We first got a sneak peek of Samsung's new Galaxy Note at IFA earlier this year and last night we were invited to the official launch of the handset in the amazing Battersea Power Station.

Galaxy Note

JK Shin, head of mobile communications at Samsung, kicked off last night's launch by telling us that the handset "creates its own new product category" in the way it's much more like a smart phone / tablet hybrid than anything we've ever seen before.

According to the Samsung team, the handset has been designed to let people do much more while they're on the go, whether that's note taking, watching media, communicating with people or drawing.

The main thing that REALLY differentiates the device from anything else on the market is its fancy new stylus. We know, we know, we thought the stylus was dead too, but with the Galaxy Note's new S Pen (a whole new take on the classic stylus), you'll be using it for pretty much everything, from navigating menus, drawing, taking notes, editing videos and much more. Interestingly, Samsung plans to release the S Pen SDK allowing app developers to create fundamentally new applications and services incorporating the pen functionality.

The Galaxy Note also has everything you'd expect from a smartphone, with a large 5.3in, 1280 x 800 Super AMOLED display running from a dual-core 1.4GHz processor. You'll also be able to snap 8MP photos and record 1080p video footage too.

The Galaxy Note will be available here in the UK on the 2nd of November and so far Carphone Warehouse, O2 and Phones 4 U are on board.

Here's a hands-on video from IFA earlier this year:

Galaxy Nexus

Last night wasn't just about the Galaxy Note, but it was also a chance for the guys at Samsung to showcase the Galaxy Nexus, the first phone to run the latest Android offering, Ice Cream Sandwich.

The first thing you notice about the Galaxy Nexus is how it looks, it's got a curved and contoured design, rounded edges and its completely buttonless too.

Like the Note, the Nexus is a very capable smart phone which will be faster than ever with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, a 1280 X 720 resolution display and fairly large 4.65 inch screen.

However, there are plenty of features that really make the Nexus stand out, including face unlock, which allows you to unlock your phone with a smile, Android beam, which allows you to transfer data using NFC technology and voice typing, which allows you to input any kind of text with your voice.

For those who love to take photos, the Nexus comes with a 5MP camera with zero shutter lag, a panoramic single motion feature and a new gallery.

The Galaxy Nexus will be rolled out across Europe on the 17th of November.

Some interesting stuff from poling company YouGov which has been asking consumers what they think about Tablet PCs. To be fair you can probably guess its main conclusions that 1, The iPad is the tablet most people want. 2, That £250 is the price point at which sales of tablet PC will go stratospheric and 3, The iPad's only serious rival is likely to be the kindle Fire.

"Apple is far and away the current UK market leader in terms of brand awareness, preference and price," says Russell Feldman, Associate Director for Technology and Telecoms Consulting at YouGov. "But the introduction of the Kindle Fire, with its compelling features and even more attractive price, will make it very hard indeed for other players to compete. The Kindle Fire benefits not only on price and specifications, but also in the value and trust consumers have in the Amazon brand. What's more it has the potential to be a major game-changer given the depth of Amazon's downloadable content as well as its burgeoning application store - something that has underpinned consumers' loyalty to Apple over other tablets running an Android OS."

The research doesn't deliver any good news for Apple's rival brands like Samsung, Motorola and Acer. Apparently "72% of "hot prospects" (respondents who are keen to get a tablet) will consider purchasing an iPad2 with a further 61% expecting to get one. However, the next most popular tablets are the out of date iPad1 at 14% followed by the original Samsung Galaxy Tab at 7%. Other competitors fared even worse, with just 3% of "hot prospects" expecting to get a HTC, 3% a BlackBerry and just 1% favouring an Acer."

Feldman added "This is the mountain Android-based tablets need to climb, but by launching a rival ecosystem at an extremely competitive price, Amazon is likely to make a rapid approach to the summit, at the expense not necessarily of Apple, but of its rival Android stable mates."

We wrote about Samsung's MV800 compact camera the other day highlighting its very cool flip out screen. This enables your photo's subjects are able to quickly fix their hair in the front-facing screen before each shot, while you can then flip it back into a more traditional position for scrolling through menus and adding after-effects.

Expect to see the MV800 in shops later this month, priced around the £250 mark.

So what the hell is going on with Samsung's latest Android tablet the Galaxy Tab 7.7? It went on display at IFA on Friday, but by the weekend had been pulled from the stand due to an injunction from Apple. As you may remember the Dusseldorf Regional Court recently granted Apple a temporary sales ban on the earlier Galaxy Tab 10.1 model in 26 of the 27 European Union member countries, and now Apple has secured another ban on the new model in Germany at least.

But if you would like to have a peek at what might go on sale in the UK at some point here's Gerald's video.

Bit of an odd one this for half a decade after Apple revolutionised the touch screen phone, by making its interface work without the need of a pen, Samsung brings the stylus back with the Galaxy Note. The video preview is above and you can find out more about the device here.

Expect a launch price of around £500 and a Q1 2012 street date for the Galaxy Note

And one last biggie from Samsung at IFA - the Galaxy Note. It is quite clearly a smartphone but it does boast a 5.3 inch display, so it could almost be a baby tablet. It isn't the first gadget to sport this sized screen, you might remember the similarly specced Dell Streak from last year.

What makes this a bit different is that it actually comes with a pen on board. The S Pen means that you can use the device's big 5.3" HD Super AMOLED display for everything from sketching to note-taking. It also comes with a planner - the S Planner, which is a professional planning tool that integrates the phone's To-Do list and schedule.

Interestingly Samsung plans to release the S Pen SDK allowing app developers to create fundamentally new applications and services incorporating the pen functionality.

Samsung also claims that the bifg screen makes the device useful for things like PowerPoint presentations (yawn), web-pages, news apps and e-books.

It also boasts a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, HSPA+ and LTE (4G) connections, runs Android 2.3(Gingerbread) OS and packs an eight mega pixel camera. Full specs below.

Network

HSPA+ 21Mbps 850/900/1900/2100
EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900

Processor

1.4GHz Dual Core Processor

Display

5.3" WXGA(1280x800, 285ppi) HD Super AMOLED

OS

Android 2.3(Gingerbread)

Camera

Main(Rear) : 8 MP with LED Flash

Front : 2 MP

Action Shot, Beauty, Panorama Shot, Smile Shot, Share Shot

Video

Video : MPEG4, H.264, H.263, WMV, DivX, Xvid, VC-1
Recording 1080p@24~30fps, Playing 1080p@30fps

Audio

Codec : MP3, AAC, AMR, WMA, WAV, FLAC, OGG

Music Player with SoundAlive

3.5mm Ear Jack, Stereo FM Radio with RDS

Value-added

Features

Samsung Apps

Samsung Kies 2.0/ Samsung Kies air

Samsung ChatON mobile messenger service

(Downloadable via Samsung Apps)

Samsung TouchWiz/ Samsung L!ve Panel UX

Smart Note Apps

S Pen / Pen UX

Social Hub
- Integrated Messaging(Email, SNS), Contacts/ Calendar Sync

- Basic: POP3/IMAP Email

Social Hub, Readers Hub , Music Hub

GoogleTM Mobile Services

- GmailTM, Google TalkTM, Google SearchTM, YouTubeTM, Android Market TM,

- Google MapsTM with Google Places and Google Latitude

A-GPS

Enterprise Solutions

- ODE, EAS, CCX, MDM, VPN, WebEx

NFC (optional)

Connectivity

Bluetooth® technology v 3.0 + HS

USB 2.0 HOST

Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct

Sensor

Accelerometer, Light, Digital compass, Proximity, Barometer

Memory

16/32GB Internal Memory + microSD (up to 32GB)

Size

146.85 x 82.95 x 9.65 mm

Battery

Standard battery, Li-on 2,500 mAh

Orange customers are the first to be able to pay for goods using their mobile phones - assuming you also are a customer of Barclaycard and have a Samsung Tocco Quick Tap handset.

So not the broadest roll-out yet, but it's a good start for something we've been eagerly waiting for. More of us should be able to enjoy the service as well, as other handsets and networks follow suit to offer touch-to-pay services. With Orange, users can pay for items costing less than £15 by swiping the handset onto readers, which activates an NFC (near-field communication) chip.

Apple is rumoured to be planning this function in the next iPhone, with other manufacturers also thought to be planning this for rollout within the next six months. But the lucky ones in possession of the Barclaycard-Orange-Samsung combo can start today - loading their handsets with up to £150 through an app on the phone. The system will check the transaction against your account and run a daily tally.

Having said that - as the "wave and pay" function is incorporated into the SIM card and not the handset in this case, it should be possible to remove the SIM and put it into a different handset and it should still work.

About 50,000 shopping outlets in the UK will accept this type of payment, including McDonald's and Pret a Manger, but this is likely to increase as more mobiles are equipped with the technology.

Apple are taking Samsung to court claiming that their Galaxy Phones and Tablet range "blatantly" copy the iPhone and the iPad.

They filed a lawsuit on Friday alleging that Samsung violated Apple's patents and trademarks. A spokeswoman said: "This kind of blatant copying is wrong." Apple singled out particularly design features: the shape of the phone and the look of the apps and icons on the home screen. -Those square things with rounded corner? They were Apple's idea according to the suit:

"Even the icons in earlier versions of the Samsung smart phones looked different because they had a variety of shapes -- and did not appear as a field of square icons with rounded corners," the lawsuit said.

Samsung say they did their own research and came up with these ideas independently.

Apple has also sued HTC and Motorola for copyright infringement and illegal use of their intellectual property respectively.

But what do you think readers? Are the phones that similar? Take our poll at the bottom after looking at the pictures above and below:

Samsung are really hyping up the sex appeal of their latest laptop - the slender 16.3mm thick Series 9 notebook - by launching it in Mayfair with a bunch of celebrities and getting it photographed with a hottie in front of a plane. A hottie we believe is a cricket player called Alastair Cook.

Comparison to the MacBook Air
Squaring it up to the Macbook Air: it packs a better chip - the excellent Intel 2nd Generation Core i5 processor, one of the top two processors out there, and is actually a hair's breadth thinner: the Macbook is 17mm to the Series 9's 16.3mm. It has a 13" screen, and at £1,299 costs slightly less than as the top-specced 13" MacBook Air which is £1,378.00.

It's a speedy operator and has a superfast start-up time of 12 seconds from off-mode. The battery life is 6.5 hours, which they claim is up to three times longer than a typical notebook battery, and yes longer than the Air's 5hours.

- 4GB memory
- HD screen

Will it take off?
Unfortunately the Series 9 does remind us a little of the Dell Adamo, another MacBook Air rival also launched with a glam ad campaign, that ended up being pulled ignominiously from the Dell range after poor sales. See our story: Dell kills off the Adamo - their super slender laptop can't beat the MacBook Air. We are impressed by the specs, but it's hard to beat the name recognition that the Air has, and the fact that customers know the Macbook will be built beautifully smoothly. Samsung has less of a strong reputation at the luxe end of the spectrum...

£1,299 from major retailers, available now in the UK..

Only days after the announcement of bubblegum-coloured, aviator-style 3D TV glasses from iWoot, Samsung have annouced prescription 3D glasses for watching the telly.

This means that those of us who are squinty and short-sighted won't have to perch two pairs of glasses on our delicate noses when we want to watch some film in 3D.

We assume you'll be able to use them at the cinema and anywhere that the 3D technology uses passive glasses..

Obviously you won't want to get these replaced everytime your prescription changes, and of course this pair would just work for you, so you can't share them. But maybe that's a good thing.

So far Samsung are only selling the specs in Korea. You drop your prescription off at the Samsung shop, and within a month you've got a corrective 3D pair waiting for you. As 3D adoption spreads, we could see this spreading around the world...

We're liking on this classy case by Samsung for their new bit of kit the SF310 notebook.

The monochrome SF310 notebook looks a bit like Victorian wallpaper thanks to a creative makeover by Lily Allen and her new boutique shop - Lucy in Disguise. The shop rocks the same kind of cute retro style as the British singer.

Clearly aimed at the high spending, design-conscious Christmas market - the notebook will be on sale in Lucy in Diguise's Covent Garden store from early November

And on the inside? Well Samsung say:

"the SF310 has 6.5 hours of battery life and includes an express charging mode which fully charges the battery in just 2 - 3 hours. With Samsung's proprietary Fast Start technology, the notebook is ready to use in seconds and if your phone handset or camera runs low on power when you're out and about, the convenient USB Sleep & Charge feature enables you to charge them without even turning the notebook on."

To give a bit more detail, the 13-inch SF310 was announced earlier this month at IFA, has an Intel i5 2.65ghz chip, an LCD screen and it's all special and curvy.

The SF310 costs £799 without the design on Samsung here and is available from now..

Samsung tried to get us all excited about the potential of apps on TV today. And to extent they succeeded.

The iPlayer app looks great, LoveFilm and music video site Muzu.com will be excellent. But what all those apps have in common is that they offer content that was always intended for TV in an easy-to-manage format. They're just like better-organised television.

But beyond that, I'm still not convinced about the need for other apps on the Television. I just don't see how things like SuDoku or even Facebook will be improved by having them up on the big screen.

In an attempt to prove how TV apps and the web-enabled Smart TV will work their way into our everyday lives John Green from Samsung talked us through a day in the life of the Smiths, a family with 2.4 kids and a Samsung-manufactured Smart TV.

To me this presentation raised more questions than it answered. In fact, rather than selling a new enhanced lifestyle it uncovered 18 hours of an almost nihilistically banal existence.

This was largely the fault of the presenter - who wasn't exactly Steve Jobs - and heaved deep sighs in between every new description of what the Smiths got up to in their daily life and sounded more like he needed Prozac than any thing the Samsung app store could offer him.

I'm digressing, but here's how it goes... my notes in square brackets.

A DAY IN THE LIVES OF THE SMITHS AND THEIR SMART TV WITH APPS

- Let's consider a family unit of 4, the Smith family - and lets consider a day in the life of the Smiths.

- Mr Smith likes to see what the weather is when he gets up 7am. He wants to see the weather in London.. [pause] and in Paris. [sigh]
[The presenter clicks through several menu options to add the city of Paris to the weather app. Nice, but I'm not wowed by the amount of clicking required to get the info you want..]

- After Mr Smith has caught up with the weather, he likes to check the news so goes to USA Today, most of all he likes the sport so he looks at the sports headlines.
[we all look at the sports headlines]

- Then Mr Smith looks at Google Maps and leaves for work. Mrs Smith has the day off so does a Sudoku puzzle at 11am in her coffee break.
[I'm too jaded these days to expect positive gender stereotyping from tech companies, so lets just accept that Mrs Smith does indeed get days off work, and does spend those days playing number games. Would she really want to do them on a TV app though?]

- The teenage daughter gets back from school. After school she goes to the TV because she "likes watching Facebook with her friends".
[I'm not convinced about social networking on TV screens and the use of the word "watching" only confirmed my doubts about it. You never "watch" Facebook, you go on it to chat and check messages and for that you want a keyboard. Also - Facebook on the big screen? Would you want your chat with your friend splayed across 65 inches? What if mum walks into the room. I just don't think this big screen idea works for personal platforms like Facebook.]

- And so the day moves on... the boy plays a bowling game, Ms Smith looks at a picture of pier on the Picasa app, reads comments on the picture of a pier and translates one of the comments that is not in English, into English. Then she looks at a slideshow of pictures of flowers.

- Mr Smith comes home and watches Masterchef on iPlayer.
[well, this all sounds a bit better - but iPlayer on TV has always sounded great

In conclusion - I'm not thrilled by the possibilities here at all. Of course the conference was all about asking developers to get creative and make the apps that will make this platform stand out. In the meantime, the choice of TV programes sound good, but I still need to be inspired by this.

We grabbed a quick video interview with two Samsung execs at the launch of their Smart TV Apps platform. We had just been sold the brave new world of apps on the telly and so we asked these guys just why we should be so wowed. They also tell us how you pay for TV apps, how they felt about competiton from Google, and what their favourite apps were.

Watch out for the surprise statistic on the percentage of people who buy internet-enabled TVs but don't actually activate the internet..

Apps will do for TV what they did for smartphones - said Samsung UK Vice President Andy Griffiths today - and change it forever.

He announced a sheaf of apps that would appear on the new Samsung Smart TVs - iPlayer, LoveFilm, Muzu.com, Facebook, Skype and Twitter - explaining how they'd all been optimised for Samsung's giant 55" screens.

And these aren't just a few new toys, Griffiths claimed, the apps will fundamentally change how we interact with the TV. It's not really news to say that the old broadcast model has been replaced by systems that put more control in the hands of the user, where content used to be pre-packaged, it's now available when and where the consumer wants it. But Griffiths sketched out how that would change what people do with their TVs..

Here are his four predictions for the future:

1) Making your own channels - active users will go about making up their own channels by mixing and matching programmes
2) TVs will learn what you like and recommend what you should watch based on what you have watched before
3) People will upload their own content: videos etc and will watch their friends' videos on the TV
4) There will be lots of integration with social networking sites, making TV social and providing lots of user-generated content for display around big live event TV shows.

See more about TV apps on Samsung's site

The big selling point of this phone, Samsung's only Windows 7 device is the huge glossy Super AMOLED screen, good for game-playing on that Xbox application..

The Omnia 7 is powered by a 1 GHz processor and has a 8GB of onboard memory for storing files. Other features include a 3.5 mm headphone socket, GPS and Wi-Fi support.

The Omnia 7 is available to preorder now from £35 a month on Three

iPad rival - the Samsung Galaxy Tab - showcased at IFA will go on sale with Three in the UK. The Galaxy Tab is a fast Android Tablet with the kitchen sink thrown in - flash support, front and back facing cameras all running on a very fast 1.2GHz chip. Our reviewer, Ashley actually preferred it to the iPad.

Three are famous for well-priced contracts but dodgy coverage. They have been forward in supplying 3G internet to wireless devices beyond mobile phones so jumping into a partnership with the hot Android tablet of the minute is a good move for them.

Nigel Field, Director of Devices at Three said, "With both the Android and tablet markets going from strength to strength, we're proud to be ranging the Samsung GALAXY Tab. More than 97% of Three traffic over the network is data, so more than ever consumers need to make sure they're on a network that can cope with the demand when buying mobile Internet devices like tablets. With both SIM and Wi-Fi connectivity, Samsung GALAXY Tab users on Three can get the most out of the product knowing they're with the UK's number one mobile broadband provider."

Three voice packages:

- SIM10: £10 a month including 100 any network minutes, 2000 Three-to-Three minutes, 3000 texts and 1GB data
- SIM15: £15 a month including 300 any network minutes, 2000 Three-to-Three minutes, 3000 texts and 1GB data
Monthly data only packages:
- 1GB data for £7.50
- 5GB data for £15

Data customers are able to make calls and send text with their data SIM at 10p per text, 10p to call Three mobile or landlines and 25p to other networks.

Samsung have caught the spotlight at IFA this year for their tablet computer the Galaxy Tab which, if Ashley is to be believed, is setting the agenda for the next iPad. But they have another show-stopper product this year and it's in an equally hot area - 3D TV.

It's huge. With a 65 inch screen, it is officially the world's largest LED television. The C8000 3D TV comes with Wi-Fi connectivity and web-connected TV apps - a nice touch.

They've put a bit of effort into the screen too, as you'd expect. It has precision dimming technology for deeper black levels, and a little something they call 800 CMR motion clarity processing, which is probably to do with making the picture clearer.

According to Samsung, it "provides superior picture quality with Samsung's proprietary 3D processor".

The price is on the hefty side too - take a breath - 5995 Euros.

We mentioned Samsung's new Android handset yesterday, but thought the Galaxy S deserved a bit more space to itself.

Key features off the beat: large bright AMOLED screen, 4 inches across. The phone also has a powerful 1 GHz processor.

Specs are sketchy but other features they point up: "vibrant HD videos, rich augmented reality content through Layar Reality Browser, and advanced LBS (Location Based Services). The 'Social Hub' provides always-on social networks connectivity allowing people to enjoy communications with their friends, colleagues, and families whenever they want and wherever they are."

Some beauty shots below...

Okay we've all seen eBooks before, but Samsung's first foray into the field has produced some pretty desirable devices. Their eBook duo: the E60 and E100 are little treats.

Both have pleasant e-ink displays with the E60's screen 6inches across (600 by 800 pixel resolution) and the E100 10 inch (825 by 1200). There's a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard and a stylus, plus speakers offering audio if desired.

For me the sweetest feature was the notes function where you could scribble on with a stylus and it would either convert it to type or store it as an image. "We want to make it as much like the experience of paper as possible" the Samson demonstrator told me.

This was surprising pleasurable and the eBook table was crowded with tech journos practising the uncustomed art of handwriting. Big thumbs up for the user experience with these devices.

Content is downloaded via wifi from Google's Books store (prints out-of-copyright texts and some new ones) and Samsung are in discussion with other publishers about getting more content. Check back on this before purchasing, could be annoying if the book range is limited. Newspapers are also available.

Both have 2gb memory and a micro SD slot.

Again prices are rough but we're looking at 299-349 euros.

Related: Samsung's OmniPro - hands-on with the clever microwave
Samsung NaviBot - hands on with the robotic vacuum cleaner

Samsung launched the Wave its flagship phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we had a little play round with it yesterday in Vienna and yes, that super AMOLED screen is quite something. If you want a crystal clear display that lets you see the individual veins on a leaf and startlingly bright colours, then phone-lover this is the AMOLED touchscreen for you.

It's hard to do the screen justice without taking a look at it so go down to a shop and gawp at it if you're interested. The phone's still slender and features attractive swish-shaped buttons and a diamond cut-out opens up to the camera lens on the back.

Otherwise it packs a video camera that shoots in HD, and the user interface has a feature called "social hub" which integrates facebook and twitter streams in with contact details. A nice touch.

The OS is Samsung's new Bada platform and it's powered by a 1ghz processor, making it pretty speedy, you can multitask (unlike on iPhones, of course).

Samsung's other touchscreens include the Monte, the Jet, the Omnia 2, Star and Kobe, and the Galaxy, a mid-range consumer phone running Android 2.1.

Out in April, the Wave's price as yet unconfirmed will be around 650 euros