Hands On: Samsung Galaxy NotePro, TabPro & Camera 2

Samsung is going big on televisions at this Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS: Just like most other consumer technology firms, Samsung is going big on televisions at this Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But at the same time it is also showing a few new tablets and Galaxy Camera 2, which the company had announced before CES. 

If the last three years are any indication it is expected that Samsung will launch these products in India very soon, possibly within a month or two. But you don't have to wait that long to know a bit more about these tablets and the new camera. We tried them briefly at CES and here is our first impression of these new Galaxies... 

Galaxy NotePro
No screen size is beyond Samsung and in Note Pro it is putting a 12.2-inch screen with 2560 X 1600 pixels resolution. This is 12.2 inches folks. It is more than a foot! On paper it doesn't sound that big but while using it we realized NotePro is huge. In fact it is so big that it is not supposed to be used in portrait mode, something that the home button placed on the left side of the tablet makes clear. 

The screen - Samsung calls it Super Clear LCD - shows rich colours and boasts of good touch sensitivity. While the size of NotePro is huge in the world of tablets, it is slim at 7.9mm. 

When Samsung uses some special design feature in a tablets or phone, the subsequent devices from the company too have the same feature. On this occasion we are talking about the pleather (leather like) cover in Galaxy Note 3. NotePro features similar cover, which adds to the premium finish of the device. 

The NotePro we saw was powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor running at a zippy 2.3GHz. But this information is not listed at the Samsung booth. A little bit of probing revealed that just like other flagship Galaxy devices there will be the version of NotePro that will be powered by Samsung's Octa 5 series processor, which has 8 cores. In India it is likely that Octa core version will be available. 

The performance of NotePro is similar to how other flagship Galaxy devices perform. This means mostly smooth but with occasional user interface lags. 

NotePro also has support for stylus. 
The question is how NotePro is different from Galaxy Note 10.1? Other than the difference in screen size, the main difference between Note Pro and other devices not bestowed with "pro" tag is the software. The NotePro uses a new user interface on top of Android 4.4, which Samsung calls Magazine UX. It consists of large tiles that show live information from apps. 

Sound familiar? Well, it is because Windows Phones use a similar tile-based interface, though tiles on Windows Phone devices are not this big. 

But there are some crucial differences. The Magazine UX retains all the goodness of Android. This means you can set several homescreens. The notification system remains same, although in Magazine UX the quick action icons are flatter. Different homescreens can be configured with different kind of applications. For example on one homescreen you can have work-related apps. On other you can have your personal apps. Samsung contends this allows a user to access work or personal content in a far easier manner. 

We are not so sure at the moment. Currently, all Androids too users can configure different homescreens with different kind of apps. They don't get the "magazine like" user interface but they can set widgets to glance at information. 

Samsung is also putting a RemotePC app and an app that helps a user carry out web meetings in its Pro devices. 
The Magazine UX looks good but it doesn't particularly add much to what you can do on an Android device. That said, there is one feature that is unique to NotePro and could be really useful: multi-window with support for opening up to 4 apps. 

Currently, on a Samsung device, you can only open 2 windows. On NotePro, you can have four open apps on the screen for better multitasking. 

Talking of multitasking, in Magazine UX Samsung has changed the way recent apps are shown. They are shown as a thumbnail strip on the bottom of the screen. This is probably specific to tablets and makes sense given their big size. 

Galaxy TabPro
Available in three sizes - 12.-2-inch screen, 10.1-inch screen and 8.4-inch screen - TabPro is almost similar to NotePro. At least the design, user interface, bundled applications and the Magazine UX user interface is same. 

The big difference is that there is no stylus support for TabPro devices. The smaller TabPro devices (10.1-inch and 8.4-inch) also lack support for multi-window feature that can show four windows on the screen. On smaller Pro devices only two windows can be shown at the screen simultaneously. 

In terms of performance, we didn't notice any difference between NotePro and TabPro devices. And that is understandable given that they all have same hardware. 

Galaxy Camera 2
Successor to Galaxy Camera that launched last year, the Camera (version 2) follows the same design. But because it is a Galaxy device and it is launching after Note 3 launched, it has got a layer of faux leather on top of its plastic body. There is also a bit of metal in the camera. The build quality, finishing and style is better than what Camera (version 1) possessed. 

Camera 2 features a 16MP image sensor and 21X optical zoom. The device is not as compact as some other point-and-shoot cameras pout there, but it can be squeeze into a jeans pocket. 

The highlight of Camera 2 is its large 4.8-inch screen, which shows fantastic colours and contrast. The device is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core processor (Exynos 4412), 2GB RAM, and 8GB internal storage. There is support for addition an external storage card so 8GB is more than enough. 

In terms of software not much has changed in the new camera. It still sports a slightly modified version of Android. Click on camera icon puts a user into device into the camera mode, which is similar to the camera app found on Galaxy devices. It is incredibly easy to use interface. Tapping on the home button, brings a user back to the main Android homescreen. Almost all Android apps can be run on Camera 2. 

Overall it is not majorly different from Galaxy Camera (version 1). The image quality-wise things may have changed for better but that can't be checked unless we use the device at least a few days
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