The Samsung Galaxy NotePRO 12.2 Wi-Fi will go on sale in the U.S. on Feb. 13 and Verizon will get LTE enabled model later this quarter.
Samsung recently announced its largest tablet to date, a 12.2-inch Galaxy NotePRO. The tablet is rumored to be a pre-emptive response to Apple's long-rumored 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which is expected to launch in the spring or fall of this year. As the small-size tablet market begins to get over-saturated and mature with the usual players taking top sales, Samsung took to the large-tablet segment with its top-end Galaxy and Galaxy Note tablets.
Tablets continue to grow in popularity compared to the aging PC market and more tablet makers are increasingly focusing on display size as a way to create a new tablet category. Screen sizes in the 12 to 13-inch range, that really take advantage of having a larger display compared to previous models, allow users to have a new way of interacting with the tablet and be presented with more information thanks to the larger screen.
Samsung has just announced that its Galaxy NotePro 12.2 tablet will be available in the U.S. beginning on Feb. 13. This will give Samsung customers a taste of a large-sized tablet before Apple is able to deliver. The NotePRO 12.2 offers a new user interface called Magazine UX to interact with Samsung's latest tablets, which replaces the aging TouchWiz UI the company has been using for years. The updated UI really takes advantage of the 12.2-inch display, allowing for more information to be displayed and also running up to four apps simultaneously in a centralized view that is broken down on your screen.
Samsung also confirmed that the Wi-Fi Galaxy Note Pro, as well as Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 and 8.4 are now up for pre-order and will launch on Feb. 13, with a LTE Galaxy Note Pro version for Verizon wireless to debut later this quarter. This falls in line with recent reports that showed an LTE model with Verizon support has received FCC approval.
The Galaxy NotePRO 12.2 will be available on Feb. 13 and has gone up for pre-order at midnight ET on Feb. 4 from Samsung's online store, Best Buy, Amazon, Tiger Direct, Walmart, PC Richard and Sons, Fry's, and Newegg. The 12.2-inch tablet is carrying a pretty high price tag, as it costs a hefty $749.99 for 32GB and $849.99 for the 64GB model. Samsung justifies the price by pointing out that the slate's 12.2-inch Super LCD panel ships with a very high resolution of 2560 x 1600. The tablet is also packing a speedy quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 3GB of RAM.
There's no word on what Verizon will charge for the LTE variant, considering the 32GB Wi-Fi only model is priced at $749.99, but we'll keep you up to date as soon as we learn more.
