Great Android, Bad Xperia and Fantastic Galaxy Note

I have a third smartphone and fourth tablet in a year. You call it experimenting.

A quick summary.

Phones: I started the 2011 with BlackBerry Torch than after miserable BlackBerry failures decided to switch to Android, and being a qwerty addict I opted for the Sony Xperia Pro.

Tablets: a year ago I had the iPad1, then in June I fell in love (here, here and here) with the Honeycomb - based Samsung Galaxy 10.1, swapped in October to the Galaxy 8.9 (almost identical, but I liked the 8.9 more, because of the OLED display and even smaller weight).

And eight days ago, on Saturday, I was packing for CES.

I decided to take my Windows 7 laptop (the Thinkpad X220 I absolutely love and spent so much time selecting). I simply cannot live on a tablet alone. Neither iPad nor Android tablets I have had in various configurations (including mechanical keyboards) give me the speed and flexibility of working on a real computer with keyboard, mouse, Windows, various hardware ports and applications. Yeah yeah, try to take a photo with a DSLR, crop, retouch and resize it, then write a blog column, paste this photo in it, all on a tablet. Good luck. On Windows 7 I am 3-5 times faster doing just this task. So generally on business trips lasting more than two days, the laptop goes with me.

Then I put in my Kindle (I will be reading books on a transatlantic flight). Then I put in the tablet with some movies preloaded (I will be watching movies too and a tablet probably is better to do that, if anything, saving the laptop batteries). Then the phone obviously goes into my pocket. And iPod nano, to save phone's and tablet's batteries when playing music for those long hours. A handful of cables, two pairs of earphones (Xperia requires Sony earphones, as even having the same 3.5mm jack, they wired it differently than the Apple / Blackberry / Samsung / whatever standard), cases for each device.

Hey, that is exaggeration. I just does not make sense. I mean I love all those devices and they are very useful in many scenarios (like a WiFi tablet in a toilet, you know what I mean...). But it does not make sense lugging all this gear everywhere I go. So just the laptop and the phone? Probably, but the tiny screen is often not enough to read a message or an RSS stream.

In the afternoon I went to meet somebody in the city, having some time to spare I decided to do some window shopping at the local mall. When I saw the Samsung Galaxy Note. I saw the phone a number of times on the Web and on TV. But having it in front of my eyes, I was stunned by the unbelievable clarity of the 5" 1280x800 AMOLED display. I tried a few web pages I visit frequently and was surprised they are as readable on the Note as on the 8.9 Tab, Yeah, but it does not fit in a jeans pocket. Actually it does (see the photo). Yeah, but it does not have a physical keyboard. True. But for some reason the size of the device makes the virtual keyboard a very good fit for my fingers. I tried typing a few sentences and was surprised I did it quickly and with no errors. Hmmm. That is something. And it has a pen. Yeah but I do not take hand-written notes. True, but just after a few hours I found it really handy to be able to make a screenshot just by waving hand over the screen. BTW Samsung has done an excellent job on gesture support in the Note (think of just flipping the phone over when it rings to reject the call, genius!). And then using the pen and a "lasso" tool cut a piece from the screenshot, draw few arrows on it and email with a single click. Or jot a handwritten note while having a phone conversation. But hey, you look stupid talking to such a big paddle. True, but Blackberries are not that much smaller paddles and for most of the calls I make, I use this Bluetooth earpiece.

I am in. Selling my tablet. Selling my phone. Keeping the Note. Using it for a week I have to say this is a game changing device. Even if you do not want to buy it, have a look at this device. Because this is how the next generation Apple iPhad will look like. They say size does not matter. May be. But 5 inches seems to be the winning form factor. At least until Internet glasses arrive.