Samsung today announced that the “Galaxy Note 10.1 – 2014 Edition” will be available in the U.S. on Oct. 10, with pre-orders starting at midnight Eastern time from Samsung and major retailers (see last paragraph). The new 10-inch tablet — available in black or white — will set you back $550 for the Wifi-only version with 16 gigabytes of storage, and $600 for the 32GB version.
Samsung first showed off the new Note 10.1 just a few weeks ago at the IFA conference in Berlin. The Note 10.1 has similar features to the new Galaxy Note 3 phablet, but with a 10.1-inch display at 2560-by-1600 resolution, powered by an Exynos 5420 quad-core processor and 3GB of RAM. The processor and RAM improve the tablet’s multitasking, which lets you use different applications side-by-side and drag and drop content between windows.
This U.S. version also comes with 50 gigabytes of Dropbox storage free for two years, a one-year subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek, and a 12-week subscription to The New York Times. Samsung is also including a new Flipboard-style user interface called My Magazine that lets you organize the latest news, social feeds, and local content into a personalized dashboard.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 – 2014 Edition also comes with an updated S Pen, which introduces several shortcuts and productivity tools, including:
Air Command provides instant access to S Pen features all in a hover and click of the button on the S Pen from any point on the screen.
Action Memo gives you quick way to take a note and link that note to a direct action, instantly perform a task, such as searching the Net or emailing a contact.
Scrapbooker lets you grab interesting content with the S Pen and place it into individualized scrapbooks. The videos, photos and clips you save from Web pages that are linkable back to the original online source.
Screen Write lets you take and edit a screen capture.
S Finder allows you to search the entire device, including handwritten notes and settings, connected accounts and the web through key words or handwritten symbols.
Pen Window lets you draw a window on screen using the S Pen and open certain applications, such as opening a calculator on top of a spreadsheet or quickly setting an alarm.
S Note — the S-Pen note-taking and handwriting-to-text app — now has an improved interface and includes Easy Chart, which transforms your hand-drawn data into more formal charts and graphs.
The Note 10.1 also comes with Galaxy Perks, a new feature that Samsung says includes over $600 in bundled content and applications, including 50GB of Dropbox free for two years, one year of free Boingo Hotspot access, a one-year subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek, a 12-week subscription to The New York Times, and three months free of Hulu Plus and SiriusXM. Not too shabby, Samsung.
You can see some hands-on photos of the Note 10.1 in action at Android Central, CNET, and Engadget.
If you want to wait for the Note 10.1 to hit stores, look for it October 10 at Best Buy, Best Buy Mobile, Amazon, PC Richard’s, Fry’s, Tiger Direct, and Walmart.
