Samsung Galaxy Note: 5 million units shipped

Samsung is currently winning their bet of taking a stronghold in the difficult 5" display market, both smartphones and tablets. Their Samsung Galaxy Note has now shipped more than 5 million units.

The mobile device market with 5" displays has for the moment not been a great success for most manufacturers who have attacked the sector. Halfway between the smartphone and tactile tablet, the products present in this sector are often seen as bringing with them the worst of both worlds rather than creating synergies.

By unveiling the Samsung Galaxy Note with its 5.3" display, the South Korean manufacturer is therefore taking a certain risk, especially since they are reintroducing an element that had almost disappeared since the wide distribution of capacitive tactile screens: the stylus (an exception is the HTC Flyer tablet with the HTC Scribe technology, which also comes with a stylus).

A little more smartphone than tablet, with a 16:9 display which allows for a screen size large enough to see while remaining easy to use in a hand. The device comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread rather than Android Honeycomb, the Samsung Galaxy Note seems to have found its public.

Samsung announced that they shipped more than a million units two months after its launch in late 2011. Now it’s the 5 million Samsung Galaxy Note mark that has been broken in the 5 months since its release – with the device to also soon benefit from an update to Android Ice Cream Sandwich and new integrated applications.

The goal of shipping 10 million devices by the end of the year therefore remains possible. LG is certainly watching this progress, as they are now looking at their LG Vu with its 5" display with a 4:3 format. When being demonstrated at the MWC 2012 show it came through as being quite nice to use as well.