Samsung Galaxy Note 2 coming to U.S. Oct. 24?

IDG News Service - Samsung on Thursday afternoon sent out press invitations proclaiming that "the next big thing is here" and told reporters to save the date of Oct. 24 for an event in New York.

Samsung Mobile, which sent the invitations, did not provide any details about the event other than to say it will celebrate "The Next Big Thing," but it is likely that the honored guest at the fete will be the company's smartphone-tablet hybrid, Galaxy Note 2, which has a 5.5-inch screen.

The device was released in South Korea on Wednesday, and the company said the device will be rolled out in 128 countries through 260 carriers, reaching the U.K. in early October and the U.S. later that month.

The Galaxy Note 2 follows the highly successful Galaxy Note, which was launched in February with a 5.3-inch screen. The Galaxy Note 2 can display images at a resolution of 1280-by-720 pixels. The device that shipped earlier this week had a 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor, which is made by Samsung.

The smartphone and tablet-hybrid offers 16 hours of talk time and storage of 32GB or 64GB. The 32GB model was priced at US$970 and the 64GB version is around $1,026.

Samsung has sold about 12 million Galaxy Note devices to date, according to Strategy Analytics. The device has created a possible market for what observers call a "phablet," a term that combines phone and tablet. Another device called phablet is Asustek's Padfone.

Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com