Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 Neo and Note 3 Neo LTE+ are now official. The rumoured budget version of the company’s premium and popular Note 3 is finally unveiled by Samsung Poland, reports GSMArena. Samsung has ensured that users can take advantage of the popular SPen on the budget version too.
A look at the two Neos and you will find a striking resemblance with the their elder sibling, the Note 3, except for the difference in length and width. The Neo is lighter at 162 grams, but comes with the same faux-leather back seen on the Note 3. Both versions of the Note 3 Neo sport a5.5-inch display, compared to the 5.7-inch screen fitted on the Note 3. Needless to say, these less expensive versions have a 720p display and not the Full HD 1080p.
Note 3 Neo as well as Neo LTE+ pack in 16GB onboard storage and a microSD card slot. Samsung has given the premium 13MP camera and 4k recording a miss, as the Neo gets an 8MP camera and maximum 1080p video recording. They are fitted with an 8MP BSI sensor and a 2MP front-facing snapper for video calls and selfies.
The differentiating factor is the chipset used in these devices. The Neo LTE+ model is powered by a hexa-core chipset, as we saw in the detailed leak of the phone earlier, with two 1.7GHz Cortex-A15 cores and four 1.3GHz Cortex A7 cores, while the Note 3 Neo is an HSPA+ version with a more traditional 1.6GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU. The Neo LTE+ is arguably the first hexacore smartphone in the world.
The connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, GPS/GLONASS and also an IR blaster (available depending on the region). The devices get the 4.3 Jelly Bean flavour of Android, out of the box. Needless to say, it gets a layer of the TouchWiz UI. All of this fuelled by a 3100mAh battery.
Unfortunately for Samsung phablet fans, there’s no word on the pricing and availability of these two. However, we expect Samsung to give a worldwide release for these device sometime this month, perhaps even at Mobile World Congress.
