Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 preview
Many were sceptical about the Samsung Galaxy Note series when it first arrived in 2011, but all of its devices to date have been successes. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 sits in the middle ground between the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2 and the 10.1-inch Galaxy Note 10.1. We got
some hands-on time with the 8-inch newcomer to see if it deserved to sit among its brothers.
In this respect its comparable with the iPad mini. It’s decent, but the improvements that could be made are obvious.
However, display quality is not what the Galaxy Note 8.0 is really about. Like its Note-series brothers, the Note 8.0 features a Wacom digitiser layer, enabling full pressure-sensitive stylus input when used with the S-Pen.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 comes with one of these Samsung-made styluses, and there’s a cubbyhole on the bottom of the tablet that lets you slot the thing safely away when not in use. Other geek-friendly features are here too, including a microSD slot, letting you add to the 16/32GB of internal memory.
Real spec fanatics won’t be too impressed by the CPU, though. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 uses a quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos CPU, which is essentially last year’s model. Slow? Certainly not, but it’ll soon look a little musty.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 – Interface and Software
As Note aficionados would expect, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 offers all the best bits we’ve seen in the Note series. That means cramming two applications into the one screen, through the tablet’s TouchWiz UI.
You can drag and drop various core apps onto the screen, letting you – for example – watch a video while checking out your emails or browsing the web while looking at your calendar. You drag these apps onto the screen from a left hand-side bar that TouchWiz provides.
However, this is where the limited screen resolution comes into play a little. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 doesn’t make apps look dinky, but when multi-tasking s little extra sharpness can come in handy.
Browsing will show the low pixel density up the most, though, where you make text truly small and, with the Note 8.0, reduce characters to a handful of pixels.
With the rumoured iPad mini 2 on the way, you do need to care about the Note 8.0’s stylus capabilities for it to make sense. However, it does offer what its name suggests. It’s a middle ground between the Note 2 and Note 10.1, with all the benefits that suggests. The stylus is great, with the natural-feeling rubber nib we saw in the latest Note. If you want a sketching tool and the Note 10.1 seems a little too large, the Note 8.0 is worth investigating.
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
Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 – Design
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is, hardware-wise, just what you’d expect from the device’s name. It’s a blown-up Galaxy Note 2, or a shrunken Galaxy Note 10.1, depending on how you look at it. 
This means that if you’re someone who has always hated the plasticky bodies of Samsung’s phones, you may not fall instantly in love with the Galaxy Note 8.0. White plastic abounds as ever, and there’s even more of it than usual this time around.
Its 8-inch screen ensures that only those with big hands will be able to grip the tablet one-handed, and despite our giant man-hands, we found it a bit of a stretch. It feels like a similar stretch to the iPad mini, thanks to the fairly generous bezel that extends out of each side of the screen.
Its 8-inch screen ensures that only those with big hands will be able to grip the tablet one-handed, and despite our giant man-hands, we found it a bit of a stretch. It feels like a similar stretch to the iPad mini, thanks to the fairly generous bezel that extends out of each side of the screen.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 – Screen and Stylus
The pure display technology in the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 is fairly unremarkable. It offers an 8-inch 1,280 x x 800 pixel LCD display, with neither the high pixel density of the latest full-size iPad nor the OLED contrast of the smaller Samsung Galaxy Note 2.
In this respect its comparable with the iPad mini. It’s decent, but the improvements that could be made are obvious.
However, display quality is not what the Galaxy Note 8.0 is really about. Like its Note-series brothers, the Note 8.0 features a Wacom digitiser layer, enabling full pressure-sensitive stylus input when used with the S-Pen.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 comes with one of these Samsung-made styluses, and there’s a cubbyhole on the bottom of the tablet that lets you slot the thing safely away when not in use. Other geek-friendly features are here too, including a microSD slot, letting you add to the 16/32GB of internal memory.
Real spec fanatics won’t be too impressed by the CPU, though. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 uses a quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos CPU, which is essentially last year’s model. Slow? Certainly not, but it’ll soon look a little musty.
Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 – Interface and Software
As Note aficionados would expect, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 offers all the best bits we’ve seen in the Note series. That means cramming two applications into the one screen, through the tablet’s TouchWiz UI.
You can drag and drop various core apps onto the screen, letting you – for example – watch a video while checking out your emails or browsing the web while looking at your calendar. You drag these apps onto the screen from a left hand-side bar that TouchWiz provides.
However, this is where the limited screen resolution comes into play a little. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 doesn’t make apps look dinky, but when multi-tasking s little extra sharpness can come in handy.
Browsing will show the low pixel density up the most, though, where you make text truly small and, with the Note 8.0, reduce characters to a handful of pixels.
With the rumoured iPad mini 2 on the way, you do need to care about the Note 8.0’s stylus capabilities for it to make sense. However, it does offer what its name suggests. It’s a middle ground between the Note 2 and Note 10.1, with all the benefits that suggests. The stylus is great, with the natural-feeling rubber nib we saw in the latest Note. If you want a sketching tool and the Note 10.1 seems a little too large, the Note 8.0 is worth investigating.
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