Samsung Galaxy Note 2 launches at IFA 2012

Popular phone and tablet the Samsung Galaxy Note has been updated with an improved screen and performance, as well as a better stylus.

The original Galaxy Note was launched last year at IFA 2011, and despite muted critical reaction the 5” phone and tablet went on to sell surprisingly well.

The updated version improves the stylus that allows users to write notes and select areas on the screen, and also incorporates the success of design features now found in the Galaxy SIII phone. It also increases the screen size to 5.5" without making the device bigger overall.

With Samsung recently ordered by a US court to pay Apple $1billion for copyright infringement, analysts at CCS Insight said that the announcement of improvements to the device in a category of products that Samsung created were “a timely response to criticism that Samsung is a follower not an innovator”. The firm added that the S-Pen stylus is now of “high strategic importance and the Note 2 offers opportunity to truly differentiate in the smartphone market”.

New features in the Note 2 improve the operating system, upgrading it to Android 4.1, and now include a quad-core 1.6GHz processor and a 5.5” Super HD Amoled screen. Additional S-Pen features allow users to hover over photos or video, as well as emails or calendar entries, to see more information.

The 9.4mm thin, 180g device also allows users to write notes on the ‘back’ of photographs and improves the ease with which notes can be written while a phone call is being made at the same time. Prices will be announced nearer the October launch, and while 3G and 4G models will be offered it is not yet known whether the device will be compatible with the UK’s first 4G service, from Everything Everywhere via Orange, T-Mobile and Three.

Samsung also announced that it would upgrade the Galaxy SIII phone to the latest version of Android "very soon", and followed camera manufacturer Nikon to use Android for a dedicated Android camera, called the Galaxy Camera. It also confirmed that it would make a range of Windows 8 tablets, laptops and smartphones, to be released under the new Ativ sub-brand when Microsoft releases Windows 8 in October.

Also at the IFA electronics fair in Berlin, where Smasung made its announcements, Sony unveiled a new range of phones and a new tablet, along with an improved television that offers an 84" screen with definition four times higher than HD.