With Android growing more rapidly than ever, it is easy to see why Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung is putting out yet another powerhouse of a device only a few months after the release of their flagship Galaxy S III.  Last year around the same time Samsung unveiled the original Galaxy Note, and while many people ridiculed the device for having a massive 5.3 inch screen, sales seem to show that the device was actually a pretty big hit with over 10 million sales world wide.  At this year's  Berlin IFA Technology Trade Show Samsung officially announced and showcased the new iteration of the Galaxy Note, the Galaxy Note II.  And let me tell you, the new Note “phablet” has evolved quite a bit.  

Perhaps the most noticeable change to the Note II is the addition of an extra .2 inches to the screen realestate, giving the Note II an enormous 5.5 inch screen.  The best part about this is that while the screen got bigger the actual dimensions of the device remain the approximately same as the original Note's: 147mm in height 88mm in width and 9.4mm in thickness.  The HD screen packs a resolution of 720x1280 with a 16:9 widescreen ratio, making it a very good  multimedia device.  Under the hood is where the biggest changes have occured in the new Note.  The device is powered by a quad-core Exynos 4412, which is the exact same system-on-a-chip as the Galaxy S III, except that the chip on the Galaxy Note II has been overclocked from 1.4 Ghz to 1.6 Ghz, making the Note II even faster than the already blazing-fast Galaxy S III.  Also, in case the single gigabyte of memory on the Galaxy S III and Original Note isn't enough for your needs, the new Note packs a whopping 2 gigabytes of RAM memory, making the Note II a superb multi-tasking device.  As expected from the Galaxy series of devices, graphics power is strong with the device, packing the same graphics chip as the Galaxy S III: the powerful Mali 400mp GPU.  

As we all know a powerful phone should alsop be aesthetically appealing, and with it's titanium gray or white polycarbonate shell, the Galaxy Note II has inhereted the Galaxy S III's killer looks.  Judging from all of their similarities, the Galaxy Note II should also share the Galaxy S III's Wolfson Audio chip, which, if you are familiar with the original Galaxy S, has fantastic sound.

As is expected, with great hardware comes great features, and it looks like the note has a plethora of cool new features that allow your S-Pen to do more than just take notes.  Take the video application for example.  Have you ever wanted to skip to a specific part of the video and found yourself guessing where on the progress bar it is placed?  Well, with the mighty S-pen it's easier than ever.  Simply hover the pen above the progress bar and a pop-up will appear showing you what is going on at that specific second.  A similar feature has been added to the photo gallery.  It is now possible to hover you stylus over a folder and see everything that's inside without having to open it.  Aside from these cool new features that ought to make your life just a little easier (see how much Samsung cares?) the expected note taking applications, S-voice and the elegant Touchwiz user interface make the Galaxy Note II the ultimate smartphone.

  Gottamobile.com