Samsung's Galaxy Note II, the successor to the original Galaxy Note smartphone-tablet hybrid, will go on sale in the UK from October 1st, more than a month before its expected mid-November launch date in the US. The device will be available unlocked from the Korean manufacturer's flagship store at the Westfield Stratford City shopping center in London, as well as from "all major networks in the UK," likely including Vodafone, O2 and Three. It is not yet clear whether the Note II will be available on the recently-announced LTE carrier EE, with a UK-specific spec sheet making no reference to 4G connectivity.

As SlashGear points out, some UK retailers have begun taking pre-orders for the device, despite no official pricing information having been released. Clove lists the 16GB model at £528 ($857), including VAT, but does not provide prices for the 32GB or 64GB versions. The Galaxy Note II provides a slightly larger screen than its predecessor — 5.55 inches to the Note's 5.3 — and adds a 1.6GHz quad-core processor and a new S Pen stylus, with the company claiming that it "genuinely feels as though you're using a traditional pen and paper."