Samsung's Galaxy Nexus, which was heralded as the first smartphone to debut on Android's latest mobile operating system - Ice Cream Sandwich - late in 2011, won several accolades for its slim, futuristic looks and state-of-the-art specifications.

Furthermore, the South Korean technology giant witnessed record-breaking sales in the same year, courtesy the Galaxy Nexus, allowing the company to snatch the coveted smartphone crown from rivals Apple.

Now, as if the title weren't enough, the South Koreans have gone a step further by rolling out another speed demon - the Galaxy Note.

The Note, announced in September last year, is a phone/tablet hybrid (Samsung's first) and comes with a stylus, a feature not seen in recent devices.

The Galaxy Note, which has been available in a number of countries across the world, is scheduled to hit the U.S. markets, on AT&T's network, in the coming weeks. However, neither AT&T nor Samsung have disclosed details on price or release date.

The big question, though, is if the Note can steal the Nexus' limelight.

As tough as it may be for Android enthusiasts to choose between two highly acclaimed devices, a roundup of specifications can probably help...

Display: The Galaxy Nexus features a 4.6-inch Super AMOLED 720x1280 resolution and a fortified touch-screen which offers an incredible density of 316ppi. The Galaxy Note, on the other hand, boasts a larger 5.3-inch WXGA Super AMOLED HD screen that gives a resolution of 1280×800 resolutions at 285 ppi density. In addition, the Galaxy Note comes with Gorilla Glass fronting, a must-have for every device.

Camera: The Galaxy Note sports a 2 megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel LED flash camera in the rear, with video record capabilities of 1080p. The device will also have autofocus, geo-tagging, touch-focus, face and smile detection and image stabilization. The Nexus, however, has a fairly standard 5 megapixel primary camera but lacks image-stabilization for video. In addition, the Nexus also features a secondary 1.3-megapixel camera which serves up some decent images but is still some way short of most other smartphones.

Processor/Memory: The Galaxy Nexus is powered by a dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, TI-OMAP 4460 CPU which is assisted by 1GB RAM. In comparison, the Galaxy Note packs a more powerful 1.5GHz dual-core QualComm MSM8660 SnapDragon Adreno 220 GPU chipset in its circuitry, also with 1GB of RAM. (Correcting Error): Both devices come in 16GB and 32GB models, however, the NOTE includes a microSD slot which supports upto 32GB cards.

Operating System: The Galaxy Nexus is popular for its Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) OS, which makes it likely that the Galaxy Note, which runs on Android's 2.3 Gingerbread OS, will get the ICS update at a later stage. The ICS, with its advanced interface and user-friendly features, is reportedly the best of the Honeycomb and Gingerbread softwares combined in one unit.

Connectivity/Bluetooth/USB: Both the Galaxy Note and the Nexus connect at HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps with support for 4G LTE and NFC. The Nexus supports Bluetooth 3.0 and 2.0 microUSB with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, DLNA with Wi-Fi hotspot. The Galaxy Note supports the same connectivity platforms with an additional USB On-the-go plus a new technology called WiFi direct, a feature which enables interactivity among several Wi-Fi devices without having to connect to a router.

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