As you probably know, Chippy is in the trenches at IDF as we speak type. In addition to a solid hands-on with the devices, he’s also doing testing and keeping us up to date with some audio logs. Let’s first have a look at the blazing speed of the Galaxy Tab 7.7 as indicated by the Sunspider benchmark:

As you can see, the Tab 7.7 scores a ridiculously fast 1440.4ms on Sunspider which actually beats out the Onkyo TW Windows Slate that I tested a few months back by about 27%.

This score, which is thanks to a fast dual-core processor and the latest build of Android, puts the Tab 7.7 at the number 1 position on our Sunspider benchmark chart:

Chippy faily notes that Chrome has improved in performance since then so just I ran Sunspider on a fairly modern Atom based netbook (1.6GHz HP Mini 311 with Nvidia ION) and the scores are comparable with the Mini 311 scoring 1336ms, putting the Tab 7.7 only about 8% away from that score.

This is mighty impressive; here we’ve got the Tab 7.7 which is rated for around 10 hours of battery life, not to mention much longer on standby, and it has browser performance similar to a much larger netbook that has considerably less runtime. Intel might be in trouble…

Chippy Chimes In

Chippy was able to make a little time to share with us a quick audio log with some thoughts on the Tab 7.7 and the Galaxy Note. I’ll let you listen for yourself, but I will say that I share many of his sentiments:

Today at IFA, Samsung announced the Galaxy Note, a new phone with a ridiculously large 5.3 inch screen and a stylus.

You may have seen my speculation the other day that the Galaxy Note might have actually been something exciting, like a sliding smartbook, but it seems I may be the only person who realizes that bigger isn’t better when it comes to Android smartphone screens.

We’ll get to being critical about the device in just a moment, have no doubt. For the time being though, let’s get some specs out there:

• Android 2.3
• 1.4GHz dual-core CPU
• 5.3 inch Super AMOLED display @ 1280×800
• Front and rear cameras @ 2MP and 8MP respectively
• HSPA+ connectivity
• 1080p recording and playback
• GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, and WiFi a/b/g/n
• 16/32GB built-in memory and a MicroSD slot for storage expansion
• 2500 mAh batter

The stylus is active which should make for smooth and natural feeling digital writing.

It seems like Samsung designed this device to straddle the line between tablet and phone, but I find that to be a flawed concept from the start, tantamount to UMPCs that came in at a thumb-board-sized keyboards but with keys designed for touch-typing!

To me, the 5.3 inch size of the Galaxy Note’s screen means that the device is too big to be an ergonomically designed phone, but smaller than someone would want for a tablet.

As for handwriting input, the Galaxy Note isn’t going to be a useful device if it tries to pull an HTC Flyer and launch a product that has the technology to write on the screen, but no proven usage scenarios.

Don’t get me wrong, in my day-to-day activities, I use an HP Tablet PC and I love the touchscreen for digital inking. The difference is that, in Windows, the digital inking experience is built-in at an OS level (and even then it is still criticized). The Galaxy Note, on the other hand, comes with an OS (Android 2.3) which has no core support for digital inking input everything having to do with handwriting at this point is either proprietary or third-party. I mean, come on! Look at the press shot at the top of this post. Is this really how Samsung things people would use something like this… to draw constellations on a picture on their homescreen and annotate it with some stupid text? There are far more useful ways to use written input, but it looks like no one has figured them out yet on Android.

Naturally, Samsung says that they’ll be including some apps specific for pen use, but it’s yet to be seen if they include any truly useful functionality, or just silly proof-of-concept apps like the ability to annotate screenshots. I’ll be happily wrong if Samsung built some really useful functionality out of the digital inking ability of the Galaxy Note, but I don’t see it happening.

The only points the Galaxy Note will see from me is that the device actually has a built-in stylus silo, so you won’t have to carry it around separately in your pocket. Oh and the Super AMOLED display is likely to look really good!

That’s my take anyway. What do you think, would the Galaxy Note be useful in your life?

Pricing and carrier availability have yet to be announced, but we’ll update as we hear more.

Update: Hands-on video!

Samsung accidentally packed revealing information in an Android app that was being used to promote their presence at this year’s IFA. Among the information revealed is the names of three devices, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, the Galaxy Note, and the Samsung Wave 3. Presumably the app was designed to unveil that information after IFA starts on September 2nd, but someone peeked into the files and found them ahead of time.

We can get the Wave 3 out of the way quickly. It is clearly a successor to the Wave 2, a phone running Samsung’s own Bada OS.

More exciting and relevant to us are the Galaxy Tab 7.7 and Galaxy Note.

Galaxy Tab 7.7

I’ve been watching, with great curiosity, for the sequel to the Galaxy Tab. By some accounts, the original 7” Galaxy Tab may be the best selling Android tablet to-date, even if it isn’t running the tablet-optimized Honeycomb. I’ve been hoping that the ever-handy 7” size of the Galaxy Tab 7 wouldn’t be left behind in favor of the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1. It looks like Samsung will answer those hopes at IFA… but not without adding 0.7” to the screen size.

First, a look a look at the past, to inform our view of the future:

Samsung had announced, not quite a sequel, but an enhanced Galaxy Tab 7” back during CES in January. This device was going to have a slightly faster (higher clocked) CPU, an upgraded rear camera, and Verizon’s 4G LTE connectivity. Oddly, this device never made it to market (even though the WiFi-only Galaxy Tab, announced along side it, did). While it hasn’t been officially canned by Verizon or Samsung, I think it’s safe to say – 8 months after its announcement – that Samsung has moved on to release a true sequel rather than a ‘1.5’ device.

Several months after that announcement at CES, while the device failed to materialize in physical form or advertising, we began to see rumors of a dual-core CPU that might go with a new Galaxy Tab 7, and it’s probably safe to say that Samsung will not release a new Galaxy Tab without a dual-core CPU (considering that the Tab 8.9 and 10.1 are both dual-core).

Now we can’t help but say that the new Galaxy Tab will use a 7.7” screen, as the naming convention can’t be ignored. This means that Samsung will be using an entirely new display in the device, causing many to speculate that it will be one of the famous Samsung AMOLED displays. While SlashGear does point out that Samsung demonstrated a 7” AMOLED display at a conference last November, it still may be too expensive to include in a consumer targeted device at this time. What we may see is a pixel-dense 1280×800 7.7” display, or maybe Samsung just wanted a slightly larger display with the same 1024×600 resolution as the original Galaxy Tab 7.

On the topic of the operating system, I actually prefer Samsung’s customized Android 2.2 that is used by the original Galaxy Tab 7 over Honeycomb. Though I usually hate Android skins, Samsung’s implementation for the Tab 7 actually did a great job of making the phone-oriented OS into a useful tablet interface. Leaked photos show the four classic Android buttons that are found on phones (and on the Tab 7), so our bet is that the Tab 7.7 won’t see Honeycomb, but will instead end up with a custom 2.2 or 2.3, or perhaps it would be the perfect candidate for Ice Cream Sandwich, which Google says is going to bridge the gap between the tablet and the phone versions of Android. It should be noted that the inclusion of the four capacitive Android buttons on the bezel does not necessarily erase the possibility of the device shipping with Honeycomb. After all, the 7” Acer Iconia Tab A100 has a home button on the bezel, even though it ships with Honeycomb.

As for the release date, I’m sure we’ll get more info soon, but it doesn’t hurt to use that handy leaked Verizon roadmap where we can. One of the devices on that roadmap is something called the “Galaxy Tab P8” which is likely to be either the Galaxy Tab 8.9 or the Tab 7.7. The device is listed for a November 1st release, which is only about two months away!

One might jump to note that 7.7 is closer to 8 than 8.9, but this likely has little do with the size and more to do with the product model number (for instance, the original Tab 7 is the P1000 range, while the 10.1 is the P7000 range). The P8000 range could be the 7.7, or the 8.9, (or any unknown device for that matter), we just can’t say for sure at this point.

Galaxy Note

Now this is where it gets fun. We know little about what Samsung’s Galaxy Note is, but there’s room for exciting speculation. My money is on a 10.1 Honeycomb device with a sliding form-factor like the Asus Eee Pad Slider, and I’ll tell you why.

We saw something exactly like this from Samsung at CES, except it was running Windows 7. It was said to become available in March but, like the enhanced Galaxy Tab 7 (also announced at CES), it conspicuously disappeared, and I’m betting it has been transformed into an Android device.

Chippy wrote about the sliding Samsung Windows 7 computer on UMPCPortal in January noting “I like the design but I’m also seeing a 1KG Windows tablet which is just a little too heavy and not running the right OS for some of the consumer tablet scenarios that are taking off”. That was 8 months ago, but Chippy may have hit the nail on the head.

A trusted anonymous source tells me that they have seen a sliding prototype much like the Windows 7 Slider from Samsung, and they saw it after the Windows 7 slider was shown. Among other things, the prototype was slimmer than the Windows 7 slider and the screen slid up to reveal a full keyboard and trackpad.

If this prototype made it further through the design process, it may be just what Chippy was looking for; a lighter device with a tablet-optimized OS. Considering that the Windows 7 version vanished, this may very well be the case.

I’m hoping that the Galaxy Note is indeed a slider as I totally dig the form-factor.

More Detail to Come

IFA begins September 2nd and Chippy is on the scene, which means you should definitely keep your eye on Carrypad for hands-on and plenty more info on both of these devices and plenty of others.