The Samsung Galaxy Note will finally taste of Jelly Bean thanks to the update now being finally made available. However, the above applies to AT&T branded Note devices with the update now ready to be downloaded and applied on individual devices.
However, an over the air release is still no where in sight and the general opinion is not to wait for the carrier to come up with an OTA update. As it is, the update is already delayed as Samsung had begun the Androud 4.1 roll out process for the Galaxy Note devices in February itself.
However, thanks to the plethora of deployment issues along with other innumerous reasons best known to perhaps AT&T and Samsung, the update took some more months to finally make it to device owners. As it is, it’s the unlocked versions of the devices and international customers who are generally the early recipients of any update with the carrier versions perhaps the last in that order. So as things stand right now, one will have to download the Android 4.1 update from the Samsung Kies site.
As for the benefits of migrating to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, well there are many. Perhaps the most important of these will be the jump in performance that Jelly Bean brings along, something that can be attributed to the Project Butter treatment that Jelly Bean has been provided with. An update to Jelly Bean also comes with a lot of other convenient features which includes Google Now, PopUp Video, Pop-up Note to mention just a few.
The Galaxy Note was the first 5 inch device that Samsung had introduced which in turn had opened up a whole new segment, that of phablets. It had turned out to be an instant hit so much that it led to a mad rush among other manufacturers to bring along their own versions of a phablet. The Note though is characterized by the presence of a stylus of its own which greatly enhances it functionality.