* This blog post is based on an article by a LiVE Reporter and does not necessarily represent the official stance of Samsung Electronics.
**’LiVE’ is an internal communication channel for Samsung Electronics’ employees.
As we’ve mentioned a few times on this blog, GALAXY Note II recently premiered at IFA 2012. The GALAXY Note, first announced last year at IFA 2011, was a great innovation that not only incorporated the intuitive S Pen and adopted a wide display, but also created new category of smart devices. It was a around the world it proposed a smarter lifestyle, more creative.
Following its hugely successful predecessor, the GALAXY Note II was made to expand the enhanced creative experience to all users. How so? We thought we’d check in with the planners to tell us about it.
Not just one mastermind, but a team of the best
A lot of times when products or projects are drawn up, there’s usually one or two people that start it with a masterplan. This was not the case for GALAXY Note II. No single product planner was in charge of everything but a specialist planner was chosen for each field within the team to participate in the project. It was a joint effort of a number of expert planners all the way.
And even before the planning, brainstorming procedures was also open to different departments so that not only planners, but everybody in the chain of development including designers, engineers and marketers could participate. This allowed us to improve on both big aspects and small details. Samsung leads the industry in many types of technologies, and the best thing about it is that the convergence of these makes able to create great products like the GALAXY Note II.
Shortening time from lab to market
The process of introducing new technology was also shortened. In the past, there was some lead time to apply the latest technologies, developed in-house or out. This was mainly due to the fact that there were teams planning new products and separate teams researching new technologies. However, a new cell was made within Product Strategy that did both new products and technology at the same time. This gave the whole group a better perspective of the latest available technologies.
(You may think this division of functions doesn’t make sense in the first place. But there are all kinds of new things going on at once from chip designs to wireless technologies to display technologies to casing materials to UX to fashion and … the list goes on. It’s not easy to keep everything in order while being cutting edge at the same time unless you have a fair number of dedicated experts. And then it’s a whole new story to try to gather all that and result it in a device, ‘devices’ in Samsung’s case.)
The result: tons of unique features on GALAXY Note II
It wasn’t just the faster chip, larger screen, narrower bezel, stronger battery, or the extremely portable form despite its size that made the GALAXY Note II a hit at IFA 2012. The following are a few of the functions these product specialists pointed out that are sure to improve users’ experience with the GALAXY Note II.
One of the most impressive features of the new S Pen is ‘Air View’. If you bring the S Pen near the menu list of email, schedule, or photo, you can preview the contents in a small screen within your current screen. You can have a preview without clicking, which is very convenient. For example, hovering the S-Pen above a video on the video list will show you a playing preview of the actual video instead of just a still screen image.
The GALAXY Note II also recognizes it where the S Pen is. If you take the S Pen out of its socket, even while running another app, the device will automatically run 'Popup Note' so you can start taking notes right away. If you leave the S Pen out and go too far away, the device will alert you so you don’t lose your S Pen.
Handwriting has also been enabled in more areas so you use it more intuitively. You can write on the 'S Planner' just as if you would your schedule on paper calendar. Additionally, you can flip over a photo in the gallery and write on the back of the photo, the same way that people did with printed photos in years past.
‘Easy Clip’ allows you to cut an image as you like from any screen using the S-Pen. You can cut a certain portion of the photo and easily share with others through email, text message and such, which lets you express your ideas more easily and with more creativity.
There were quite a lot of enhancements to the camera as well. The objective was to allow the users to capture even a small moment in life and leave an emotional record of their own.
GALAXY Note II features the ‘Best Faces’ function where you can take multiple photos with up to 10 people, and edit in the faces from each photo that you want in your final version. When you are taking photos with several friends, you can choose different faces of each to create one single best photo.
The 'Paper Artist' application was added as a specialized function for GALAXY Note II in cooperation with the company which originally released 'Paper Camera'. It is lots of fun, so make sure you check it out!
Of course we, at Samsung, pour our hearts into each and every product we make, but it shouldn’t be too hard to recognize that the GALAXY Note II was a bit special. A lot of love and passion, time and effort have been put in and that’s where our confidence comes from. From the cutting edge technologies used to the smallest details perfected, the GALAXY Note II is very special.
* This blog post is based on an article by a LiVE Reporter and does not necessarily represent the official stance of Samsung Electronics.
**’LiVE’ is an internal communication channel for Samsung Electronics’ employees.
*** All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice or obligation.
.jpg)