Samsung unveiled its big screened device - the Galaxy Note - in September. With a huge 5.3-inch display, the Galaxy Note is considered to be neither a phone nor a tablet but a happy combination of both.

The Note's most prominent feature - its 5.3-inch display - is bigger than any smartphone in the market but smaller than a tablet, which generally sports a 7-inch screen. The hybrid runs on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread software and will be updated to the Ice Cream Sandwich in the near future.

Samsung announced on Monday the Galaxy Note will be coming to the U.S., on AT&T's network. AT&T, in turn, said the device would be available in the coming weeks but stopped short of announcing either the release date or the price.

The Galaxy Note is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, has a 2 megapixel front-facing camera and an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera and offers 16GB of onboard memory. The AT&T model will come with Near Field Communication technology (NFC), which the European model lacks.

The most interesting features of the Galaxy Note, however, are its touch-screen and the S Pen stylus. The screen has a 1280x800 pixel resolution using Samsung's AMOLED technology and provides, according to the company, sharp and crisp images with rich colors.

The S Pen stylus will allow users to draw and take notes and is integrated into the phone's applications, including an app that allows users to send doodles and hand-drawn notes via e-mails or texts.

On the other hand, Apple launched the iPhone 4's successor- the iPhone 4S - to overwhelming responses. The latest offering from Cupertino, while retaining the exterior design of its predecessor, featured important upgrades.

The most prominent features, perhaps, were Siri - a voice-recognition feature that allows users to control phones by talking to them; cloud-sourced data; and an improved 8 megapixel camera. It also has a 3.5-inch TFT Retina multi-touch display and is loaded with the latest Apple operating system - iOS 5.

Take a look at the specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Note and Apple's iPhone 4S:

Display: The Galaxy Note boasts a 5.3-inch WXGA Super AMOLED HD screen, with 1280×800 resolutions at 285 ppi density, while the iPhone 4S has 3.5-inch TFT Retina multi-touch display that gives a resolution of 960 x 640 pixels at 326 ppi density.

Dimensions: The Galaxy Note will come with 146.9 x 83 x 10 mm dimension and weighs approximately 178 grams. On the other hand, the iPhone 4S comes with 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm and weighs 140 grams.

Processor: The Galaxy Note sports a Qualcomm MSM8660 1.5GHz dual-core processor. On the other hand, the iPhone 4S, which comes in an A5 chipset, is powered by a 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU.

Camera: Both smartphones sport rear-facing 8 megapixel LED flash cameras with 1080p video capture capability. For video calls, the iPhone 4S comes with a secondary VGA camera, while the Galaxy Note comes with a 2 megapixel front-facing camera.

Operating System: The Galaxy Note runs on Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system but can be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which offers improved voice commands, an enhanced browser, facial recognition, photo enhancements and changes to core apps such as Gmail and Calendar. The iPhone 4S runs on iOS 5 that comes with 200 new features that include an improved Notifications System, Newsstand and iMessage.

Connectivity: The iPhone 4S has HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, HSUPA 5.8 Mbps support and also has CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz) technology. On the other hand, the Galaxy Note has HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps and supports 4G LTE.

Memory: The Galaxy Note comes with 16GB of internal memory which can be expanded up to 32GB, via a microSD card. The iPhone 4S comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models. It doesn't support a MicroSD card slot. The Galaxy Note has 1GB of RAM and the iPhone 4S comes with only 512MB of RAM.

Battery: The iPhone 4S has a Li-Po 1420 mAh battery with 8 hours of talk time on 3G networks, up to 14 hours on 2G networks (GSM) and a standby time of 200 hours, while the Galaxy Note sports a generous Li-on 2,500 mAh battery.

Price: The iPhone 4S costs $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB model and $399 for the 64GB model, while AT&T not yet announced the price for Samsung's device.

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