With the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 almost six months old now, rumors and speculations about its successor, aka Galaxy Note 3, have already started gaining momentum. The latest to enter the rumor-mill is a report from Samsung’s homeland saying that the upcoming version of the popular “phablet” will feature the newly announced 8-core processor and a larger display.

At the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2013 in Las Vegas last week, Samsung introduced its new Exynos 5 Octa CPU, an 8-core processor based on ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture. The company, however, didn’t specify which future devices would be powered by the high-end power-efficient processor, although reports suggest that both Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 could be beefed up by the new processor.

Now, if a latest report from the Korean Times is to be believed, an unnamed Samsung executive has confirmed that the Galaxy Note 3 will sport the new Exynos 5 Octa processor and will also feature a massive 6.3-inch display, dwarfing Huawei’s 6.1-inch Ascend Mate as the biggest smartphone in the market. The device is expected to be released later this year.

“Samsung plans to use the Octa core processor in the upcoming 6.3-inch Galaxy Note 3, which will debut later this year, according to the officials,” the report has said.

The Exynos 5 Octa CPU is a powerhouse performer, comprising four ARM A15 cores and four ARM A7 cores. At any point of time, only four cores will be active depending on the nature of the task. For example, the A7 cores will come into action for less processor intensive tasks while the A15 cores will be active for more intensive tasks like gaming and multimedia. The new processor is also claimed to offer up to 70 percent of power savings.

Given that the existing Galaxy Note 2 packs a quad-core Exynos chip, the inclusion of the Exynos 5 Octa processor in the Galaxy Note 3 will definitely make it “the beast of a Phablet” with much improved processing power, Ubergizmo has reported.

According to another report from Phandroid, the South Korean tech giant “has done a good job of making previous Note handsets feel manageable,” but increasing the screen size even further on the Galaxy Note 3 will likely make users compromise with “pocket-ability and one-handed use” of the device.

Even the Korean Times has reported that Samsung is looking to expand its chip business to China in order to reduce its reliance on Apple.

“The global technology giant said that it is seeking to open new business talks with Chinese budget smartphone makers such as ZTE and Huawei in order to offset the rising risks of losing some business from Apple in key areas including mobile processors that power and control computing systems,” the report has said.

An unidentified Huawei official also has confirmed the developments between the companies.

“Yes, we were approached by Samsung. If the firm offers favorable conditions, there’s no reason to deny the new business,” the official has said.

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