Samsung will announce a new Galaxy Note 3 in early September that uses the latest Snapdragon 800 processor, has a 13MP camera and 4G phone – with a stylus as well.

A report from BGR claims the updated Galaxy Note 3 (SM-N900) will have a 6”, full HD 1080p OLED ‘unbreakable’ screen, Snapdragon 800 2.3GHz processor, 3GB of ram, 4G, and improved S Pen support.

I reviewed the Galaxy Note 2 earlier this year and was very impressed by the S Pen – it is extremely functional and nicely rounds out the tablet experience. I felt that such a device may have suffered from an identity crisis. Is it a small tablet, or a large phone - and now a capable 13MP camera.

It will also be offered in 8 and 10” models at a small price premium over the recently released Galaxy 3 tablet series reviewed here .

There are rumours that there may be at least two variants - a premium model with OLED screen and 13MP camera and a base model with LCD screen and 8MP camera. Base ram is likely to be 16GB to keep retail costs competitive and 32 or 64GB will be available to order. It will have a 64GB microSD slot.

Opinion

According to Strategy Analytics, nearly 52 million tablets were sold in Q2, 2103.

35 million (67%) of these were Android. The massive upsurge over the previous quarter is mainly due to 15.5 million being low cost unbranded tablets starting at $50 for a 7” mini.

Apple sold 14.6 million (28.3%) – significantly down from previous quarter sales. Apple’s premium products have failed to keep up with the value proposition of Android.

That leaves a scant 2.5 million (5%) for other OS like Windows RT, BlackBerry Playbook etc., although there are some definitional issues with this statistic. Hybrid, foldable, transformer, and convertible Ultrabook based tablets running Windows 8 PRO are classed as PC’s.

Whatever the case tablets and hybrids are the new black as far as portable computing devices go.