Galaxy Note 4 Release Date Ahead of iPhone 6 Sept 2014 Debut; Specced-Up but Remains Plastic-Wrapped – Reports

Samsung has reportedly set the Galaxy Note 4 release date in mid-September 2014, supposedly a few days after the device's September 3 unveiling via the Berlin IFA trade show, said a new report.

And immediately after the grand preview of the fourth-gen flagship phablet, Sammy fans will get a hold of the device purportedly to preempt the rollout of its chief rival - the larger screen iPhone 6 that Apple is rumoured to push out beginning on September 19.

"Samsung is apparently looking to rush the Galaxy Note 4 out the door to try and combat Apple's new iPhone," according to a new report by The Korea Times.

The consensus among analysts is - the next iPhone will come out in two variants and both will sport display panels that will upsize from the 4-inch iPhone 5S. The screen size for regular model is 4.7-inch while the other will serve as first Apple phablet at 5.5-inch, which will directly challenge the 5.7-inch Note 4.

Opting for a market entry timing that is ahead of the iPhone 6 seems to make sense for Samsung as the Galaxy maker is reeling from successive quarterly results that reflected shrinking profits from the company's mobile device business.

And Samsung's worries piled up furthermore as the Galaxy S5 was outsold by the iPhone 5S as of June 2014, which likely prompted the South Korean tech giant to rush the Note 4's commercial launch.

To ensure that consumers will notice the Note 4 against the iPhone 6, significant hardware upgrades will be part of the new package, the Korea Times reported, which essentially will overwhelm the specs unleashed with the GS5.

"Samsung Note 4 will have far better specifications than the Galaxy S5 smartphone," the Korean publication quoted a Samsung official as saying.

The same report claimed that the Note 4 killer features will be bannered by a powerful Qualcomm processing chip that fully supports LTE-Advanced, a flexible OLED display for at least one of the device's edition and a metal framing.

But in reality, a 'metallic' Galaxy Note 4 could end up frustrating the millions of Android and Samsung fans as a BGR report floated the likelihood of limited metal portions on the device's housing as the best that Samsung can deliver.

This is due to the lack of supplies for high-end materials in the second half of 2014, BGR said, pointing to recent report from DigiTimes that suggested Apple has already gobbled up most of the mobile device supply contracts for the rest of the year, leaving rivals like Samsung with mere crumbs.

So even if the Galaxy Note 4 release date, likely in the second week of September 2014, would come earlier than expected there is no solid assurance from Samsung that the giant smartphone, like the iPhone 6, is clad in metal.