It seems that the rumour mills were right. Samsung has now officially announced the Samsung Galaxy Mega series smartphones. The two smartphones sport massive displays – 5.8 and 6.3-inches respectively. The two phablets will be available in Europe and Russia starting next month and there is no information on a global release date yet. There is no pricing information available about either of the phablets.
As the name suggests, the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 has a 6.3-inch display with a 720p HD resolution. In terms of its specifications, it has an Exynos 5250 chipset with a dual-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz along with 1.5GB of RAM. The phablet will run on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and will be skinned with the TouchWiz UI. It will also bring with it features such as Air View, Multi Window and more, which are currently found on the Samsung Galaxy S III, and the Note series of devices from Samsung. The Galaxy Mega 6.3 however will not have the S-Pen stylus, which is available on the Note series of devices.
The rear of the Mega 6.3 has an 8MP shooter and the front has a 1.9MP camera for video calling. In terms of connectivity options, the smartphone supports LTE, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, NFC and also houses an IR blaster, which means that it can be used as a remote control as well. Despite its large display, the Galaxy Mega 6.3 is relatively slim at 8mm and weighs a mere 199 grams. It has 8/16GB built-in storage expandable via a microSD card. A 3200mAh battery powers the behemoth.
Galaxy Mega 6.3
Moving on to the Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8, the device has a 5.8-inch display with a qHD resolution. It has the same chipset as the Mega 6.3 but the CPU clock speed is reduced to 1.4GHz along with 1.5GB of RAM. It runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and also houses an 8MP rear and 1.9MP front facing camera. It also has 8GB built-in storage expandable up to 64GB via a microSD card. It is slightly thicker than the Galaxy Mega 6.3 at 9mm and weighs 182 grams. A 2600mAh battery powers the phablet.
The OS on the Galaxy Mega 5.8 is skinned with TouchWiz and bring the same feature set as the Galaxy Mega 6.3.
Galaxy Mega 5.8
“We are aware of a great potential in the bigger screen for extensive viewing multimedia, web browsing, and more. We are excited to provide another choice to meet our consumers’ varying lifestyles, all while maintaining the high-quality features of the award-winning GALAXY series,” said JK Shin, CEO and Head of IT & Mobile Business, Samsung Electronics.
Samsung already has the first generation Galaxy Note available in India that boasts of a 5-inch display and its successor; the Note II has a 5.5-inch display. Both the devices are very good and have been considered the defining products in the phablet category.
What remains to be seen however is how the Galaxy Mega 6.3 is received in the market. The smallest screen size on a tablet is 7-inches and with the Mega 6.3, the distinction between a tablet and a phablet seems to be reducing.
The Galaxy Mega already has competition from the Huawei Ascend Mate, which was unveiled at CES 2013. In terms of its specifications, the Ascend Mate has a 6.1-inch display with a 1280×720 pixel IPS display and has a 1.5 GHz Hi-Silicon quad-core processor under the hood combined with 2GB of RAM. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean straight out of the box and is powered by a 4050mAh battery. The Android OS is skinned with Huawei’s Emotion interface. It has an 8MP AF rear-facing camera with HDR and 1MP HD front-facing camera for video calls.