Once it became clear that the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 would not be much of an upgrade over last year’s industry-leading Honeycomb tablet, analysts turned their attention to the 10.1-inch version of Samsung’s popular Galaxy Note in hopes of a worthy successor. Rumors and false alarms have abounded regarding this device, which many hope will be Samsung’s true flagship tablet for 2012. We still don’t know about pricing and availability for the Galaxy Note 10.1, but the expected specs are coming more into focus.

Galaxy Note 10.1 specs
According to G for Games, the latest rumored specs for the Galaxy Note 10.1 are as follows:

• 10.1 inches Super PLS LCD screen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and 149 ppi
  
• Exynos 4412 Quad-core CPU running at 1400 MHz
  
• ARM Mali 400MP GPU (not the T-604 rumored in my previous article)
  
• 1 GB of RAM
  
• 16/32/64 GB of internal storage expandable by up to 32 GB via microSD
  
• 3 MP camera on the back with LED flash, autofocus and 1080p video recording capabilities
  
• 2 MP camera on the front
  
• 7000 mAh battery
  
• USB 2.0, Bluetooth 3.0, HDSPA+, EDGE, GPRS

With the exception of the Exynos 4412 processor and the Mali 400 GPU, the specs on the Galaxy Note 10.1 are roughly par for the course among top-shelf 2012 tablets.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet featured in a leaked hands-on video

A Tough Market
When Amazon mistakenly posted a preorder page for the Galaxy Note 10.1, it pegged the price at $549, which would be a bargain by 2011 standards, but will likely leave the high-end tablet behind the competition in 2012.

On the lower end of the 2012 price spectrum, Google is allegedly partnering with Asus to make a Nexus 7 tablet which would also feature a quad-core CPU in the Nvidia Tegra 3 along with the same 1280x800 screen resolution (which would have a higher ppi because of the 7 inch display). Granted, the Exynos 4412 is a more powerful chip than the Tegra 3, but you’re paying more than double for the bump in power and the same resolution (though stretched across 3 more inches of screen).

On the high end of the spectrum, though still $100 lower than the price Amazon leaked, we find the Acer Iconia Tab A700 and the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity 700 Series, each with a full HD resolution of 1920X1200. While the Iconia is powered by a Tegra 3, the Transformer is powered by the powerful Snapdragon S4. The Transformer tablet has an 8MP camera, and the A700 also features a 5MP camera compared to the rumored 3MP shooter on the Note, but this might not matter as much, unless you regularly use a 10.1-inch tablet to take pictures.

There are scores of other 7-inch tablets due to feature the Tegra 3 chipset, as well as many other 10.1-inch tablets with similar specs to the Galaxy Note 10.1, but the above comparisons give you an idea of the tougher tablet market Samsung faces in 2012. This doesn’t even take the market-dominating 2012 version of the iPad with its Retina display into account, and also doesn’t include the coming flood of Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets.

All things considered, Samsung will have to convince the market that the Exynos 4412 processor and the S-pen with its related software are enough of an upgrade over the flood of competitor tablets to justify the higher price (assuming the tablet sells for the $549 price tag leaked by Amazon).