Samsung Note: 5.3-inch phone with a stylus

Samsung is showing off the Note in Germany today, a smartphone with a massive 5.3-inch display that works with a stylus when desired. That's right, the Samsung Note is an Android phone that has pen input for note-taking and sketching. Perhaps Samsung is having a Windows Mobile moment.

The Note pushes the limits for a phone's screen size, and pictures make it hard to tell if it is a giant phone or a tiny tablet. That's apparently the point as Samsung is touting the pen input as a game-changer in the smartphone space. The pen fits in the back of the thin phone to prevent loss, a common problem in the PDA days of old. The Samsung Note definitely looks like the PDA is making a comeback, in a smartphone form.

The phone is impressive with the same envelope-pushing specs in the newly announced Galaxy Tab 7.7: 1.4GHz dual-core processor, 1280x800 high-resolution Super AMOLED screen, and HSPA+. The Note is very thin which mitigates the overly large size of the screen.

Samsung is including software to take advantage of the "S Pen", specifically a planner app and a note-taking app. More signficantly, Samsung is making the S Pen SDK available to developers, hoping for third party app support.