Samsung Galaxy NotePRO and TabPRO with 12.2 inch WQXGA screens unveiled

The Samsung Galaxy NotePRO and TabPRO were leaked a while ago, but the official announcement is here, straight from Samsung’s CES 2014 press conference. These are Samsung’s first 12.2 inch tablets that build upon the legacy of the Note 10.1 and the Tab 10.1. The 12.2 inch screens are not normal though, they sport a super high 2560×1600 16:10 resolution with those 4 million pixels powered by the Exynos 5 Octa or the Snapdragon 800 processors based on the variant. Both these devices are nearly identical except for the one main difference between them being the stylus. The S-Pen and its associated functionality will be available only on the Galaxy NotePRO whereas the TabPRO will have everything else that’s on the NotePRO.

Here are the complete specifications of both the devices –

Galaxy Note PRO 12.2-inch with S-Pen and Galaxy TabPRO specifications

• 7.9mm thick, 750g weight
• 12.2-inch (2560×1600 pixels) WQXGA display
• Exynos 5 Octa (1.9GHz x 4 + 1.3GHz x 4) or 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800
• Android 4.4 (KitKat)
• S-Pen Stylus*
• 8MP rear camera with LED flash
• 2MP front-facing camera
• 3GB RAM,  32GB/64GB storage, microSD (Up to 64GB)
• LTE / 3G , Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac MIMO (2.4 & 5 GHz), Wi-Fi Direct, AllShareCast, BT4.0, USB3.0, GPS ＋ GLONASS
• 9500mAh battery

* – only available with NotePRO

As you can see above, the devices come with Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box, making it one of the first OEM devices to launch with the latest version of Android apart from Play Edition devices. The new TouchWiz UI seems to have a Magazine like UI this time, for better optimization of screen space, or rather finally realizing that Android is not really great for 10 inch devices ever since Google went for a unified UI in 4.2. Samsung’s TouchWiz obviously brings some really great features though, like Multi Window, which brings a total of 4 apps at a time on the 12.2 inch tablets for better multi tasking than before. But on the hardware side, the tablet brings hardware home and shortcut buttons to the center which is very weird for a widescreen tablet.

Also, as noted earlier, all the NotePRO and TabPRO tablets will come with a faux leather finish on their backs, just like the Note 3. We had noted in our review that we would like to see this on all the Samsung devices, and we are glad it is happening for tablets too. Apart from this, Samsung is also providing content gifts, as explained here –

For additional value and productivity right out of the box, the Samsung Galaxy NotePRO and TabPRO (12.2) will feature up to approximately $700 worth of the premium pre-paid, long-term subscription offers from best-selling news, social media and cloud storage providers, including: Bitcasa, Bloomberg Businessweek＋, Blurb, Cisco WebEx Meetings, Dropbox, Easilydo Pro for Tablet, Evernote, Hancom Office for Android, LinkedIn, LIVESPORT.TV, NY Times, Oxford Advanced Learner’s A-Z, and Sketchbook Pro (content packages may vary by region).

Availability is slated for the first quarter for 2014 but the pricing has not been revealed. We are live from the Samsung event at CES 2014 and we will be bringing you the hands on of these devices and more from the show floor, so stay tuned to the blog and our YouTube channel for more!