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A shot of the Samsung Galaxy Note taken, ironically perhaps, using an iPhone. (Photo: Lorraine Sanders)

In town this week for ArtPoint’s Paris is Burning annual Bastille Day gala, which takes place Saturday evening at the de Young Museum, a Texas-based team from Samsung invited a group of fashion editors, influencers, bloggers and stylists to lunch on Friday at Neiman Marcus to meet and greet the company’s Samsung Galaxy Note device. Described by the company as “the ultimate fashion tool,” Unzipped was obviously curious. Would it pack the promised wow factor or fall flat?

Having had an admittedly brief time to get to know this handheld device thus far (a few hours), it’s clear that it has much to offer heavy social media users, as well as those interested in new ways to play with and personalize images and web content. There’s a phone and camera with video capabilities, as well as a stylus used for scribbling notes, editing and enhancing images and tapping out functions, though you can also use your finger tip if you prefer. Smaller than a tablet, but larger than other phones, the screen makes for easier reading than you’d get with an iPhone or Blackberry. The downside, of course, is that it’s too large to carry around in your back pocket.

But what makes it appealing to fashion-philes? For one thing, it allows you to easily take photos or screen-capture images from the web and then use them to create original collages. All those fashion bloggers out there who rely on Polyvore or Photoshop to create their collages will find a new alternative in this device. The stylus can be used to scribble notes that can then be translated into text or to add doodles and words to saved images. The end result is, as one lunch guest noted, very Perez Hilton. But you can choose different brushes and pens, colors and backgrounds for your notes to make them stand out and look different.

“What I’m really excited about is the collage,” said attendee Amanda Castro, a personal stylist with Beyond Black.

Castro said the device could help her communicate with clients. Instead of emailing pictures or using public boards on Pinterest like she has in the past to convey style ideas to the women she works with, Castro plans use the Galaxy Note to create personal collages, add notes and send them directly over email.

“I can actually have the ability to collage and create something personal for them. And that’s what clients are looking for,” she said.

The web-clipping functionality appealed to Jennie Lodge, who blogs about her style at Going West and works for San Francisco fashion startup Threadflip.

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“I could share a web page or save it for later to read offline,” Lodge said.

Yes, you can share and email web pages on other devices, but the Galaxy Note makes it easy to save them to read later, customize them with notes and crop different images to be used in new ways. The image below, for example, resulted from visiting a web page, taking a screenshot and then adding notes using the handheld’s S Memo feature. The new image can be shared on social networks, saved or emailed.