Samsung issues invites to September 4 Note III event

Samsung Unpacked 2013 Episode 2 (invite graphics)

In spite of naysayers, Samsung’s stylus-based Galaxy Note phablet series has definitely carved a market for itself. Introduced in October 2011, the original 5.3-inch Note went on to ship a surprising ten million units by mid-August 2012, making a believable case for pen-based mobile devices sized between jumbo-smartphones and tweener tablets.

During last year’s IFA, the Galaxy maker held the Unpacked event to introduce the Note successor, called the Note II. But that was last year and this year another Note upgrade is needed so the South Korean conglomerate has just sent out invites to an event unimaginatively called Unpacked 2013 Episode 2, with the Note III likely the star of the show…

The event is due on September 4 (the first Wednesday in September) at 7pm local time (1pm ET, 10am Pacific) in Berlin, Germany.

Samsung will be providing a live stream of the press conference in New York’s Time Square. The company has also promised a YouTube livestream feed for those that can’t make it to Berlin to follow along.

If the ‘Note the Date’ tagline and invitation graphics are an indication, it’s all but certain that the announcement will focus on the next Note phablet. The current-generation Note II features a 5.55-inch 720p resolution screen and a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM. At the very least, the Note III should improve upon its predecessor by providing a newer Samsung chip and a 1080p display upgrade.

The Note does not directly compete with Apple’s iOS devices because Apple doesn’t believe the stylus is the way to go. “If you see a stylus, they blew it,” Steve Jobs quipped during the January 2007 iPhone introduction.

steve jobs who wants a stylus

However, the success of Samsung’s Note series – though not (yet) stealing sales from Apple – proves there is a market for phablets and pen-based mobile computing.

We know from patent filings Apple is researching so-called active stylus for iOS devices, but that’s never a guarantee we’ll ever see a stylus-based gadget from Apple.

If anything, a rumored 13-inch iPad could benefit from providing an optional pen-based input method for specialized apps like design, CAD and so forth.

Invite graphics via 9to5Google.