T-Mobile will soon begin selling the Samsung Galaxy Note. But don’t call it a tablet. Despite the Note’s 5.3-inch display, T-Mobile is positioning it as an enterprise-ready smartphone.
T-Mobile will begin selling the Samsung
Galaxy Note in the coming weeks, the carrier announced July 16, positioning
the device as both enterprise savvy and able to meet consumers desire for a
tremendous smartphone.
The Galaxy Note, with its 5.3-inch
high-definition Super AMOLED (active-matrix organic LED) touch-screen display,
would seem sure tablet territory. If not at least phablet
territory. But no, T-Mobile reports that the Note now has the largest
screen on any T-Mobile smartphonewhich is just how folks like it.
A recent T-Mobile survey showed 77 percent
of consumers prefer a device with a 4.5-inch or larger display, rather than a
smaller screen, T-Mobile said in its statement. Samsung, if not the source of
this trend, is certainly hip to it, offering also the Galaxy S III with a
4.8-inch display.
The Note measures 5.78 by 3.27 by 0.38 (have
fun putting that in your pocket). It runs Android 4.0, or Ice Cream Sandwich,
and a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 processor, can access T-Mobiles 4G (HSPA+ 42) network
and has a rear-facing 8MP camera and a 2MP camera up-front. With a qualifying
plan, it supports WiFi Calling and can act as a mobile HotSpot for up to five
devices.
Theres the option of the S Pen stylus, for
annotating documents and taking notes; S Memo, for easily creating typewritten,
handwritten or voice-dictated memos; and S Note, which creates templates for
seven commonly used documents, to add a bit of professionalism.
The Note also comes with the T-Mobile 4G Pro
App Packa selection of applications, including Dropbox and Evernote, that
business users are likely to be interested in.
By providing an easy path to cloud services,
such as Dropbox and Evernote, T-Mobile helps professionals easily store and
access the documents, files, images and notes that will help them better manage
their work from virtually anywhere, said T-Mobile.
But recommending the Note most to the
enterprise are its Samsung Approved for Enterprise (SAFE) credentials. SAFE
offers IT policy support for mobile-device-management (MDM) services, on-device
encryption and support for Microsoft Exchange and virtual private network (VPN)
solutions, among other features.
The Galaxy S III is also a SAFE
device.
In addition to larger screens, today
customers demand more from their devices, from having safeguarded access to
corporate email and other productivity features to being able to rely on a
speedy network for streaming content, Andrew Morrison, T-Mobile vice president
of product management, said in a statement. He added that with the Note in
T-Mobiles lineup, it is even better equipped to help our customers strike the
perfect balance as they juggle both professional and personal activities.
The nations fourth-largest network has been
keeping busy this summer searching for a new CEO. On June 27, the company
announced the resignation
of Philipp Humm, who it was later reported is joining Vodafone, a European
rival of T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom.
Its also at work on an LTE-based 4G network,
using assets it acquired through AT&Ts failed 2011 bid to purchase the
smaller carrier. Calling the $4 billion effort a network modernization
strategy, it will improve T-Mobiles voice and data coverage, further its
business-to-business (B2B) opportunities and enable it to support more
devicesmost notably the Apple iPhone.
T-Mobile originally planned to launch the
network this year and begin selling LTE-enabled devices in 2013, but now the
network will go live in 2013, interim CEO Jim Alling said in a June 27 letter
to employees. He added that T-Mobiles recently penned deal with Verizoncontroversial,
to be surewill help it improve its spectrum position in 15 of the top 25
markets.
Alling added that while T-Mobile is in a
tech-based industry, I firmly believe [it is] a people-based business.
Follow
Michelle Maisto on Twitter.
Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.
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