Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 hands-on: First look

Introduction

Samsung is trying really hard to not leave an empty spot in the mobile market, so the Galaxy Note 8.0 announcement shouldn't be a surprise. The compact tablet follows the same design guidelines as all the other Samsung high-end devices announced in the last year or so and has set its sights on the Apple iPad Mini.

Samsung has given the Galaxy Note 8.0 an S Pen and the slew of Touch Wiz-exclusive software features to help it in its battles. Driving them is the company's Exynos 4 Quad 4412 chipset with four 1.6GHz Cortex-A9 CPUs, Mali 400MP4 GPU and 2GB of RAM.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 official photos

Here's a quick view of the Galaxy Note 8.0 features list.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 at a glance:

• General: Optional 2G/3G/4G connectivity
• Form factor: Tablet
• Dimensions: 210.8 x 135.9 x 8 mm, 338 g
• Display: 8" 16M-color TFT capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 800 x 1280 pixels (189ppi)
• Stylus: S Pen, 1024 pressure levels, hover functionality
• Chipset: Exynos 4412 Quad
• CPU: Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 1.6 GHz processor
• GPU: Mali-400MP
• RAM: 2GB
• OS: Android 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean)
• Memory: 16/32GB storage, microSD card slot
• Still camera: 5 megapixel auto-focus camera, face detection and Best faces feature, touch focus and image stabilization; 1.3MP front facing camera, video-calls
• Video camera: Full HD (1080p) video recording at 30fps
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, standard microUSB port with MHL features (TV Out, USB host), GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS, 3.5mm audio jack, NFC
• Battery: 4600 mAh
• Misc: Nature UX, Extremely rich video/audio codec support, built-in accelerometer, multi-touch input, proximity sensor, gyroscope sensor, Smart stay and Smart rotation eye-tracking, Reading mode

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is little more than an upsized Galaxy Note II. Or is that a downsized Galaxy Note 10.1? The only differences are the new S-Pen software features that come with Android 4.1.2 and the latest TouchWiz, but those have already been made available to the Note 8.0 predecessors.

The screen is of the TFT PLS variety and the resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels sounds like last season's stuff. This results in 189 pixels per inch, which may not sound like match, but it's still more than the iPad Mini's 162 ppi.

As for the camera, it's a 5MP sensor capable of shooting 1080p videos @ 30fps, coupled with an LED flash. Join us on the next page to learn more about the hardware features of the Galaxy Note 8.0, a compact tablet which can make phone calls.