Samsung Galaxy Note

LAS VEGAS – CES 2012 may be the tipping point at which consumer equipment manufacturers (other than Apple) finally got the point that satisfied customers, not happy geeks, are the ultimate goal for their efforts.

Case in point: the Samsung Galaxy Note, my favorite device so far at CES: a shiny tiny, new tablet that may redefine how we think about tablets, cell phones, ebook readers, electronic sketch pads and, that old chestnut, PDAs. It is design ingenuity: great geek technology blended with super customer-pleasing smarts.

It is both a highly capable, smart Android tablet and a fully functional cell phone: the Holy Grail combination to some. It features a 5.3-inch screen: halfway in size between an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet and a large Android phone. It is both wafer-thin and featherweight (about 2 oz. ).

Then there’s the screen: a razor-sharp Super AMOLED touchscreen with great resolution. When you read a book or watch a movie, you see itt on the screen’s full length and width, and with a rich HD-like color pallatte.

And finally, there’s the Note’s capabilities as a sketchpad. With the S-Pen stylus that comes with it, the Note can be used to write or sketch including fine-line drawings and handwriting that actually resembles handwriting. A Samsung spokesperson noted that the device’s note-taking software can be trained to render handwriting into written text. When finished, the stylus docks comfortably into a hole running horizontally along its edge.

The geek specs are impressive. Initially to be available through AT&T, the Note will run on the carrier’s 4G LTE network. It has a 1.5 GHz dual core processor; 16 gigabytes of onboard memory and up to 32gb expansion slot, long-life 2500mAh battery and front and rear-facing cameras.

It will come to market with Android Gingerbread, and will upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich. A Samsung press release also notes it is enterprise safe.

No price has been set on this device, nor has a release been announced. Buying it through AT&T will undoubtedly require a 2-year contract. But to have all these capabilities in a pocket-size gadget that fits easily into a pants pocket is quite an accomplishment.

As always with small devices, form factor is an issue. Some will find it too big for comfort as a cell phone; some will judge it too small for a tablet. But Samsung has done a remarkable job, in this reviewer’s opinion, in balancing the interests of both--and taking the best run at the Holy Grail of any manufacturer thus far. Yes, even as good as you-know-who.

Related CES 2012 coverage on TechFlash:

An awkward end to Microsoft’s 14-year CES keynote run

Intel’s ‘wow’ factor at CES: a new concept for laptop computers

CES 2012: Glitz, glam, and Microsoft’s curtain call