When the Samsung Galaxy Note launched, it was met with a lot of criticism because of its size, and of course, the S-Pen that comes with it.  Everyone knew how the late Steve Jobs felt about the stylus – he hated it.  He even said that if anyone comes up with a device with a stylus, you already know they screwed it up.  So when the Galaxy Note came out with the S-Pen, everyone made fun of it.

The funny thing is, the phablet has already sold five million devices.  How’s that for a “freak” device?

So if everyone is criticizing the device, why has it sold so many units?  For one, no matter what critics say, consumers still decide what to buy.  People these days aren’t fond of bringing a lot of gadgets with them when they go out.  So when Samsung launched the Galaxy Note that features a 5.3” screen, bigger than a smartphone but smaller than a tablet, it made people think.  Why bring a phone and a tablet when you can bring a phablet?

And the S-Pen, even if people see this as a backwards technology, is really useful.  It makes note-taking easier since you don’t have to struggle with your stubby fingers.  Wanna know something that would make Jobs roll in his grave?  Apple is selling a stylus for the iPod Touch, iPhones and iPads!  You can choose between the Soft-Touch Stylus or the Pogo Stylus.  Oh, the irony.

“Samsung has successfully cracked open the 5-inch device market, where Dell failed miserably a couple of years ago,” said Lee Kakeun, an analyst at Hana Daetoo Securities in Seoul. “It’s now expanding into the bigger-sized tablet market, where its stylus could differentiate it among non-iPad tablets and help it expand market share in the tablet market, too.”

We can expect to see more devices from Samsung that doesn’t fall into any category.  Samsung recently unveiled the Galaxy Note 10.1, a tablet that comes with the S-Pen.  They are experimenting and they are right to do so.  Samsung is able to experiment on their products because they have the means to do it.  They need to do this to find out what suits people perfectly, and maybe one day streamline their product lineup.

And to prove how popular the Galaxy Note is, hackers and excited developers managed to make Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich available for the phablet.  All you have to do is boot to flash mode by holding the power+volume down buttons, use rootz one click root, and install the ROM.  Though it may seem like a very simple task, it’s tricky if you’ve never tried rooting a device before.  As of now, the process only works using Windows-based machines.  To learn more about how to get ICS to your Galaxy Note, visit Android Community.

Samsung gets bolder with mobile ads

Aside from experimenting on their devices, Samsung is entering the advertising business as they look into inserting ads on their mobile devices.  Samsung will be joining OpenX Technologies Inc. in offering Samsung AdHub Market –  a service that will allow advertisers to place targeted messages on Samsung phones and tablets beginning in the second half of the year.

This would put Samsung in direct competition with Millennial Media, the leading mobile ad network that recently went public.  There’s also Google to compete with, who gets the bulk of their Android revenue from ads, and Apple, whose advertising arm doesn’t really come close to Millennial or Google.

“This is the first time any device manufacturer has entered the ad tech space in this way,” said OpenX Chief Executive Tim Cadogan. “It is becoming very clear to the principals in the mobile space that advertising is going to be a very important part of the revenue mix.”