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Cape Town - Samsung has nailed down the date for the launch of its latest phablet in South Africa.
The South Korean giant sent media invitations on Tuesday for the launch of its Galaxy Note 4 on Thursday 16 October.
Samsung practically invented the phablet smartphone category and a number of rivals have raced to produce smartphones with displays of around 15cm or 6 inches.
Key for Samsung is that main rival Apple, after persisting with a small form factor, unveiled a larger screen iPhone 6 Plus.
However, Samsung launched a marketing campaign satirising the new iPhone in terms of its functionality as opposed to the Note 4.
Shopping season
Conveniently for Samsung, Apple bungled the release of a new operating system and the new device was hit with a social media storm related to accusations that it bent too easily.
This tweet is typical of what users posted about the iPhone:
The launch of the Note is key for Samsung as the company hopes to capitalise on the Christmas shopping season.
It is likely that the new iPhone will also join a host of devices to be launched in SA before the end of the year.
The Note 4 sports a 2.7GHz quad core or 1.7GHz octa core (that's eight, yes, eight) processor unit mated to 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory.
The main camera is rated at 16 megapixels, but perhaps more importantly, the aperture is f/1.9 which should deliver decent images in low light conditions.
Samsung continues to drive the use of the S-Pen stylus in the device as a further differentiator as more rivals enter the phablet market.
This year's shopping season is critical for the South Korean firm which posted a double quarter drop in profits as cheaper rivals in key markets take a bite out of sales.
In South Korea itself, Samsung is also under pressure because of new government regulation that limits the amount of subsidy that operators can offer with smartphones.
This has driven up the price of Samsung products, potentially opening the door to rivals like Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE and Hisense.
The South Korean giant sent media invitations on Tuesday for the launch of its Galaxy Note 4 on Thursday 16 October.
Samsung practically invented the phablet smartphone category and a number of rivals have raced to produce smartphones with displays of around 15cm or 6 inches.
Key for Samsung is that main rival Apple, after persisting with a small form factor, unveiled a larger screen iPhone 6 Plus.
However, Samsung launched a marketing campaign satirising the new iPhone in terms of its functionality as opposed to the Note 4.
Shopping season
Conveniently for Samsung, Apple bungled the release of a new operating system and the new device was hit with a social media storm related to accusations that it bent too easily.
This tweet is typical of what users posted about the iPhone:
The iPhone 6 Plus can be bent with your bare hands. pic.twitter.com/Qm2kgBfNXe
— UberFacts (@UberFacts) September 24, 2014The launch of the Note is key for Samsung as the company hopes to capitalise on the Christmas shopping season.
It is likely that the new iPhone will also join a host of devices to be launched in SA before the end of the year.
The Note 4 sports a 2.7GHz quad core or 1.7GHz octa core (that's eight, yes, eight) processor unit mated to 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory.
The main camera is rated at 16 megapixels, but perhaps more importantly, the aperture is f/1.9 which should deliver decent images in low light conditions.
Samsung continues to drive the use of the S-Pen stylus in the device as a further differentiator as more rivals enter the phablet market.
This year's shopping season is critical for the South Korean firm which posted a double quarter drop in profits as cheaper rivals in key markets take a bite out of sales.
In South Korea itself, Samsung is also under pressure because of new government regulation that limits the amount of subsidy that operators can offer with smartphones.
This has driven up the price of Samsung products, potentially opening the door to rivals like Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE and Hisense.
- Follow Duncan on Twitter
