Of the four tablets that Samsung announced at CES earlier this month, everyone knew the Galaxy NotePro would end up being the most expensive. It has a 12.2 inch 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution screen, Snapdragon 800, 3 GB of RAM, and a stylus that uses a Wacom digitizer. The thing is, no one could really quantify the price tag since Samsung was keeping that number close to their chest. Today that’s changed. Samsung UK has begun accepting preorders for the NotePro, and they want 649 British pounds. That’s $1080. It’ll ship on February 4th, which is less than a week away.
Will the NotePro cost more than $1000 in the United States? Probably not. If I had to guess, I’d say it’ll come in at $699, before tax. Remember that this is just the WiFi model we’re talking about here, the 4G LTE version will likely cost $100 more in the USA or 100 GBP ($165) more in the UK.
Who is the NotePro for? I’m having a hard time answering that. It’s powerful, sure, but it’s powered by Android. Couldn’t you just spend that much money on a full blown computer? Amazon UK will sell you a 12 inch Lenovo Yoga laptop for 550 British pounds. Sure, it won’t run Android apps, but who cares when you can run damn near every Windows app written for the past two decades? Battery life probably won’t be as good, I’ll give you that much, but you get a 128 GB SSD and multiple USB ports you can use to connect an external hard drive.
Maybe I just don’t get it and I have to play with the NotePro to understand it.