Galaxy Note 4 lands in Korea Friday, global launch end of Oct

The Galaxy Note 4 remains out of reach but unsurprisingly it is Samsung's home court that will get their hands on it first. The Korean manufacturer has just announced that the smartphone will be available for purchase in Korea starting September 26, with the rest of the world to follow next month.

The Galaxy Note 4 is Samsung's latest phablet, a device category that has just been validated by Apple's iPhone 6 Plus. It isn't a huge jump in terms of hardware and represents an incremental upgrade that sets the baseline for high-end smartphones until the next flagship comes. This includes a 5.7-inch QHD display panel, 3 GB of RAM, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 or Samsung Exynos 5433, depending on the market, and, new to Samsung, a metal edge design. Of course, the core focus of this line is on the S Pen and its supporting features, which has been improved with the addition of tilt and speed tracking to match that of professional digital drawing tablets.

This is the first time Samsung has given a specific launch date for the Galaxy Note 4, though several carriers and retailers have already started accepting pre-orders in the US, the UK, and China. The company notes that the phablet will launch in 140 countries by the end of October. Those 140 countries might not include the US, however, as carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile have already indicated that they will, in fact, ship sooner than the end, on October 14 and 17, respectively.

As to the other Samsung IFA 2014 products, only the Gear S "solo" smartwatch has been given a schedule, slated to launch some time this Fall. AT&T, however, has noted that it will make the Tizen wearable visible in its retails stores starting September 26. Launch details for the Gear VR, which is an expensive and eccentric accessory for the Galaxy Note 4, as well as for the equally eccentric Galaxy Note Edge variant have not yet been revealed.

SOURCE: Samsung