Samsung’s 5.3 inch smartphone/tablet hybrid, the Galaxy Note, hit the European market in October 2011. We’ll admit it, we made fun of the Note, predicted it would fail, and wrote countless editorials poking fun at Samsung’s management. We were wrong. Dead wrong. Last month Samsung announced that sales of the Note eclipsed 7 million units, which is frankly amazing considering that it’s such a niche device. Now as for sales in the United States, the Note landed on just one operator: AT&T. That was back in February. According to TmoNews, T-Mobile will become the second operator to start selling the Note, though customers are going to have to wait until August 8th.
Why is there a 10 month gap between the sale of the Galaxy Note in Europe and the sale of the Galaxy Note on T-Mobile? We wish we had the answer to that question, but we don’t. Anyway, if you’re thinking of buying the Note you should be aware that there are strong rumors suggesting that we’re going to see the Note II land in September. Said second generation Note will be physically smaller than the first Note, but it’ll have a larger 5.5 inch screen. That sounds pretty crazy to us, but then again Pantech of all companies recently introduced a 5 inch smartphone in South Korea that’s physically smaller than the 4.8 inch Galaxy S III.
Should you buy the T-Mobile Note? Of course not. The second generation Note is just one freaking quarter away. More importantly, we don’t know how much T-Mobile is going to charge for their version of the Note. If you want a bargin, it may make more sense to simply buy a used international Note. They’re going for roughly $485, which is a pretty good deal considering that AT&T initially offered the Note for $300 with a 2 year contract.
Have we convinced you to wait for the Note II or is our advice falling on deaf ears?