This post is sponsored by Samsung

Many Africans still use their phones primarily to make calls and send text messages. But its young and tech-savvy population is spurring demand for high-end phones and media tablets.

Samsung, this year's largest seller of mobile phones, has a wide array of feature phones, smartphones like the Galaxy S 2 and tablets like the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Consumers hoping to try out phones that could browse over the Internet and download apps like Apple's iPhone and try out a tablet like the BlackBerry PlayBook to watch movies or play games can try out an elegantly designed, all-in-one device, the Galaxy Note.

"The GALAXY Note is a device borne of our insight and innovation. We examined the fundamental elements of mobile culture, entertainment and communication in order to bring together the best experiences in a single, elegant device," said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung's Mobile Communications Business. "The huge, 5.3" HD Super AMOLED screen is the largest, highest quality display available in any phone; the touch screen and S Pen combine to produce a uniquely accurate level of control and finesse, along with rich expressions across the GALAXY Note experience, enabling the introduction of new smartphone experiences."

The Galaxy Note is your phone-tablet hybrid. With a 5.3-inch screen, it offers the largest screen real estate among smartphones and at the same time, offers more portability than the market-leading Apple's 9.7-inch iPad. Taking full advantage of the large display, GALAXY Note users will be able to multi-task, read ebooks and open web pages with minimal scrolling and zooming and stream videos, while on the go.

With many wireless phone operators rolling out broadband 3G networks in the continent this year, and possibly 4G in several markets, the Galaxy Note would be a superb choice as it's as powerful as the bulky tablets in the market today.

Apple's best-seller, the iPad 2, which has 67 percent of the tablet market, sports a 1 G Hz dual-core A5 processor, 512 MB of RAM, and poor 0.3 MP and 0.7 MP cameras. The Galaxy Note is ultraportable yet it has the specs that guarantee faster app downloading, data transfer and a rich web experience. The Galaxy Note sports an eye-popping a WXGA 1280 x 800 pixel, 285 ppi resolution for its 5.3-inch screen, a fast dual-core application processor inside, with each core clocked in at 1.4GHz; 8-megapixel photo snapper with support for full HD video recording; 2-megapixel front camera; and 1 GB of RAM.

Research firm IDC figures say Samsung took the top spot in the worldwide smartphone market in the third quarter beating Nokia Oyj and Apple Inc. And the Korean electronics giant aims to surpass Nokia as the world's largest seller of mobile phones (smartphones + feature phones) by the end of the year.

But Africa is still foreign territory for Samsung. In South Africa, where only 15 percent use smartphones, the market is led by Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Nokia.

According to a Google study, in South Africa, consumers use their smartphones for browsing, emailing, watching videos on YouTube and social networking on Facebook.

Samsung aims to further gain ground in the African market with the Galaxy Note. The GALAXY Note's high-resolution display ensures that e-books, PowerPoint presentations, news apps and web-pages can be viewed comfortably with minimal scrolling or zooming. The screen is large enough to allow split-screen operation and frequently used native apps can be operated side-by-side. The GALAXY Note's 1.4GHz dual-core processor ensures a quick and seamless browsing experience and streaming videos in real-time.

This 'mini-tablet' is 150-mm tall and 83-mm wide and only 9.7-mm thick. The device weighs just 178 grams, just slightly heavier than the 140-gram iPhone 4S. With its Li-ion 2500 mAh battery, the Galaxy Note lasts a full day of significant usage.

The device includes a stylus that Samsung has dubbed the "S-Pen". The incorporated digital S Pen can be used for accurate sketching and artwork and handwritten text can be converted into digital characters via a handwriting recognition technology.

The Galaxy Note runs on Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, although it can be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Ice Cream Sandwich offers improved voice commands, an enhanced browser, facial recognition, photo enhancements, and changes to core apps such as Gmail and Calendar.

Research In Motion has released five new attractive BlackBerry phone models this year, but the physical keyboard of the Bold 9900 and 9930 are limiting the screen real estate and the all-touch-screen Torch 9850 and 9860 still have a 9.7-inch screen. Plus, while the Android Market offers thousands of apps and content to customize your Samsung phones, RIM's BlackBerry OS is facing a shortage of quality apps.

Nokia has continued to provide the market with devices that have excellent hardware. However, it's undergoing a transition from Symbian to Microsoft Windows. While Nokia continues to release Symbian phones, third party developers are no longer creating apps.

Nokia last month unveiled its first Windows Phone-based device, the Lumia 800. The Lumia 800 is as stunning as the Nokia N9 but is slimmer and uses the Windows 7.5 Mango platform. The Nokia Lumia 800 sports a 3.7 inch AMOLED ClearBlack curved display, and a 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with hardware acceleration and a graphics processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a 1450mAh battery. While the tile-based user interface provided by Mango and the Metro are visually appealing, Microsoft has yet to gain ground in mobile devices (it just has 2% of the market). While hundreds of thousands of great apps for the iPhone and Android devices are already available in the Apple App Store and Android Market, Microsoft has yet to convince developers to make apps for Windows Phone.

With the biggest screen and superior specs, the Galaxy Note is set to rule Africa.

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