice? The Vu is more than 7 mm wider than the Note, making it that much harder to hold. Second, the Vu has a stylus, but it’s a capacitive stylus, not the Wacom enabled pressure sensitive stylus that the Galaxy Note uses. That means you’re not going to be drawing as nicely on the Vu as you would on the Note. Third and finally, the Galaxy Note has been out on the market since October 2011, it’s sold over 5 million units, and Samsung has already promised that it’ll get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich at some point in Q2 2012. The Vu on the other hand … we’re just finding out that it’ll start shipping in South Korea next week. It’s being aimed at young women, probably because they have hand bags that’ll let them carry this thing around. As for when will the Vu land on American or European shores? We have no idea.
So the Vu is pretty much dead on arrival, at least in this writer’s opinion, but what about the Note, should you buy that? We can’t stress this enough, go out and play with a Note at your local electronics store before judging it. And if you like it, then you should know this: Samsung tends to refresh their devices on a yearly cycle, which means the Note is due for a sequel in October. If you can wait half a year, great. If you can’t, then don’t feel bad, the Note is a fantastic device, and like we said earlier, it’s going to get Ice Cream Sandwich.