Galaxy Note 2 front and center at American Music Awards

Samsung Galaxy Note 2
The Galaxy Note 2 dwarfed the hands of AMA presenters

The suspense of watching presenters awkwardly open envelopes at award shows may be a thing of the past, as Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 replaced the more traditional method at the American Music Awards (AMA) Sunday.

The AMAs were rife with product placement, from the likes of Coke, Fiat, Old Navy, Will.I.Am's Ekocycle initiative, Wonderful pistachios, and more.

But Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 stole the show, so to speak, appearing on-stage in the hands of celebrity presenters ranging from 50 Cent to Gloria Estefan.

And there was no shortage of close-up shots of the 5.5-inch phablet, a sure sign that Samsung paid a pretty penny for this extensive bit of smartphone fetishization.

We're not worthy

To be fair, Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 deserves the attention - or, at least, it deserves some attention.

It's one of the most powerful smartphones on the market, and those who aren't turned off by its massive footprint can hardly do better.

A new Galaxy Note 2 dock accessory even lets users harness its quad-core processor and 2GB of memory by hooking the Android phone up to an HD monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers.

The product placement problem

Given Apple's penchant for prolific product placement, it's surprising that AMA presenters weren't reading their lines off iPads (especially iPad minis) instead of teleprompters.

But then, those iPads wouldn't have anywhere near the visibility that the Galaxy Note 2 had, would they?

For more on sneaky subliminal advertising, check out TechRadar's exploration of the 10 worst tech product placements in movie history.

Via Mashable

Michael Rougeau

Michael Rougeau is a former freelance news writer for TechRadar. Studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Northeastern University, Michael has bylines at Kotaku, 1UP, G4, Complex Magazine, Digital Trends, GamesRadar, GameSpot, IFC, Animal New York, @Gamer, Inside the Magic, Comic Book Resources, Zap2It, TabTimes, GameZone, Cheat Code Central, Gameshark, Gameranx, The Industry, Debonair Mag, Kombo, and others.


Micheal also spent time as the Games Editor for Playboy.com, and was the managing editor at GameSpot before becoming an Animal Care Manager for Wags and Walks.