Rumour round-up: Samsung Galaxy Note 3

The next two months look very promising for the smartphone industry. Along with major announcements like the new iPhone 5S, budget iPhone, LG G2 and Xperia Z Ultra, we will also witness the next generation of device in Samsung’s Galaxy Note series. The Samsung Note 3 is expected to be unveiled at the IFA in September, and has had the rumour mills spinning for a while now. Here’s a quick rumour round-up for the Note 3.

Design

The pictures leaked earlier this month show a more rectangular design, in line with the original Galaxy Note, released in 2011. As expected, it shows a much larger display than the previous Note. Though the Note 3 is expected to come with a re-designed body, one may still find the typical three-button setup that has become so ubiquitous on Samsung’s phones. It is likely to be designed  with a metallic look around the edges, just like the Galaxy S4. 

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

One of the alleged images of the Note 3 (Image credit: TechTastic and SamMobile)

5.7-inch display
While we’ve seen several reports claiming that the Note 3 will go larger than life with a 5.99-inch or 6.3-inch screen, a leak earlier this month strongly points at a 5.7-inch display. The Note 3 is likely to have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, with a density of 386 ppi. There have also been speculations of a flexible OLED display. Samsung apparently won’t rope in a 5.9-inch or 6.3-inch screen due to  lukewarm market response to the Galaxy Mega 5.8 and Mega 6.3. The Galaxy Mega “phablets” feature gigantic 5.8-inch and 6.3-inch displays. Reports suggest that the release date of the device could be delayed due to some alleged display manufacturing issue.

Exynos 5 Octa processor
Samsung has been working on an improved version of the Exynos 5 Octa chip, which is speculated to fuel the Note 3. According to rumours, the Note 3 is likely to run on Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa chipset, which is basically an ARM Cortex-A15 chip with a more power-friendly Cortex-A7. This CPU is said to be a real beast with a dual quad-core configuration for better performance. It also features the PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU. Samsung calls it the ExynosEvolved processor and has made improvements to the big.LITTLE architecture of the Exynos 5 Octa chip, presumably to give a boost in performance as well as battery life. Needless to say, Samsung claims it to be a more powerful and enhanced version of the Exynos 5 Octa. Rumour also has it that the Note 3 will be made available in two versions – one is said to come with a Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor, the other version may sport a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC, with four cores clocked at 2.3GHz.

May feature the Exynos 5 Octa processor

Android 4.3
Google has just released the new Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. Obviously, there’s speculation that the Galaxy Note 3 will be launched with the new OS. So, along with Nexus devices, we could expect the Note 3  to get the new Android version. If you remember, last year Google introduced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in June and the Galaxy Note 2 was the first Samsung device to run the operating system when it released in September.

LTE-advanced
The Note 3 is  likely to come with support for the LTE-A feature (LTE Advanced). The LTE-Advanced is capable of offering two times faster data speeds compared to the current 4G LTE networks.

3GB of RAM
If the horde of news reports are to be believed, then the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 could come powered by 3GB RAM. This would mean we can expect enhanced speeds for multi-tasking and also quick stylus usage.

A previous Galaxy Note 3 concept  (Image credit: uva7 dance)

13MP camera
Samsung may employ a 13MP rear camera on the Galaxy Note 3, similar to the one seen on its Galaxy S4. It is also rumoured to come with a xenon flash. The launch of the Note 3 could also mark the debut of the S Orb feature. This camera feature lets users take pictures of everything around them and stitch them up into one big spherical panorama.

While this Samsung device has been hitting headlines frequently, there are still no rumours about its battery power, internal storage, external SD card storage or price. Undoubtedly, it is one of the most highly-anticipated devices of the year, and maybe with time we will get a clearer picture of how the device is shaping up.